A view from Britain
Normally, I'd post Alan Carter's response as a comment on the post he's referring to. But he's offered more than just a comment, so here's what he wrote in response to The underside of political culture.Hello from over here,
I don't have an easy explanation of the BNP vote, see this link to the European Parliamentary Elections of July 2009:
Obvious points to note:
- the turn-out is only 30%, roughly the same as local council elections so it's easier for activists/extremists to look big; most people still think the European Parliament is 'not that important' .
- Labour are beaten into 3rd place by UKIP, who are more likely to be anti-European Conservatives who will go back to the Tories in a General (Westminster) Election.
- Most depressing - the BNP 'vote' has gone up by 1.3%, so it was nearly 900,000 in 2004. I use quote marks around the word 'vote' as I personally see it more of an offensive gesture towards conventional politics than a carefully considered choice amongst real & likely policies.
I would still try to argue that there should not be a link between deprivation and 'fascist' ideology: the areas hit hardest by the economic downturn do not show the biggest BNP vote. Yorkshire and the Humber (see BBC breakdown of vote by region) has the largest BNP vote (9.8%) but I would not classify most of Yorkshire as 'deprived'. Here, I would see it as a kind of protest vote -- almost a spoilt ballot paper; the flip-side if you like, of the deferential culture; Yorkshire stubbornness taken to the extreme(!) .
I have not done enough research to justify my next claim, but I remember reading that the National Front (pre-BNP) took money from extremist Islamic sources in the 1980s to campaign against Israel, being then still linked to crank quasi-nazi ideology. Now the BNP raves on about the 'threat' of fundamentalism. See the bizarre mish-mash of bigoted statements on the BNP's own site.
With thanks as ever for running your useful blog,
Alan Carter, Oxford, UK
Find out at least some of What You Need to Know
Labels: cleavages, parties, political culture, UK
posted by Ken Wedding @ 10:32 AM
1 Comments:
Alan Carter pointed out this bit of detail on the new supreme court in the UK:
Supreme Court £350 fee for papers attacked
"The new Supreme Court will charge members of the public a minimum of £350 a time to access documents – a fee critics say makes a mockery of official promises of open justice in the country’s most important cases...
"Freedom of information campaigners and legal experts said the fees would block public access to information in lawsuits with big constitutional and commercial implications, in areas ranging from religious schools’ admissions policies to the extradition of business executives to the US...
"The court’s charge sets it at odds with global counterparts such as the US Supreme Court, which publishes some documents online and allows the rest to be photocopied without charge. The Canadian Supreme Court promises on its website to give access to all public documents upon 24 hours’ notice, charging 50 cents (28p) per page for copying.."
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