BNP win in Yorkshire despite campus anti-fascist drive
The BNP have won a seat in the European Parliament representing Yorkshire, to the disgust of a strong anti-fascist movement on campus.
The Hope Not Hate campaign, which called on students to vote against the BNP in the European Elections, have reacted in disgust to election results. David Levene, head of the campaign on campus, reassured students that “we will keep fighting to expose these people for who they really are, violent fascists.”
“ [I] personally believe this is the thin end of the wedge. The BNP will now have access to £3,000,000 per term for communications and allowances, giving them increased credibility and publicity. As of today the BNP are no longer a fringe party,” Levene added.
The newly elected MEP, Andrew Brons, is one of six for Yorkshire and the Humber and is the first BNP official elected in a major election.
The results of a Nouse exit poll showed Labour and the Greens leading campus voting with 24% of the vote each. National victors, the Conservatives, followed on campus with 21% of the vote.
No BNP votes were revealed in the exit polls.
The Liberal Democrats achieved 19% of the vote, roughly 5% more than the national result. According to the poll UKIP only received 7% of the campus vote.
The remaining 5% of the campus vote was split between Libertas, Jury and the English Democrats with Libertas claiming 2%, Jury 1% and the English Democrasts 1%. The remaining 1% of those polls claimed to have deliberately spoilt their ballot paper.
“Anybody who chose to stay in bed, lie in the sun or go to a barbecue, anybody who chose to do anything else, rather than help us campaign now needs to get involved,” Levene urged.
YUSU Academic and Welfare Officer Charlie Leyland commented: “Perhaps now the campaigns against the BNP will sophisticate and concentrate on educating people about how they may wish to reconsider their beliefs and alignments with the BNP, rather than the constant and unhelpful ‘Anti BNP, Stop the BNP’.”
“These ferocious and monotonous campaigns, I believe, may have alientated as many as they have recruited,” she added.
Levene finally stated that “I hope that this is as far as it goes, but it is reliant on other people, everybody needs to help. I would like to personally thank everybody who did come out and did work so hard before the elections, but we must continue this work now.”
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I think Charlie has missed the point here.
The ‘Hope not Hate’ campaign did not target BNP voters – it addressed the apathetic. Its aim was to increase participation in the European elections, not to change the views of potential BNP supporters. It would have taken much more than a leaflet to do that, and I very much doubt that any such campaign could have achieved much. Charlie’s comment is undoubtedly well-intentioned, but I think it is rather misguided.
It is now recognised that voter apathy, as well as the collapsed Labour vote, led to this result. I think this fact serves as the best acknowledgment of the campaign’s purpose. We tried to let people know of the situation so that they could act accordingly. For a variety of reasons, we didn’t manage to reach out to as many people as we should have had. As a result, we are now represented in Europe by the former leader of the National Front.
The demonstration was a disgrace today. Do the idiots not realise that turning up to a BNP news conference looking scruffy; shouting obscenities; throwing missiles and making a general nuisance of themselves ensures that it is they appearing to be the hooligans and not the intended target.
Sorry guys, but this democracy like it or not. The ballot box is were you should be if you wish to be influential; violence is reserved for a ‘Mugabe’-ist regime.
It’s a shame Leyland didn’t share her pearls of wisdom back when it might have done some good, really. Or, indeed, make any noticeable contribution to the anti-Fascism campaign.
I thought the egging was actually pretty amusing. Mostly because someone online followed it up with “I thought it was pretty funny that Nick Griffin’s opponents forced him to go home”…
No violence present. Just a large nuisance caused in protest. I think it’s likely we’ll see this sort of thing continue for a while because the UK isn’t a big fan of racists.
In regards to the quote by Charlie; I agree with her comments entirely. Not saying that the Hope Not Hate campaign was poor but that we should see more of the “this is why the BNP is bad” leaflets and less of the “Stop the BNP” leaflets. Education about why the BNP is bad would do well and for the General Election we should see more students going off-campus to help out since I suspect a very small minority of York students voted BNP (if 50% was Labour and Green).
I’m sure if Charlie had been involved in any of the anti-BNP cmapaigning she would realise that educating people about what the BNP really are is exactly what we were doing.
Perhaps if she felt her contributions to the campaign were so important she should have actually made some.
