Right-wing challenge reveals mainstream’s failures in UK

H A Hellyer

• Last Updated: October 26. 2009 1:56AM UAE / October 25. 2009 9:56PM GMT

It has been an awful fortnight for opponents of the far right in the UK. Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam politician from the Netherlands, entered the UK after initially being denied entry by the Home Office. Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party and Britain’s poster boy for the far-right, made history as he was a guest on the BBC’s Question Time.

Both took full advantage of their opportunities. Geert Wilders was a guest of a member of the House of Lords and continued onto an American tour, stopping in a number of cities while promulgating the most brazen hate speech with regards to Islam and Muslims in recent memory, assisted by some of the most well-known bigots of the US. Some welcomed his proposals to tax the wearing of the hijab and ban the Quran – and yet still promote “freedom of speech and expression”.

Mr Griffin is probably revelling in the fact that due to his broadcast on the BBC, the British National Party (BNP) now has thousands of new members, according to the latest polls. Yes, the far right is definitely not going away.

This has been sneaking up on the British public for years – and now it seems to have dawned upon them. But now there is a choice. The British public can regard this rise as something from an extreme, marginal section of British society, which will simply die out without any further work needing to be done. Or they can wake up. The far right may be marginal – but it’s gaining ground because politicians in the mainstream have failed on two counts.

The first reason is simple. The political mainstream is just not trusted, while those who vote for the BNP do trust the BNP. Many of them voted for mainstream political parties before – and those parties have to take responsibility for this change. Secondly, and here things get more difficult, the mainstream has allowed certain political issues to get out of control by not dealing with them properly. These issues, which once belonged to the far right alone, are now becoming mainstreamed, usually for short-term objectives (like getting votes).

On that second point, the central issue is very clear: Islam, a faith whose values are claimed to be antithetical to the West’s, and whose adherents are in danger of destroying the West through demographics. People will try to get around that as much as possible and will not want to admit it, but the issue is Islam.

But the role of Islam in society has been an issue for more than the far right. Due to the way the mainstream has gone about discussing Islam in the public sphere, the far right has been able to use the issue as a way to propel themselves into stardom. The far right has advanced by using issues that the mainstream parties brought onto the radar in an irresponsible way.

We have now passed the point of no return. If the mainstream had been more responsible earlier, then Mr Griffin and his colleague would never have been elected to the European Parliament, which paved the way for Mr Griffin to appear on Question Time.

It’s obvious he has a constituency – and it will only grow if he manages to paint himself as the underdog. What needs to be done is to take that constituency away from him.

If we are serious about ending that support, certain things have to be sorted out. The first issue is the British public’s disillusionment with their politicians. The British MPs who are moaning about being told to pay back their expenses need to realise that there is far more at stake here than their own personal annoyance. They must recapture the trust of their constituents. In so doing, the elections next year should be an opportunity and not just a challenge. If British politicians in the mainstream close ranks, show that they can have clean politics, and not come across as untrustworthy fiends, then they can take back some of the ground usurped by the BNP.

Secondly, the political mainstream needs to show what they are actually about, as a matter of consensus. The BNP has received a lot of mileage because they are sure what they are fighting for: a white, Christian Britain. Labour, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats have not come across as having a clear-cut vision of the UK’s national identity.

It’s not good enough to attack the BNP’s vision – we must have one of our own. That national identity must have an appreciation of multiculturalism at its core and use this as a way to be proud about what it means to be British.

There must not be any confusion about whether or not we are afraid of Muslims or not. It should be very clear: we abhor any criminal, whether he cloaks himself in religion or not. And we will take the fight to any type of extremist with the means available to us under the rule of law.

Islam is another religion of Europe, just as Judaism and Christianity are, with an embedded history. In the 21st century our secular institutions can cope with this religion just as it deals with faith in general. In this regard, Muslim Britons and Muslim Europeans in general are deadly for the BNP and their cohorts. The worst nightmare for the BNP is a Muslim population that cares more for Britain than the BNP does, unlike some of the hotheads who protested Mr Wilder’s visit in a way that detracts from any worthwhile grievance they might have.

The political mainstream has a deep responsibility here – because there is a sympathy within the highest levels of the political establishment with the views that the BNP is propagating. The BNP may popularise those bigoted views, but they are not the only ones to have them.

Finally, the political mainstream has to take the fight to the far right. Political parties should go through all legal means to expose the quandaries of the BNP – and should encourage all of their own members to sign up for the BNP in order to force changes from the inside. Banning it is not an option – but taking it to pieces through the law should be.

Some mainstream politicians may be more amenable to far-right views in order to assure their short term political future – they have already shown they are happy to do so. If we are concerned about the future of the UK in the long term, politicians and civil society alike have to be realistic and creative about how they are going to renew British politics – and there will be hard choices to make.

Dr HA Hellyer is fellow of the University of Warwick and author of Muslims of Europe: the ‘Other’ Europeans

www.hahellyer.com