A Political Rant from Vix: there's a first time for everything!

Every day for the past five days, I have been wanting to write a post about the appalling developments in British politics which we have all seen unfold, but I am having a rough week and my brain function has definitely taken a hit!! However, I just can't wait any longer so I apologise in advance for the strong possibility that this may not be my most coherent piece of writing yet.

I was fully aware that last week's EU/local elections would be likely to be used by many to express their disgust, upset, anger, rage, etc. concerning our current government and even our current political system. I knew that such protests would manifest themselves in numerous different ways, for example, people changing their allegiance from mainstream parties to independents or simply not voting at all. The outcome I feared was that people might choose to vote for more extreme and questionable parties, particularly the BNP; I didn't honestly believe enough people would be convinced or, dare I say, ignorant enough to do that though. I was wrong!


The BNP may have only won two MEP seats but that is two more than they had this time last week and, even if that victory was a result of the protest voting/non-voting, the fact is they have gained a fraction more power through it. I cannot quite believe that anyone could put a cross next to their name on a ballot paper, if they had truly read their policies, beliefs and mission statements. I am not a political person, and I know that everyone has a right to their opinion, but I find it frightening to think that many thousands of people chose to pledge their support - their one vote - to such a racist party, with such disturbing ideals.

Being married to a foreign national, I shall be careful how I word this next statement: I agree that immigration in this country needs to be looked at and the system used to "police" it needs to be better organised; it perhaps also needs to be more selective and certainly far less open to abuse. I speak from experience when I say that the processes one has to go through to obtain certain legitimate visas/residency documents are rigorous, hard-going and oh-so-expensive! The rules in place are good rules, but the problem is that they are far too easily broken and worked around, and it is the illegal immigrants which seem to be the root of many of the problems people refer to.

The BNP, however, are not simply against all immigration as they would perhaps have us believe. Mr. V and I watched a panorama-style programme this week all about the BNP's advances in Wales which, aside from being utterly shocking in its content, was incredibly interesting and pretty informative. The reporter was interviewing various members of the BNP in Wales, many of whom were women which surprised me for some reason, and asking them their own personal views and those of the party members on certain topics. What it always seemed to come back to was the issue of race, but much more specifically, skin colour. Until watching that programme I thought the BNP stood for a completely "British Britain" with no foreigners whatsoever. However, when asked about their feeling towards eastern european immigrants, for example, all of the BNP representatives interviewed said that they had no problem with these people and would not want policies in place which would see them leave the country; when pushed for further explanation, they all admitted it was because they were white, and they made no apology for that fact.

The same goes for Nick Griffin's so called "right-hand man," Arthur Kemp; he is a white South African (with a history of hatred and incitement to violence against black people in his home country), but the fact that he isn't British hasn't stopped him campaigning for "British jobs for British workers!" Is it just me that finds that very strange? The fact that he praises Hitler and collects his ideological writings, even visiting his birth place, also shook me. Last week we saw the commemorations of the D-Day landings, celebrating and remembering the lives of those who fought so that we could have a better life, safe and free from Nazi rule and I find it ironic that in that same week, hundreds of thousands of us used that democratic right that was fought for to give a bit more power to a neo-nazi party. I know we don't live in a perfect society but I honestly thought that such inherent white supremacist views were no longer alive in our country, and that if they were they were in such a miniscule minority that we would never have someone who represented them in any kind of power, whether here or representing us in Europe.

I am really thankful that this didn't happen in a General Election and am optimistic that the decent majority of British people will learn from the consequences of their protest votes - or lack thereof - and come out next year and use their vote sensibly and on the basis of actual policy. I hope that the bigger parties will take these protests on board and get to work fast on the issues that have upset so many people because, much as I understand the anger and disgust at some of the corruption which has been exposed in Westminster of late, I don't think any of us really believe that the British National Party could do a better job of running the country.