From The Metro, 9 November 2010:
The Equality and Human Rights Commission asked Lord Justice Moore-Bick and Mr Justice Ramsey to find the trio guilty of contempt for failing to comply with a court judgment ordering the removal of potentially racist clauses from the BNP’s constitution... The watchdog asked the judges, sitting at London’s High Court, to fine the BNP leadership or seize party assets.
From The Daily Mirror, 3 November 2010:
BNP leader Nick Griffin faces being axed as a Euro MP as he fights to avoid bankruptcy over his party's soaring cash crisis. He is among top officials thought to be personally liable for the racist group's £700,000 debts - which it admits it cannot pay.
I have no idea whether that figure of £700,000 for the deficit (i.e. negative assets) is accurate, but the latest BNP accounts available from the Electoral Commission are those for 2008, which show a deficit of about £200,000. Those accounts are 'under enquiry', and heck knows what the BNP spent on the EU Parliament elections in 2009 or the General Election in 2010. Half a million quid would seem a fair guess.
Sunday Funnies...
40 minutes ago
23 comments:
Expensive business, politics, ain't it?
Forget about the idiocy of taking the BNP to court but dwell for a moment on the BNP's idiocy in agreeing to change its constitution to accommodate race hustlers and their representatives on the bench. I haven't followed closely the progress of the various legal actions against the BNP but surely the whole point of the BNP is as a party which represents the interests of the white indigenes of the UK - or maybe just England. It is either that or nothing. Obeying a court order to undermine the very reason for its existence is - in political terms - unbelievably stupid.
Certainly, given the following wind with which the BNP went into the general election, to make such a complete balls-up in May took intellectual capacity and organisational ability of an inordinately low order. But since, in reality, it is the sole party with any following which seeks to highlight and, thereby, make political capital from the baleful effects on the native population of immigration and multi-culti lunacy why does it remain on the safe (ie legal) ground? It would be like the SWP seeking votes by agreeing to support bonuses to bankers and the abolition of the NHS ie electoral suicide. Not, mind you, that the SWP has any real interest in electoral success, its attempts to assert political influence lie elsewhere.
When you consider the success of anti-immigration parties in, for instance, Sweden and Holland, you can appreciate how useless the leadership of the BNP must be to fail to make any genuine headway in British politics. However, were the BNP prepared to dump most of its economic manifesto (which is scarcely distinguishable from that of the SWP as it happens) and go for a solid and unapologetic anti-immigration/anti-EU/anti multi-culti (+ anti high tax - maybe even LVT!) ticket I suspect the BNP would obtain an influential slew of seats as a result of the 2016 general election: this would be a result of picking up support from an increasingly victimised middle class and an increasingly marginalised white working class.
Yes, it's substantially a poujardist manifesto but just because Poujarde failed in France in the 50s (support for an end to the 4th Republic and the Algerian War plus, particularly, the coming to power of de Gaulle saw him off) doesn't mean that there is no poujardist appeal in the UK of the early 21st century. Even so, the BNP will fail unless its current (and potential) leadership become less concerned with in-fighting and getting a comfortable life in Brussels at the taxpayers' expense and start to do the difficult bit of creating a truly electable party. For those of a conservative (small "c") disposition and a love of this country, the prospect of the BNP with an intelligent and charismatic leadership is the stuff of nightmares.
JH, they spent half as much as we (UKIP) did on EU elections (I have since checked).
U, excellent summary: "However, were the BNP prepared to... go for a solid and unapologetic anti-immigration/anti-EU/anti multi-culti (+ anti high tax - maybe even LVT!) ticket... "
That's UKIP's manifesto in a nutshell, and see where it got us (well, twice as many votes as BNP, for a start)! Apart from the LVT bit *sniff*
A very bad day for democracy when parties get told by government approved judges that their opinions are ones that maynot be presented for public support.
In practice, though not in theory, an even worse one when they can be driven out of existence by the establishment bankrupting them. If they were getting half as much donor money per vote they get as Labour/Conservatives do they would be doing fine. Does anybody think that if BAE decided to give proportionately as much money to the BNP as they do to Lab/Cons they would still be getting lucrative deals for aircraft carriers (or on a smaller scale if any housebuilder did they would get planning permission.