Throwing eggs at elected politicians is disgraceful behaviour, whether it be John Prescott or Nick Griffin. Spitting at someone is classed as assault, why isn’t egg throwing? So yes, violence was present.
if 50 percent of campus voted green or labour, it just shows how politically stupid this campus can be sometimes. A vote for labour is an endorsement of ID cards, trident, higher taxes, 42/90 day detention, lies about Lisbon.
A vote for the greens endorses their silly policies about homeopathic medicines and complimentary therapies available instead of proper drugs on the NHS, plus worryingly authoritarian views on personal contributions to C02 emissions.
But it’s democracy. I don’t know best, neither do any other of these commentators. The hope not hate campaign is silly – I can see the hate, but where’s the hope in the Labour party? I don’t see any hope, just more despair.
Unusually for a YUSU officer, Charlie Leyland is talking a lot of sense here. The ‘anti fascist’ campaign doesn’t do any good. The general public think student politicians are loonies anyway, and for us to tell taxpayers how to vote is a bit condescending to say the least. Secondly, if people don’t think that the BNP are ‘fascist’ then an anti-fascism campaign isn’t going to do much good anyway. Most people who voted for the BNP were in South and West Yorkshire who were worried about council houses and jobs. York and North Yorkshire is tory/lib dem country, with Labour and UKIP doing well too – BNP nowhere. Maybe if Levene and co. went to Barnsley and Rotherham and areas of Leeds and knocked on doors and talked about council houses and jobs, the BNP might not get so many votes. But that’s for the Labour party to do, not students. We don’t even pay taxes, what do we know?
Rather than telling us what not to vote for, how about some decent arguments for why Labour are even worth considering. I can’t see any at the moment. ‘Hope’ not hate will have to try harder.
The Hope not Hate campaign was not in any way intended to support the Labour party. I am not a Labour supporter and I was still involved with the campaign, along with people from all political societies on campus.
I repeat that the campaign’s one and only purpose was to increase participation in the European elections – it did not address potential BNP voters and it did not argue in favour of a specific party. It only targeted the apathetic – its main goal was to let people know of the danger that the BNP could get an MEP in Yorkshire, so that they could then act according to their conscience.
Your negativity is really disheartening – you clearly know nothing about the campaign and its goals, but you are trying to diminish it nevertheless.
Charlie was spot on.
But further to that I think it’s rankly hypocritical that the major parties (mostly Labour) should launch an anti-BNP campaign clearly in part to secure votes back to them, when in many ways it has been their failure in Yorkshire communities that has caused an increase in BNP support in the first place.
Why was campus not inundated with ‘Vote Labour because of X, Y and Z’ instead of the ‘Vote Labour to Stop the BNP!’ leaflets?
It is a disaster that the BNP have secured a seat in Yorkshire. But let’s not be too quick to blame our non-City of York counterparts, who have clearly voted this way for a reason – no matter how abhorent it may seem to us.
Labour party members (including those in student circles and the student society) have got a lot to answer for.
And one more thing… whilst Charlie is talking a lot of sense, it’s clear that one of her ex-opponents is not.
A Facebook status of “…the BNP won a seat. FFS. I want to stab every single person I know who couldn’t be arsed to get out and vote” (Sun at 23:29) is disgusting. Shame on you.
Maybe if you want to go round slagging people off and quoting people’s facebook statuses after the BNP had got in, ‘Mickey Mouse’ you should at least have the guts to use your real name you coward. Obviously the volunteers in the Labour Club who of course drop out of the sky for the purpose of people like you giving them abuse, who give up their time to deliver leaflets and knock on doors didn’t satisfy you, I mean they are obviously providing a service to you and you can demand that they ‘answer for’ what they did.
“Why was campus not inundated with ‘Vote Labour because of X, Y and Z’ instead of the ‘Vote Labour to Stop the BNP!’ leaflets?”
The Labour Club was sent many thousands of said publicity from Labour Students nationally. Its what we had. Whilst I like you would have liked to see some of the positive reasons to vote Labour on there, I actually think that the anti-bnp message was in some cases the only one that would get a lot of justifiably disgruntled Labour supporters to vote given the current national political situation.
