heaven above
October 5th, 2004, 04:49 PM
From:-
JOHN TYNDALL
PO Box 2471
Hove
East Sussex BN3 4DT
NOW THEY’RE TELLING US!
There has recently appeared a report on the official BNP website (<bnp.org.uk>) which for sheer chutzpah must surely win the number-one prize of the year. The report is headed ‘BNP success in Hartlepool’. No, the party did not contest the recent by-election in Hartlepool – in my opinion a correct decision – but the result is being claimed a success for the party because of the damage it did to the Tories. But now read on. Referring to the heading, the website statement says (with no editing here for punctuation):-
"An eye-catching headline especially as the BNP did not contest the Hartlepool by-election, but in every way it was a victory for Britain’s fastest growing patriotic party and the disastrous fourth-place showing of the Tories in Hartlepool represents another small but valuable success for the leadership of the British National Party."
How so? The report goes on to say that a number of people in the BNP wanted to fight the Hartlepool seat but...
"The matter was debated between key members of the leadership, both nationally and locally, before party chairman Nick Griffin and National Elections Officer Eddy Butler decided that the BNP would not fight Hartlepool.
"The key reasoning was that the good showing of UKIP in the area back in June meant that, in a by-election especially, their money and favoured media status would make them the favoured party of patriotic voters, thereby squeezing the BNP vote however much work our local activists put in on the ground. More important still, the BNP would still secure a solid vote, which it was felt would come far more at the expense of UKIP than from the Tories. The likely result of our standing, therefore, would be to save Michael Howard from the shocking blow of having the Tory come forth, behind UKIP.
"As a major article on our electoral strategy by Mr. Griffin, starting in October’s magazine, makes clear, the BNP regards the Conservative Party as the biggest single obstacle by far, in the way of building a power-winning nationalist alternative in Britain. Anything which damages the Tories – including the short-term advance of UKIP – is therefore a good thing for the country and for the BNP. It was also believed that the UKIP's internal wranglings would stop them putting up the high-profile candidate who could quite conceivably win the seat – Kilroy-Silk – so it would be better to leave them to fail to win the seat on their own account rather than try to get in their way.
"The end result showed how the BNP tactic worked like a dream. A dismal night for Labour, a good one for the LibDems – who we want to see overtake the Tories at the General Election, a disappointing night for UKIP (who only narrowly missed beating Labour in the same seat back in June and whose vote slumped, leading to further internal unrest about the Farage/Titford block on Kilroy-Silk) and a truly shocking night for Michael Howard's dead men walking. Oh, and less than 1% of the vote for the English Democrats and National Front combined – time for them to leave elections to the ones with the ability to fight.
"We, meanwhile, saved ourselves a couple of thousand pounds and were able to concentrate our most experienced election fighters where their efforts really made a difference – in Keighley and Dagenham.
"Result? Two more BNP councillors.
"At last the British National Party – after all these years, a patriotic party with brains!"
After reading the above, particularly the final sentence, it is difficult to resist reaching for the sick bowl. I will leave aside here the question of whether the BNP should do everything possible to damage the Tories, even when it involves helping UKIP; that belongs to another argument best put over for another time. Let us just focus on the claim that the BNP "after all these years" showed "brains" by declining to contest Hartlepool under a handicap in relation to UKIP, and instead concentrated its efforts on two winnable local government elections. Was it not my contention, and that of allies of mine in the party and outside, that the BNP leadership made a huge mistake "going for broke" in the Euro Elections this June, at enormous expense, when it should have been quite clear then that UKIP – as this posting says, with its "money and favoured media status" – would compete with us on terms which would give it a big advantage, and that our party would have been much better advised to have concentrated its resources on fighting many winnable seats in local government? I refer the reader to my election summary headed ‘Wrong priorities – wrong results’ in the July 2004 issue of Spearhead and Peter Rushmore’s article ‘Election meltdown – where next?’ in the Autumn issue of Heritage & Destiny magazine. In these two articles we condemned the BNP leadership for failing to do in the June elections precisely what it is now congratulating itself on doing in respect of the Hartlepool by-election: avoiding elections in which it was likely to get beaten so as to put its efforts into elections it could win – and in the process saving a lot of money.
The website statement says smugly that "We, meanwhile, saved ourselves a couple of thousand pounds, and were able to concentrate our most experienced fighters where their efforts really made a
difference -- in Keighley and in Dagenham." For Keighley and Dagenham we might read, in the context of the June elections, several other London local government seats, plus a GLA seat, plus seats in Stoke, the West Midlands, Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Rochdale, Calderdale and countless other places around the country – and for a couple of thousand pounds saved in Hartlepool we might read a couple of hundred thousand pounds that could have been saved in the Euro Elections across the UK but were poured down the drain trying to compete with UKIP – something that at last Mr. Griffin and his colleagues seem to have grasped is not a sensible policy but did not appreciate being told so three months ago!
But how is this belated awakening described? Why, it was a "valuable success for the leadership of the British National Party!"
As with the issue of the constitutional change to let in non-white members, what we advise them to do today they adopt as policy tomorrow – while meanwhile giving us no thanks!
