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The big news is that the British National Party has won its first seat in the European Parliament. Interestingly, the BBC predict they will win a second.
Earlier in the evening BNP leader Nick Griffin's car was attacked by far-Left protesters as he attempted to enter Manchester Town Hall to attend the vote count.
In the end, he had to come back in a police van and be escorted into the building by a rear entrance.
Griffin said in an interview:
BNP leader Nick Griffin says he is against the "huge racism" which is "directed at people who look like me". He attributes the party's success in Yorkshire and the Humber to the fact the problems of "indigenous people" are "consistently ignored by the mass media". Asked about his own chances of winning another seat in the North West region, he says it is "too close to call".
***UPDATE*** Nick Griffin has won a second seat for the BNP.
The media have gone into overdrive with the 'rise of the far-Right' nonsense. Here are a few select quotes from the BBC's live online coverage:
JulietteG tweets: Pleased that the Tories have done so well. Very disappointed about the BNP. Griffin's interview was appalling. Read JulietteG's tweets
0004 "It's a disappointing night for British politics that the BNP have been elected," says Shadow Europe Minister Mark Francois. "We have to expose what they believe in."
bowlandtilidie tweets: It seems our disillusionment with politics in the UK has caught up with us and our tolerant image has taken a blow. Sad day. Read bowlandtilidie's tweets
2332 Health Secretary Andy Burnham says the election of the BNP is a "sad day for British politics". He adds: "We have to understand why people have voted BNP and try to win these people back". Mr Burnham notes that voters in Burnley - where the BNP previously had a base - have rejected the party after seeing them at close hand.
Etc etc ad infinitum.
Of course, no one wants to look at why the BNP won that seat, and why the Tories have only raised their overall share of the vote by one percent, despite Labour's falling by eight percent.
It is easy to blame the expenses scandal, but that would imply that the nation was actually being governed well beforehand - quite a claim.
The really big winners of the night seem to be the United Kingdom Independence Party and the Greens - the former has raised its overall share of the vote by 2.2 percent, the latter by 2.7 percent. This table shows the situation as it stands:
| Votes | MEPs | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | % | +/- % | Total | +/- |
| CON | 25.9 | 1.3 | 7 | 0 |
| UKIP | 17.2 | 2.2 | 4 | 1 |
| LAB | 16.7 | -8.9 | 4 | -2 |
| BNP | 7.5 | 1.8 | 1 | 1 |
| PC | 3.1 | -0.3 | 1 | 0 |
| GRN | 7.7 | 2.6 | 0 | 0 |
| SNP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| SSP | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| OTH | 8.3 | 2.0 | 0 | 0 |
Elsewhere in Europe, success seems to mainly be attached to safe, centre and pseudo Right parties run by the likes of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy.
The best news is still the success of Geert Wilders' PVV, which has won four seats in the European Parliament and become the second largest party in Holland with 17% of the vote.
There is also good news from Demark - the Danish Peoples' Party has won another seat, and now has two.
More good news from Finland:
Finland's Eurosceptic True Finns party have seen a strong rise in support, winning 9.8% of the vote on Sunday. Party leader Timo Soini won 130,400 direct votes, more than any other candidate. Miter Repo, an Orthodox priest who was defrocked for the campaign, won the third most votes on a Social Democratic ticket. The governing conservative National Coalition came first nationally, however, with 22.5%, followed by Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen's Centre party with 20%. The main opposition Social Democrats took 17.8%.
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2 comments:
The fact that the BNP has won two seats in the EP is a good thing. Now there will be a bit of a forum in which the BNP can speak and be seen by everyone. It will be seen more clearly if they are what they say they are, or if they are what other people say they are. No matter what happens, there will always be those who will say, "Ah, but if the whole government was in their hands, ..." but you could say that about anyone. This is a very good thing.
Nick Griffin has won a second seat for the BNP, as already noted by Dr. D in this thread.
I will be interested to see how Mr. Griffin and his colleague are now treated by the mainstream media.
I only hope that some genuine discussion takes place on some of the issues which are currently ignored by the "big" political parties.
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