I will respond to these points and I am writing a long and detailed letter to Charlie Leyland, perhaps she can advise us as to how to ‘sophisticate’ given that clearly shes an authority on anti-fascism, maybe she ran a ‘educating’ campaign herself that I’m not aware of rather than just slagging other people who tried to run campaigns.
Or maybe she just did the latter.
Charlie’s constitutionally bound not to advocate any political parties. Can you imagine what’d happen if we had officers in with that budget line and access to students with a political agenda? That’d be horrendous and something we should be proud of. Our officers have been clear this year that they will do what’s best for our students without agenda or affiliation to political party. Should Charlie choose to contribute to a campaign she wouldn’t be able to make a public announcement of it. Charlie has been working on institutional racism and racism encountered in other parts of York this year, areas that actually affect students. I would advise that if you want her to take part in other campaigns that you put it to UGM or turn up to the fortnightly, open EWD committees where lengthy, relevant and interesting discussions take place about how students feel and what we’d like Charlie to do.
“Charlie’s constitutionally bound not to advocate any political parties”
For the third time, this campaign did not advocate any political party. Is this really so difficult to understand?
There is no doubt she’s been a very good, hardworking and effective officer, which is why her comments are all the more disappointing. But what has happened in this election does affect students and ‘working on institutional racism’ doesn’t actually get people out to vote. I agree with her sentiment that it is about more than simply saying stop the BNP or dont vote Nazi etc, indeed as Nick Lowles who is editor of Searchlight and who ran the Hope Not Hate campaign said:
“[The campaign] cannot build houses and reduce waiting lists; it cannot prevent undercutting and the abuse of migrant workers. Local anti-fascist movements cannot get resources into communities, often the poorest, dealing with extraordinary levels of migration. Without such resources access to public services is racialised and politics becomes more tribal. The “Hope not Hate” campaign cannot reduce health inequalities or enduring poverty and immobility. It cannot overcome political disenfranchisement and alienation from interchangeable Westminster politicians.”
All of which the BNP has been feeding on. However the campaign in the run up to an election can potentially mobilise an anti-BNP vote and that is what we tried to do. The irony of this is that the likes of myself and David and others involved with Hope Not Hate probably agree with Charlie about the root causes being more important overall, I just find it unfortunate that her only contribution to this debate has been to slag people off who have been slogging their guts out trying to turn people who disagree with the BNP out to vote, which is fundamentally what we needed to do to keep them out.
“I thought the egging was actually pretty amusing. Mostly because someone online followed it up with “I thought it was pretty funny that Nick Griffin’s opponents forced him to go home”…
No violence present. Just a large nuisance caused in protest.”
Jason, If someone had thrown eggs at you following your election to campaigns officer I’m fairly sure you would have felt quite intimidated and not passed it off as a ‘nuisance’, what a stupid thing to say.
I was as disappointed as anyone to hear that the BNP had won in Yorkshire, but Mark Hempton-Moore and A. Democrat are right, the people behaving like that were the ones acting like hooligans.
George, here on the literature for the Hope not hate campaign clearly states that ‘a vote for the BNP is a vote for it’s racist and fascist friends across Europe’
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_p2rQG2ZKRJQ/SgKzF53BibI/AAAAAAAAAkE/14leMY7DAr8/Hope%20Not%20Hate%20anti-BNP%20leaflet%20May%202009%20(back)_thumb%5B2%5D.jpg
Furthermore, it was a campaign backed by Labour.
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/hope-not-hate/2009/06/hope-not-hate-2009-the-buss-fi.html
The NUS conference, with Guest speaker the aforementioned Hope not Campaign leader saw the members of the block standing up and screaming how we should not engage in a dialogue with ‘these monsters’. Frankly, I’m glad we haven’t been associated with these campaigns through the work of our officers and would much prefer that they concentrated on their jobs at what we pay them for, to improve the lives of our students through localised means: diversity and liberation awareness campaigns, Uni policy and support services, York council incentives and provisions, and to leave any party politics at home where they belong. YUSU fulfilled their mandate of encouraging students to register and to vote, and provided the information for an informed vote. The rest is up to students and any campaigns that they want to run.
Wrong, Marcus. I would have found it very amusing. People always say I’m hypocritical but the truth is that I’m not, at least in this respect. Having egg on your face is a nuisance, not an assault. If people had beat him up, I would have condemned the act but throwing an egg is a cowardly way of opposing someone without having the guts to do so properly. Similarly to insulting someone to their face as an “anonymous” – there’s no real threat there but there is a disturbance.