The good news for UKIP is that they would certainly pick up most BNP votes since none of them would vote for the bastards in power. The bad news is that, as UKIP already know, the judges that decided the LibDems could keep stolen money are well able to decide that grab their assets too.
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Umbongo the reason the BNP (& UKIP) have made little geadway is that we have a corrupt electoral system that disenfranchises those who don't vote for the big 2 & that unlike America, wjere they get chosen through primaries, the party leaders here are uable to prevent anybody with unapproved views being heard.
In America supporters of freedom have become the Republican radicals, in Holland & elsewhere in Europe new parties are rising. Britain has no such freedom to vote for freedom.
"That's UKIP's manifesto in a nutshell"
Well my perception of UKIP is that it is certainly anti-immigration but it stops there. Unfortunately for UKIP all the other parties at the last election professed to varying degrees of "anti-immigration" although, since those parties ruled out the inclusion of EU immigration, the effect of such policies was - and remains - meaningless.
The BNP, or a truly populist party, would actually go further than UKIP and state that not only was it anti-immigration but it would be prepared to do something about it - pronto. "Nasty" I know but the following might make some waves - and even get some votes: a reexamination of the circumstances concerning the issue of all British passports since 1997; wholesale reexamination of all asylum grants since 1997; immediate stop to benefits - including free use of NHS - to anyone not holding British nationality; deportation at end of sentence for all foreign criminals etc etc. I'm sure you could think up some more but such a manifesto would be more likely to gain traction than the rather gentlemanly bleating of UKIP.
Such policies, though, cannot be sold by a thug in a suit: such a person would put off the "respectable" floating voter for whom Poujade had an enormous attraction. Imagine someone like Dave leading the BNP. Someone who is intelligent and charismatic while being a total shyster prepared to say and do almost anything to gain power and not really interested in an easy life in Brussels - or Notting Hill for that matter - but genuinely focused on power. The respectable parties wouldn't know what hit them - and this is the problem. There is such a disconnect between the electorate and the political players that a populist party with a half-way competent leader could go a long way.
NC, correct. It is vitally important to prevent electoral fraud etc, but how a party is constituted or how democratic it is internally is entirely irrelevant.
U, I don't think most people would vote for really hard core policies, but what you suggest is not a million miles from UKIP's immigration policy (which went a bit too far for my liking, but hey, call me pinko liberal).
So try reading that and tell me what you think UKIP missed off or should change.
MW
I'll get back to you on this one.
Before I do I would just observe that I hope you're right about "most people". I fear that "most people" are becoming increasingly - if quietly - desperate about the social consequences of the immigration of the last 15 years. They won't take to the streets but they'll vote and given a choice their choice might not be one you - or I - might like.
'If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable', which I think is a quote from JFK. Yes, it's an interesting development, the state bankrupting smaller parties. Didn't they try to do the same thing to UKIP? Forcing repayments of gifts?
At least we know we don't live in a democracy anymore.
U, seriously, give it a read and tell me what you think. And to be fair to the Tories, immigration is one of the few things which they'll probably 'get right'. I hope. I might be wrong about that as well.
Anon, sure, El Comm did their level best to bankrupt UKIP, but thanks to the generosity of one particular donor who paid most of the legal fees, and thanks to the closest every decision in the House of Lords (now called 'Supreme Court') which went 4:3 in our favour, we lived to fight another day :-)
MW
Re the UKIP policy, I agree with every word written but, in reality, it's just a return to what we effectively had pre-1971. Moreover, the policy document does not address the consequences of the post-1997 immigration but, rather, is a blue-print for the way to deal with future immigration. BTW I would also add a rider to the UKIP policy to the effect that those in the Foreign and/or Home Offices applying the policy day-to-day should, at least, have parents - preferably grandparents - who were borne with British nationality. Stories of the goings on at, for instance, Lunar House told to me by American friends seeking extensions of their visas are reminiscent of the time I applied to extend my visitor's visa in Addis Ababa.
