The Blame Game
Dennis MacShane launched a broadside attack on the Conservative Party a few days ago, blaming them for preparing the ground for the rise of the British National Party in the coming EU elections at the beginning of June.
At the moment it would appear that the BNP are on course to win as many as six seats in the EU Parliament, meaning that they will receive all manner of EU political funding, not to mention high salaries for its MEPs which they could divert towards supporting the BNP party machine.
On his blog, Tony Sharp summed up what is probably the general attitude of Conservative Party members in a posting in which he argued that it was ‘idiotic’ of MacShane in attempting to lay the blame of any increase in the BNP vote at the Conservatives’ door. However, I disagree with Tony. An increase in the BNP vote is as much the fault of the Conservatives as it is of the Labour Party.
Members of the electorate who are moving across from Labour (or the Conservatives) to vote BNP are not just interested in ‘big government and more state control’ as Tony says, but a whole host of other issues including crime, immigration, and the EU – none of which the main parties are speaking up about.
If the Conservatives were actually seen by the electorate to have coherent and plausible policies on immigration, crime and the EU (and others) then it is likely that they might gain from the Labour exodus of votes. However, the party does not have credible alternative policies and sections of the electorate have largely realised that in practical terms the two main parties are identical.
Therefore, to the electorate the Conservative Party and Labour represent two tarnished sides of the same dull coin. Neither party will speak out on the issues that are actually important to many people, thereby driving them into the arms of the BNP as a means by which the electorate will attempt to protest.
I will agree with Tony Sharp that the British National Party and the Labour Party are ‘socialist’ outfits and not conservative at all. However, the Conservative Party are not a conservative party either, are they? They have increasingly signed up to the political agenda of the Left on almost every conceivable issue under David Cameron in order to get back into office but not power. Find me a fundamental difference between the current Labour Party and the Conservative Party and I will show you a talking dog.
What is more, it’s been both the Conservatives and Labour who have, over the course of decades, signed Britain away to the European Union – not just the Labour party as Tony says. If the Conservatives were prepared to admit they were actually wrong about this transfer of power and sovereignty to the EU then that would be a start – but, of course, they have not admitted that at all and are still very much in favour of Britain being in the EU (and therefore being run by the EU). No change there then.
To blame the rise of the racist BNP on any one party is entirely wrong. The Conservatives, Labour Party and Liberal Democrats all share responsibility, whether they like it or not. We too, as citizens, must play our part. If we fail to engage in the political system and to hold our politicians to account through inaction then we are forfeiting our right to complain about the results.
