The seats we all lose if Labour loses

Local elections in England are this week - only two days away. And the national Labour party has been having a very bad past couple of weeks. It's hard not to be gleeful, it's hard not to anticipate their right-good drubbing. All at once there was:

• Home Secretary Charles Clarke's disgrace over the failure to track and deport immigrants who had finished their prison sentences - some of the rapists and murderers.
• Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt's poor handling of the NHS's "best year ever"
• and most hysterically - John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister and perhaps the ugliest man in British politics has an affair.

And because of this Labour will lose some seats and quite likely even some councils. But hey, that's politics - and if this helps our local Conservative candidates, that's great.

However...there are some seats that I really hope Labour doesn't lose - and those are seats that are being targeted by the British National Party - the "reformed" racist thugs. And I blame Labour for any gains the BNP makes.

Labour are avowedly anti-racist and I believe that they really do think that racism is damaging to UK society and should be rooted out. But I think they're going about it the wrong way.

Legislation outlawing "stirring up racial hatred" and now a religious equivalent is being used to muzzle groups like the BNP. And I think that's a bad thing.

I don't think limiting speech changes the way that people think...and I think there are more damaging consequences.

BNP candidates and party members used to shoot their mouths off. The BNP used to say overtly racist things, but now they can't. Even when they come close, like Nick Griffin, head of the BNP, saying that Islam is a wicked religion results in swift prosecution. That means they mind their Ps and Qs, and that means that folks who aren't careful might be swayed by their rhetoric. You have to dig deep to see what they're really about these days, and that's not something a lot of people do in local elections. (See why some voters might be swayed).

And the BNP are taking advantage of this. They have candidates in more local elections than ever. They have candidates in 13 of the 33 London boroughs. I'm relieved to say that there are none in mine, but they are running in neighbouring boroughs - 1 in Richmond and 2 in Merton. That's dangerously close to home and in my view can only result in trouble. I truly believe that if they were still allowed to spout their racist crap, there would be far fewer candidates and far fewer would win.

It's not nice but I think most people are able to shrug off a few racial epithets, I think rational people aren't swayed by racist rhetoric, but I think electing candidates from a once avowedly racist party is what really stirs up racial hatred.

My previous posts on the BNP:
Why vote BNP?
I disagree with what you say...
breakin' the law


T-tags: BNP, free speech, Politics, censorship, racism