Tuesday 12 May 2009

The Myth of Fascist Drift

The current MP's expenses scandal seems to have brought yet another "crisis of confidence" in the main political parties according to Fleet Street (even though Peter Oborne pointed this out two years previously). As noted in the Guardian yesterday, voters wishing to punish the guilty have various choices open to them - voting for their opponents which means potentially electing candidates that don't reflect your concerns, calling for deselection which could involve the MP staying on as an independent, or withholding the vote altogether and thus allowing fringe parties to benefit.

Every time these crises occur, there is always the scare story that the BNP will benefit from voter apathy on the ironic basis that fascists are more likely to exercise their democratic rights. In the 2005 election, it did increase its vote - from 47,129 to 192,850 votes. Whilst this is a four-fold increase, it represents a tiny fraction of the total votes cast. Even in the Barking & Dagenham area, where the party scored their biggest triumph, they only polled 16.89% of the vote.

Various MP's have stated that ignoring the voices of labour supporters in deprived areas may lead to increased support for far-right parties. In the areas where BNP support is highest we can see various factors at play - extreme deprivation, struggle for public resources and an influx of different cultures that may not integrate with each other vying for their share. Rather than address the root causes of the problem (which would obviously involve budgeting for more social housing, creating employment opportunities, etc), the fear of working class voters turning towards racist parties as a protest against being passed over by mainstream politics is used as a warning by the main parties to continue voting for the main parties. It's never mentioned that other parties may also benefit from dissatisfaction with the narrow focus of the homogenous centre-right.

Historically, it's always been the working class that lived in the areas where new immigrants flocked to, and as such have generally been the first to live alongside and integrate with them. If we look at the majority of white, working class culture in the last 40 or so years -from rock steady and the early skinheads to rave onwards - its clear that the influence of new cultures were originally adopted by those living in that environment and filtered out to the suburbs much later.

The idea that there is a latent racism just waiting to rear its head in times of hardship is a myth - people either are or aren't, and I'd say that people either stay the former or move to the latter as new cultures are experienced and become part of the local "in group". In terms of representation, how multicultural are the middle-classes of the suburbs exactly anyway?

People competing for scarce resources are more likely to perceive unfairness, disenfranchisement and in desperate times are more likely to believe those resources should be prioritized for existing inhabitants. If the main thrust of political debate involves appealing to the voters in Middle England swing constituencies, grievances outside of that scope are unlikely to be heard and so people will feel disconnected from the democratic process. It doesn't necessarily follow that they will switch to the BNP though. They've just become the latest "savages" that fall to barbarism without their enlightened leaders to steal their goods and then teach them their superior morality.

Remind me again who's the biggest threat to race relations in this country - embittered east end bigots or those playing with fireworks in the Middle East?

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