JOHN TYNDALL
5th October 2004
JOHN TYNDALL
PO Box 2471
Hove
East Sussex BN3 4DT
NOW THEY’RE TELLING US!
There has recently appeared a report on the official BNP website (<bnp.org.uk>) which for sheer chutzpah must surely win the number-one prize of the year. The report is headed ‘BNP success in Hartlepool’. No, the party did not contest the recent by-election in Hartlepool – in my opinion a correct decision – but the result is being claimed a success for the party because of the damage it did to the Tories. But now read on. Referring to the heading, the website statement says (with no editing here for punctuation):-
"An eye-catching headline especially as the BNP did not contest the Hartlepool by-election, but in every way it was a victory for Britain’s fastest growing patriotic party and the disastrous fourth-place showing of the Tories in Hartlepool represents another small but valuable success for the leadership of the British National Party."
How so? The report goes on to say that a number of people in the BNP wanted to fight the Hartlepool seat but...
"The matter was debated between key members of the leadership, both nationally and locally, before party chairman Nick Griffin and National Elections Officer Eddy Butler decided that the BNP would not fight Hartlepool.
"The key reasoning was that the good showing of UKIP in the area back in June meant that, in a by-election especially, their money and favoured media status would make them the favoured party of patriotic voters, thereby squeezing the BNP vote however much work our local activists put in on the ground. More important still, the BNP would still secure a solid vote, which it was felt would come far more at the expense of UKIP than from the Tories. The likely result of our standing, therefore, would be to save Michael Howard from the shocking blow of having the Tory come forth, behind UKIP.
"As a major article on our electoral strategy by Mr. Griffin, starting in October’s magazine, makes clear, the BNP regards the Conservative Party as the biggest single obstacle by far, in the way of building a power-winning nationalist alternative in Britain. Anything which damages the Tories – including the short-term advance of UKIP – is therefore a good thing for the country and for the BNP. It was also believed that the UKIP's internal wranglings would stop them putting up the high-profile candidate who could quite conceivably win the seat – Kilroy-Silk – so it would be better to leave them to fail to win the seat on their own account rather than try to get in their way.
"The end result showed how the BNP tactic worked like a dream. A dismal night for Labour, a good one for the LibDems – who we want to see overtake the Tories at the General Election, a disappointing night for UKIP (who only narrowly missed beating Labour in the same seat back in June and whose vote slumped, leading to further internal unrest about the Farage/Titford block on Kilroy-Silk) and a truly shocking night for Michael Howard's dead men walking. Oh, and less than 1% of the vote for the English Democrats and National Front combined – time for them to leave elections to the ones with the ability to fight.
"We, meanwhile, saved ourselves a couple of thousand pounds and were able to concentrate our most experienced election fighters where their efforts really made a difference – in Keighley and Dagenham.
"Result? Two more BNP councillors.
"At last the British National Party – after all these years, a patriotic party with brains!"
After reading the above, particularly the final sentence, it is difficult to resist reaching for the sick bowl. I will leave aside here the question of whether the BNP should do everything possible to damage the Tories, even when it involves helping UKIP; that belongs to another argument best put over for another time. Let us just focus on the claim that the BNP "after all these years" showed "brains" by declining to contest Hartlepool under a handicap in relation to UKIP, and instead concentrated its efforts on two winnable local government elections. Was it not my contention, and that of allies of mine in the party and outside, that the BNP leadership made a huge mistake "going for broke" in the Euro Elections this June, at enormous expense, when it should have been quite clear then that UKIP – as this posting says, with its "money and favoured media status" – would compete with us on terms which would give it a big advantage, and that our party would have been much better advised to have concentrated its resources on fighting many winnable seats in local government? I refer the reader to my election summary headed ‘Wrong priorities – wrong results’ in the July 2004 issue of Spearhead and Peter Rushmore’s article ‘Election meltdown – where next?’ in the Autumn issue of Heritage & Destiny magazine. In these two articles we condemned the BNP leadership for failing to do in the June elections precisely what it is now congratulating itself on doing in respect of the Hartlepool by-election: avoiding elections in which it was likely to get beaten so as to put its efforts into elections it could win – and in the process saving a lot of money.
The website statement says smugly that "We, meanwhile, saved ourselves a couple of thousand pounds, and were able to concentrate our most experienced fighters where their efforts really made a
difference -- in Keighley and in Dagenham." For Keighley and Dagenham we might read, in the context of the June elections, several other London local government seats, plus a GLA seat, plus seats in Stoke, the West Midlands, Oldham, Burnley, Blackburn, Rochdale, Calderdale and countless other places around the country – and for a couple of thousand pounds saved in Hartlepool we might read a couple of hundred thousand pounds that could have been saved in the Euro Elections across the UK but were poured down the drain trying to compete with UKIP – something that at last Mr. Griffin and his colleagues seem to have grasped is not a sensible policy but did not appreciate being told so three months ago!
But how is this belated awakening described? Why, it was a "valuable success for the leadership of the British National Party!"
As with the issue of the constitutional change to let in non-white members, what we advise them to do today they adopt as policy tomorrow – while meanwhile giving us no thanks!
JOHN TYNDALL
5th October 2004