The role of the mainstream in curbing the extreme

According to David Adams, the focus on whether the BBC should host the far right British National Party’s (BNP) Nick Griffin, is neither here nor there. Leaders of mainstream political parties need to confront the BNP head on and tackle issues from which they have previously shied away. Issues like immigration reform.

Gary Younge takes this line of thinking even further. He claims that we have New Labour to thank for Griffin’s scheduled appearance this evening. As far as Younge is concerned:

Economically, its neoliberal policies have resulted in growing insecurity, rising unemployment, child poverty and inequality that have alienated the poor and made the middle class feel vulnerable. Politically, its lies over the war, stewardship of the expenses scandal and internal bickering have produced widespread cynicism with our political culture. The ramifications of its role in the war on terror in general, and Iraq in particular, were to elevate fear of a racialised “other” to a matter of life and death at home … Meanwhile New Labour’s race-baiting rhetoric gave the state’s imprimatur to the notion that Britain’s racial problems were not caused by racism but the existence of non-white, non-Christian and non-British people … Having inflated racism’s political currency, New Labour vacated the electoral market so that others with a more ostentatious style might more freely spend it. Once they had made these ideas respectable it was only a matter of time before a party reached a position where it too would earn sufficient respectability to appear on prime time. (More…)

The problems highlighted by Adams also apply to Ireland. Presumably in order to avoid any slip ups that could see one labelled a racist, Ireland’s mainstream political establishment has kept as far as possible from meaningful debate on immigration and race. What Ireland has had, to its credit, is a variety of non-racist social and political groups which represent the interests of the indigenous poor and middle classes. Maybe that is why there isn’t an Irish BNP.

Then again, it could also have to do with the fact that the non-white segment of the Irish population does not yet feel entirely secure. Once properly ‘integrated’ and with a sense of entitlement to a just slice of the national pie, who knows? A sufficiently large segment of the indigenous population might feel sufficiently threatened by some of their fellow citizens to give rise to a BNP-like entity.

In any case, how Britain responds to Griffin and those like him will be instructive.