A grim day for British democracy and a shocking indictment of the mainstream parties, especially New Labour which always took working class voters for granted, calculating that they've nowehere else to go. Result: they stayed at home. In the North West, where lifetime Nazi Nick Griffin was elected, the BNP vote was down 134959 to 132094, but turnout was down by nearly half a million. This is a failure of the mainstream parties to offer a positive reason to turnout and vote for them rather than a surge towards the BNP.
As so often in the world of political blogging, Sunny Hundal has one of the speediest and most sensible reactions with 6 points on the BNP posted on Cif:
1. The BNP is not increasing its votes. In both Yorkshire and the north-west, its total number of votes fell from 2004. This absolutely does not mean that more people are being seduced by the BNP's propaganda. It means that Labour's share of the vote collapsed and went to other parties, thereby helping the BNP under a proportional system. If the party makes a comeback then there's no reason why the BNP will continue to get its MEPs elected.
2. It may stop Labour ignoring its traditional working-class origins, now so comprehensively stomped over that they're migrating to other parties in droves. This is not an indictment of high immigration and multiculturalism, as no doubt some will call it, but of a centralised party ignoring local concerns. As Sarah Ditum points out, our media tell people every day that their crumbling infrastructure is the fault of those dastardly asylum seekers (rather than lack of investment, which might mean higher taxes). Immigration wouldn't be such a big issue if local councils presented information more quickly about population movements, so resources could be poured in or taken out in response, ensuring local public services didn't suffer. This is also a result of the lack of investment in social housing.