As I wrote, the methods of tackling those consequences are inevitably distasteful since they would inevitably involve the forced deportation and/or impoverishment (ie withdrawal of taxpayer funded income/benefits) of a substantial number of ostensibly innocent people. I say "ostensibly" innocent because I reckon a considerable proportion of the post-1997 immigrants came here - or were invited to join relatives who were already here - because of what was on offer in cash or cash equivalent. Had UKIP policy been applied post-1997, I suspect the non-EU immigration would have been minuscule (or even negative) in comparison to what it was.
This still doesn't deal with the consequences of the EU immigration particularly of the criminal classes of Eastern and Southern Europe together with that area's contribution to the UK's "traveller" communities. So, by all means let's leave the EU but would UKIP deport those already here whose only claim on our hospitality is the accident of their country's EU membership, not the ability to contribute to this country's welfare?
Again, as I wrote, many indigenes - particularly in London and the once great industrial cities of the North - live lives of quiet desperation as they see the degradation of their heritage all around them. Of course, this desperation will dissipate as the long march through the institutions by those who hate this country and that heritage succeeds in cutting the indigenes away from their history. Accordingly, either the respectable parties will continue with their work and Britain as we know it - or knew it - will disappear or, as I fear if intelligent and charismatic leaders appear, a last-gasp effort by a BNP-type populist party will grab power and enforce a very unbritish authoritarian regime. Either way, unlike you, I'm a pessimist. I also guess I'm a bit older than you so it'll be my children and grandchildren who will suffer rather than me directly. Believe me that's no compensation.
U, thanks, that was my general impression of it as well.
I think they did talk about deportations somewhere, and I vaguely remember a figure of half a million. While this may be A Good Idea in theory, I fail to see how it would work in practice.
But in the welfare paper we said no handouts until you've been here five years legally (or was it ten?), like other countries do, so instead of them camping out at Sangatte trying to get to GB, they'd be camped out in Dover trying to get to France :-)
MW
"I fail to see how it would work in practice"
It would inevitably be nasty and probably violent but this is what we have come to. Turning off the taxpayer-funded taps would certainly concentrate the minds of those whose decision to come here was financially based and who would reassess on the same basis whether or not it would be worthwhile to stay (per your example of queues at Dover to leave).
Even so, the mechanics - not the legalities - of forced deportation could only be implemented by a genuinely aggressive and obdurate administration. I don't think we've had one of those domestically in England since the Civil War although the Highland Clearances showed what can be done when we put our minds to it. Of course, until we leave the EU potential deportees have the right to re-settle elsewhere in the great union. They might very well use that time-limited loophole to make their way to Bucharest and see how tolerant and generous the Rumanians are.
U: "It would inevitably be nasty and probably violent... Turning off the taxpayer-funded taps would certainly concentrate the minds of those whose decision to come here was financially based.."
Exactly. I'm a pragmatarian. My view is that the real test of a policy is whether it is enforceable in practice at a reasonable cost*. A policy or law which is unworkable in practice must include some underlying intellectual flaw, even if that is not immediately obvious to us.
So mass deportations = forget it. Hugely expensive, wouldn't play well on the evening news.
Deporting any foreigner convicted of a crime = dead easy, do it. Not 'at the end of their sentence' but 'as soon as they are convicted'. And it saves money.
Stopping benefits or denying council housing to anybody who has not lived here legally for x years and has qualified for British citizenship = dead easy, do it. And it saves money.
* See also 'criminalising drugs'. It's unenforceable in practice at huge cash cost and social cost, far better to legalise, tax and regulate them, spending some of the proceeds on education or rehabilitation, just like booze or fags.
PS, "... the Highland Clearances showed what can be done when we put our minds to it."
That was one of the worst excesses of Home-Owner-Ism, and to me that represents a tragedy. It doesn't symbolise 'what we can do' but 'how little we care for our fellow citizens'.
MW
I cited the Highland Clearances as to what it is possible to do and what we are (and have been) capable of doing. I was neither advocating a similar policy nor understating the tradegy and brutality of what happened. The whole point of my comments on this thread is that if the views of a substantial portion of the white indigenes in this country are ignored and a populist party like the BNP produces intelligent and charismatic leadership then the probabilty of something horrible occurring - cf Highland Clearances - will become that much higher. In the past we have been capable of such atrocities - why should we not be capable in future?