Anyway, enough of the stupid bickering. Hope Not Hate / Unite Against Fascism are not allied with a party; the Labour Party just used the idea that they were the closest to beating the BNP to try and draw party members back. In the end, less than 1% of voters needed to swing from BNP to Labour to swap the seats over, so the message wasn’t untrue, even if it was an extremely dubious marketing strategy.
Likewise Charlie Leyland can make whatever comments she feels fit – and why not? She does a massive amount for the university and because of the work that she does we are able to encourage people to vote. Perhaps she didn’t feel comfortable insulting the BNP as a paid Officer? Maybe she thought that isolating potential BNP voters would bring down her reputation as Welfare Officer or hinder people from talking to her about problems? They’re valid concerns and she has as much right to say what should happen as anyone else; especially considering that she was privy to conversations within meetings that most of the Hope Not Hate campaigners were not privy to.
The BNP are in now; we shouldn’t look back at what a mess we made but look forwards as to how we should adapt. Charlie is offering progressive steps, unlike many people posting here, and insults aren’t going to help anyone.
“George, here on the literature for the Hope not hate campaign clearly states that ‘a vote for the BNP is a vote for it’s racist and fascist friends across Europe’”
Can you tell me how exactly is this ADVOCATING a political party?
Let me also remind you that this is not a discussion on whether YUSU should have supported the campaign. We know very well that they couldn’t have.
“Furthermore, it was a campaign backed by Labour.”
This doesn’t mean that it sought to support the Labour, does it?
David Cameron, for example, is a member of Unite Against Fascism. Does this mean that every UAF campaign is somehow advocating the Tories?
“Charlie’s constitutionally bound not to advocate any political parties”
No, she’s not. In her capacity as AcWelf officer, she is legally bound not to use YUSU’s resources in support of any political party. She herself is free to publically support and campaign for anyone she wants to. Furthermore, given that YUSU has a policy specifically condemning the BNP, an officer speaking out against them, or even trying to start an intelligent debate about them, would hardly pose a constitutional problem.
I wholeheartedly agree with George about anti-BNP campaigning being about getting out the vote, rather than convincing BNP supporters to change their mind. I think on campus at least, it was fairly effective at doing that. What I do think could have been improved was Labour’s campaign. The message “Vote Labour to stop the BNP” was a fair point to make, but it needed to be part of a wider campaign emphasising Labour’s policies and achievements. This came across in canvassing, but was not reflected in Labour’s printed publicity.
Finally, while it is true that Labour members backed Hope Not Hate, this is not the same thing as Hope Not Hate backing Labour. People who were persuaded to vote by Hope Not Hate went on to vote for all manner of parties. The aim was to increase turn-out, not drive up support for any particular party.
Errrr…no though:
“Frankly, I’m glad we haven’t been associated with these campaigns through the work of our officers and would much prefer that they concentrated on their jobs at what we pay them for, to improve the lives of our students through localised means: diversity and liberation awareness campaigns, Uni policy and support services, York council incentives and provisions, and to leave any party politics at home where they belong. YUSU fulfilled their mandate of encouraging students to register and to vote, and provided the information for an informed vote. The rest is up to students and any campaigns that they want to run.”
It is fair to argue that officers should first and foremost carry out their jobs. But officers are people too, and can use their free time however they like – to go to the cinema, to do some yoga, or to get involved in anti-fascist campaigning. By all means, it is entirely Charlie’s decision what she does with her free time. It would be unfair for anyone to expect her to use her free time in any particular way.
But when she comments to a campus newspaper that a student run campaign was “ferocious and monotonous” and counterproductive, she opens herself to that criticism. If you don’t like the campaign that we ran, why didn’t you say so at the time? Why didn’t you offer your advice or help out? Why didn’t you run a campaign yourself, instead of criticising from the sidelines?
Charlie doesn’t have any free time. If you knew her, you’d know that she’s often working until gone 10pm in the YUSU office.
That maybe so, and no one was criticising her for not getting involved, until her recent comment. She apparently has enough free time to observe a significant proportion of the campaigning activities and offer meaningful criticism (or not).
