Gravedigger Griffin out of touch and out of time

This Guardian journalist is right in much of his historical interpretation but, as is only to be expected, indulges in a certain amount of wishful thinking when he dismisses the prospects of a revival or resurrection of the British National Party, under more capable and competent new leadership.

As Mark Twain said "The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated".

The BNP is far from defunct. However, it must be de-Griffinized as a matter both of extreme urgency and of the utmost importance. Griffin's legacy is the negative one of having shown the BNP how indispensable is an upright and competent leader to both party morale and sustainable electoral progress, these two, of course, being intimately related.

Paradoxically, the party's policies remain more popular than those of any other political party in Britain today. It is the BNP's maladministration of both its financial and human resources; its corrupt, oppressive and profoundly uncharismatic leader; the constitution which enabled that leader to breach the trust of the members by exceeding and abusing the power of the office of national chairman; and the maladroit style of presentation of the party's inherently popular policies that all need radically to improve, rather than those policies themselves.

These vitally necessary changes can only even begin to be delivered by a trustworthy new leadership. In contradistinction to the failed and unsound methods of the intellectually and morally bankrupt incumbent, the collective approach to leadership of Richard Edmonds and his team offers a radical and exciting new opportunity for political progress by the BNP.

To every member of the BNP I say: the party can, must and shall be saved. The way to do it is to renew your membership as it falls due and if you will have at least two years' continuous membership as at 1 July this year, to sign Richard Edmonds' nomination form, a copy of which is downloadable by clicking here.

This is the first step on the road to victory.

The second step is actually to return your signed nomination form in good time to the address shown on the form.

The third step is to vote for Richard in the postal ballot for a leadership election which will be held if, as seems likely, Richard receives at least the number of nominations required in order to trigger an election.

Please understand that whether or not the BNP survives depends in part on the actions that you, who are reading this, take or don't take. Please do not leave it to others to save the party. Some of them will, unfortunately, be leaving it to you and others like you.

Nick Griffin and the fall of the BNP

There is still considerable potential for an anti-immigrant populist party in Britain, but it's not going to be the BNP

Matthew Goodwin guardian.co.uk, Saturday 21 May 2011 

'Somewhere along the way, Nick Griffin took leave of political reality.'

On 5 May, the electoral challenge from the BNP died after another string of dismal results. While it could at one time mobilise over 700 local election candidates and a quarter of a million votes, this month the party awoke to find its vote had collapsed and the number of its councillors had plummeted. The following message came from its leader: "There is no shame in electoral defeat."

Born into the spring of 1982, during its early years the party steered clear of elections. It was not until the arrival of Nick Griffin as chairman in 1999 that a serious quest for votes commenced. Influenced by his time in the 1970s National Front, and inspired by its more successful French counterpart, Griffin went about revamping the BNP under a strategy of "modernisation". The goal was to attract a broad and stable electorate by detoxifying the brand, adopting community-based activism and throwing resources at local and European elections.

Griffin soon claimed success. Supported by a growing membership, support in local elections rocketed from 3,000 votes to almost 300,000. The pinnacle of the local strategy arrived in 2006, when the party gained over 30 councillors, averaged 18% and became the official opposition in Barking and Dagenham. In general elections, meanwhile, BNP candidates were polling over 10% of the vote. For a while, the party had good reason to claim it was the fastest-growing force in British politics.

Yet while Griffin saw the advance as a ringing endorsement of modernisation, the reality was different. Rather than a stamp of approval for the BNP brand, this support was more accurately a byproduct of wider trends. From 2001, immigration surged to the forefront of voters' minds, at one point becoming just as important to them as public services. While profoundly anxious, large numbers of voters were also extremely dissatisfied with Labour's record on the issue. Despite legislative action, these voters simply did not believe Labour was taking action or was even being open and honest. The continued erosion of bonds between voters and the main parties, growing anxiety over Muslim communities and the expenses scandal added to this perfect storm.

The far right had never had it so good, but still the BNP failed to take full advantage. True, Griffin could point to a seat on the Greater London Assembly in 2008 and two seats in the European parliament in 2009, but in private he would have known that results were falling short and potential voters remained unconvinced. Even after entering the European parliament, upwards of 80% of Britons remained deeply hostile toward the BNP.

There was also a more fundamental weakness at work. Despite occasional success, the party was failing to make inroads into social groups that were flocking to more successful far right parties elsewhere in Europe. Women, young people and more insecure members of the lower middle classes remained unwilling to endorse Griffin. Instead, it fell heavily dependent on a dwindling and ephemeral base of old, poorly educated working class men who were more likely than other voters to endorse socially unacceptable forms of racism. Rather than sinking roots, the BNP challenge was based on flimsy foundations.

Its limited appeal was not helped by the way in which, somewhere along the way, Griffin took leave of political reality. At various points he concluded Britons could be won over by focusing on the "peak oil" crisis, allowing ex-servicemen to retain their guns and ammunition and then (in front of over 8 million viewers) defending the Ku Klux Klan on Question Time. In contrast to the likes of Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders, Griffin never grasped the simple point that large numbers of Britons wanted their anxiety over immigration and political dissatisfaction met by a seemingly modem [sic], legitimate and credible radical right party. Or perhaps he just couldn't deliver.

By 2010, this persistent failure to connect with Britons was fuelling a growing internal rebellion. This was initially sparked by a combination of changes to its "non-white" membership, unnecessary and costly legal cases and the hiring of a deeply unpopular business consultant. And then arrived the moment that will garner most attention from historians when they sit down to recount the party's demise. While Griffin's "Battle for Barking" mobilised more votes than any far right campaign in British history, his failure to break through marked a watershed. It provided rebels with more fuel, galvanised an increasingly sophisticated anti-fascist opposition and created a mainstream narrative that was dismissive of the BNP's prospects. As countless minor parties will testify, when voters conclude that a party is finished it is incredibly difficult to convince them otherwise.

Griffin refused to respond to the changing winds by stepping aside, and so the party continued to implode. Before it had even commenced, the 2011 campaign was undermined by a lack of activism and money. Countless expulsions failed to quell the rebellion which led capable organisers to jump ship to rivals such as the English Democrats. And as each result was declared, it became clear that the BNP's attempt to mobilise an electoral breakthrough had failed.

The BNP will linger on, most likely by investing in activities outside elections, but its attempt to mobilise Britons through the ballot box is dead. The party is survived by a growing array of splinter groups. Most, however, similarly lack the resources and sophistication required to take full advantage of the favourable conditions that remain in Britain for a radical right alternative. There exists considerable potential for an anti-immigrant populist party, but these voters are unlikely to resuscitate the BNP. And so in this respect, it appears that this particular episode in British history confirms Richard Hofstadter's epigram of third parties in America: "Third parties are like bees: once they have stung, they die."