BTW I know that in your eyes those who own their own homes are the spawn of the Devil but I don't think that the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland can be realistically compared to those owning a 3-bedroom semi in Carlisle seeking to maintain the price of their house above the total of their mortgage.
U, broadly agreed.
However, I have never considered owner-occupiers to be 'spawn of the Devil' (can you point me to anywhere where I said that?), I am just saying that they are being taxed on the wrong things - i.e. they are being taxed on income and free exchange of goods and services, instead of on land values.
Read my manifesto - there would be surprisingly few losers if we replaced all taxes with LVT, even in the short term. In the medium term, we would all be better off. Apart from certain Dukes & Duchesses, but even they won't exactly end up stacking shelves.
MW
As I hope you understand I have few problems with the principle of LVT only the practicalities of its application and the temptation (which I fear would not be resisted) by our rulers to use LVT as an addition to rather than a substitute for our present tax arrangements. And no, I can't cite any quote in your collected works which match "home-owners" with "spawn of the Devil". OTOH I can't find a quote anywhere by Dave stating that those in the Conservative Party who are genuinely sceptical concerning the EU or economic and social Thatcherites are embarrassing scum. However, although he might not have said that, his actions accord closely with his holding such an opinion.
U: "the temptation [for] our rulers to use LVT as an addition to rather than a substitute for our present tax arrangements."
Besides trying to explain the merits of LVT, I spend a lot of time explaining how hideous income tax, VAT and so on are. We need popular support for one and mass opposition to the other. Too many people fall for the bare-faced lie that 'VAT is a tax on consumption and so doesn't affect investment or income'.
"I can't cite any quote in your collected works which match "home-owners" with "spawn of the Devil"..."
Correct, because there isn't one. Like most English people, I love the idea of owning the place where I live, being able to decorate as I like etc, I have no problem with that. To accuse me of Dave-grade duplicity is a tad unfair, I think.
In any event, read my mini-manifesto (top right hand corner) and you'll see that most homeowners will be a lot better off (they pay as much or less in LVT than they did income tax, VAT, Council Tax) and they get given the CI as well, just to round things off.
Sure, there will be losers, but I'm not going to lose any more sleep over them than over all the quanogcrats I sack or all the foreign prisoners I deport.
MW
I try never to use smileys in my comments and rely on the words to do my talking (if you see what I mean). For the avoidance of doubt:
1. I know you've never used the phrase "home owners are spawns of the devil" but some of your statements concerning homeowners - or rather the ones with homeowneritis - imply that home owners are particularly to be condemned for playing the tax (and other) systems to their advantage.
2. I used the example of Dave's (unstated) opinion, not to imply that you are guilty of Dave's duplicity but to make the point that just because a person doesn't baldly state an opinion doesn't mean that this is not his opinion and, further, that it is reasonable to infer what that opinion is from his actions and/or statements.
Blimey - I hope that's clear. We foreign secretaries can be so easily misunderstood.
On revisiting my last comment, perhaps to be clear one phrase should read " . . home owners particularly are to be condemned . . "
U, aha, I see how the misunderstanding arose - what I have often said is that Home-Owner-Ists are the spawn of the Devil.
But there is no reason why a homeowner (which I have been in the past and intend to be again in future) must also be a Home-Owner-Ist. It's a Venn diagram with a fairly large overlap, that's all.
It's like it is perfectly possible to hate quangocrats without hating public sector workers who do useful stuff. Quangocrats are also spawn of the Devil, but that does not mean I hate all public sector workers.
U, just to clarify that Venn Diagram, the most important players in Home-Owner-Ism do not derive the bulk of their income or gains from actually being owner-occupiers (or even landlords), but who depend on Home-Owner-Ism as a the prevailing economic philosophy.
In this vanguard, I would include bankers who get bonuses for making reckless loans, politicians (who get re-elected on the basis of rising prices), estate agents, conveyancing solicitors, property potn stars and NIMBYs generally, a lot of whom may well be tenants, as far as I am concerned.
MW
I think we've arrived at an agreement although I must confess to the odd NIMBY moment.
Now I must get back to work: my secretary has been observing me tapping away and has begun a very loud tut-tutting which is usually the precursor to a major telling off (which might be a pleasure coming from a nubile 23-year old but frightening from a super-efficient lady of a certain age).
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