I’ve only just noticed that Mickey Mouse (whoever that it) thinks I should be ashamed of one of my facebook statuses.
It was a reflection of emotion rather than rational thought – of how I feel rather than how I intend to act. And as such, I stand by it. Perhaps if “Mickey Mouse” had members of his family murdered by fascists, as I have, he or she would understand where I’m coming from. I don’t intend to go into the details, but my grandmother was a refugee from fascist Spain, and I grew up with all the stories and accounts of what my family had to go through during and after the Civil War. So forgive me if I sound intolerant of fascists or of those who allow them to come to power.
As I said, Simon, Charlie was privy to conversations that you were not. She observed the campaign from a different angle and was present at all relevant YUSU discussions (such as the infamous Council meeting that made the papers). The fact that she didn’t campaign doesn’t mean anything; I doubt you’d say that I didn’t do anything and I wholeheartedly agree with her statement.
The problem is that whilst “the BNP might win” will make BNP-phobes more likely to vote, and whilst “here is what is wrong with the BNP” (as some of the best flyers said) will make people think twice about voting BNP, “stop the BNP” isn’t a phrase that will help anyone or do anything. Likewise “Vote Labour to stop the BNP” is a PATHETIC message, even if it’s true. I received a lapel badge from the Labour Party with the slogan on and I still haven’t taken it out of the wrapper because I am ASHAMED that a Party I’m a member of would use those tactics.
Charlie is the Officer in charge of Welfare; she has a relevant position to this discussion. I am more than happy to argue in favour of what she has said and for her right to say it. The papers approached her because of her position; if she hadn’t commented, it would have looked worse. Progressive steps are always good and if you’re not going to offer suggestions on how to improve the campaign, don’t criticise her!
Jason – Police are investigating an allegation of common assault regarding the egg-throwing story. I think you’ll find it’s not legal to throw eggs at people, just as it’s not legal to spit at somebody. It’s still assault. If throwing an egg at Nick Griffin is OK, would you then also say that throwing eggs at peoples windows at halloween is ok? One would hope not.
The anti-bnp lobby do need to stop behaving like a mob though. The more they act like thugs, the more police protection the BNP will get, which means the taxpayer foots the bill. Do we really want a situation where a democratically elected politician needs hundreds of police officers to follow him wherever he speaks? The anti-fascists are behaving like fascists by denying a democratically elected MEP freedom of speech or association or movement!
That Facebook status is very silly, and shows exactly why anonymity isn’t such a stupid idea on these boards. Employers, selection boards for elected positions and the media will look at your activities online if you ever decide to persue a career in politics to ensure they’re not selecting a loose cannon. Saying that you want to stab people who didn’t vote isn’t what members of any party want to hear you saying!
The UK’s greatest anti-fascist could’ve been Gordon Brown. If he scrapped trident, ID cards, stopped privatising everything and started to build some council houses and got a grip on antisocial behaviour, the BNP would never have got a seat.
If ‘most’ of the indigenous people of the U.K. WANT more immigrants (or ANY immigrants, for that matter) living here, why didn’t the Conservatives stand on a platform of allowing in TWO MILLION immigrants every year, if they got into office?
Why weren’t Labour trying to outdo their past efforts, and promising us all that if they were re-elected, they would allow in FIVE MILLION immigrants a year, since apparently this is “what we all want”, since it would be ‘racist’ to oppose it?
You left wing cretins are hilarious.
Answer my simple questions above.
“I think you’ll find it’s not legal to throw eggs at people, just as it’s not legal to spit at somebody. It’s still assault. If throwing an egg at Nick Griffin is OK, would you then also say that throwing eggs at peoples windows at halloween is ok?”
What about throwing eggs at muslims leaving a mosque? Would that be okay, since I disagree with the ‘teachings’ of the Koran, and believe it to be ‘hateful’?
You can bet your bottom dollar that if a hundred BNP members attacked a couple of imams by throwing eggs at them, because they thought they were ‘fascists’ (and what could be more fascist than Islam), they would go to prison for five to ten years. There’s your lovely ‘equality’ for you.
Any comments, Lefties?
Everything you believe in is contradicted by reality, it must be so hard for you, maintaining your insane political beliefs, when every day, reality proves you wrong…