Far right gains

As you all probably know by now, the BNP won two seats in the European Parliament last night – including vile party leader Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, formerly chairman of the National Front:

He and another NF member were heard shouting slogans such as “Death to Jews”, “White Power” and “National Front”. When approached by PC John Raj, Brons stated: “inferior beings like yourself probably do not understand the principle of free speech”.

It’s a desperately sad, and frankly – terrifying – result. Although the seats were won despite the BNP gaining less votes overall, thousands and thousands of people across the country – 6.5% of voters excluding Scotland – backed a party which is openly racist, which only ‘allows’ white people to join the party, and advocates for ‘voluntary repatriation’ of all ethnic minorities. See Louise’s post for a full discussion of some of the many reasons the BNP are dangerous shits.

One thing we can do is sign the Hope Not Hate petition, which will be presented at the European Parliament on its first day in session, to demonstrate that the BNP do not represent Britain.

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Meanwhile, anti-immigration, anti-women, anti-Europe UKIP finished second. And the Tories have split with the mainstream centre-right, and will either fade into pointless obscurity, says the New Statesman, or form a grouping with the only MEPs on the right floating around: “Allies like these would put Cameron only a goose step or two away from the extreme right.”

And, in total, the far right are up 8 seats in the Parliament making gains in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Romania, as well as the UK (although there’s good news in France, and the far right were “completely wiped out” in Poland).