I got a letter from the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin: I have found it last Saturday morning, along with the party’s magazine “Hope & Glory” and a standing order form (just in the case I would like to subscribe to the party).
I do not think they have now started targeting people like me – I have clearly a name that reveals I am not a member of  “this island race” (to put it in their own words) not to mention a red and yellow “Vote Labour” poster on the window. All the material was anonymously put in my letterbox.

If this is a personal relief (I wouldn’t like to be on the BNP database, of course), it raises however more general concerns about their campaign: feeeling the victory more close, and possibly having collected some money, the BNP is not just focusing on its core electorate. They are instead trying to take advantage of the current situation of political disaffection in order to widen their appeal and gain their first ever member elected in a nationwide election (they already have few councilors in England and, since 2008, a member of the Greater London Assembly).

The letter is a mixture of exaltation of alleged traditional values, old fashioned rethoric, and appeal to the pride of a party that claims to be the only true defence of British interest. It very carefully does not mention anything that can be read as an openly racist comment, even if the nuance of some words and the continuous use of military metaphors is not certainly causal and when one finish to read the message is left with a feeling of fear about the future (and the present), the impression that something terrible is going to happen to our society, that external threat menaces our way of life and that it must be stopped, with any mean, violence not excluded.
As it clearly appears by their words: “It is really now or never, my friend and fellow British patriot. Will you come once more with me to the battlefront? Will you give all to free our nation from the traitors’ iron grip? Will you once again sacrifice for your vountry and our people? I need you to be strong to win this fight” or “A BNP victory on June 4th will lead to a massive awakening amongst the British public, which will enwure that our nation is pulled back from the brink of destruction and wipe the smile off the facew of the traitors and corrupt political elite”

Even if they have clearly decided not to show their fascist face any longer, the BNP is  a party promoting violence and a devided society, a party deeply involved in a politic of hate and discrimination, a party that under a new moderate suit covers the same old fascist face.

In the letter there is only one sentence that I can agree with: at the end of a long annoying tirade about “the proud history of our people and nation”, the “sterile, politically correct, inclusive society where evrybody else’s rights are protected” and the declaration that “We are now second class citizens in our own country”, Nick Griffin invites to vote BNP, underlining that “the future of our children and our children’s children depends on what we do now!”

It is undoubtedly true: it depends on our choice on the 4th of June if we will create a more democratic, open, respectful, equal, and inclusive society for the future generations.

To put the BNP out of mainstream politics, by denying them the honour to sit in the European Parliament, will be a good starting point.

We are running three phone banks ahead of the European elections on June 4.

We will be phoning EU expats who have registered to vote in the UK for the European elections. We will remind them that a higher EU expat turn-out might prevent the BNP from winning seats.

Sessions are scheduled from 6pm to 8.30pm at a location in Central London on the following days

Wednesday May 27, Monday June 1 and Tuesday June 2

to rsvp and for detailed joining instructions please write to lme.lse@hotmail.co.uk

Both make a strong case for why EU expats should vote for Labour on June 4.

Watch them by clicking here

“Get out the International Vote” was held by the Labour Party in close co-operation with the UK Branches of PES sister parties.

Why this election matters
 
Polling across Europe shows that this election will have a significantly lower voter-participation than the European election 5 years ago. Elections with such low turn-out favour the parties on the political extreme. In the UK the parties benefiting from a low turn-out are the very euro-sceptic or euro-phobic Libertas, UKIP UK Independence Party and on the outright racist end of the spectrum the BNP British National Party.
 
The far-right British National Party could win its first seats in the European Parliament if they claim just 8% of the vote! 
 
Why EU ex-pats matter in this election
 
The higher the turn-out the more votes are required for extreme parties to get elected.
 
With over 800,000 EU ex-pats on the electoral register across the UK and around 340,000 in London alone, EU citizens could have real impact on the outcome of these elections. Your vote counts is not just a slogan.

EU citizens have the option to vote in the European elections either in their home country or in the country they live in. Usually, about 80% of EU ex-pats vote in the country they live in not the country they are citizens of in European elections.

However, in the UK EU-expacts are four times less likely to be on the electoral register than UK citizens – which is why it is important for you to make sure you are on the register, and confirmed to vote here in the forthcoming election.

How you can Vote

EU ex-pats who are already on the electoral register will have to fill in and sign an additional form. This ‘European Parliament voter declaration form’ asks EU ex-pats to confirm that they will vote in the UK and not in their home country. This is to prevent individuals from voting twice, once in each country.

This is new for the 2009 election, no such form was necessary in 2004. Councils have already sent out these forms to EU ex-pats on the register. If you have not received it, contact your council and ask for it.

EU ex-pats not on the register will have to fill in a voter registration form as well.

The deadline for the registration and EP voter declaration is May 19, 2009.

For further information on this and to download the form please follow the links below. http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/PDF/6079%20European_Union_Form_lowres.pdf http://www.aboutmyvote.co.uk/register_to_vote/eu_citizens_form.aspx

Voter Registration Deadline: May 19 

Get on the electoral register

Chose to vote in the UK

Help spread this message

PS: For any additional questions, comments or to offer further support please write to lme.lse@hotmail.co.uk

These are the central and final parts of the comment:

The BNP has often before hovered around the threshold of electoral breakthrough. The alarm is raised and the threat subsides. It is then argued that needless alarm advances the far-right cause; that the BNP thrives on publicity from panic-stricken liberals; that disapproval from Westminster burnishes their anti-establishment credentials; that they should be left to suffocate in media silence. That is not an option in the digital age. The BNP doesn’t need mainstream media to get its message across. And it doesn’t need any help persuading voters that their interests go unheeded by out-of-touch politicians in Westminster.

The BNP gets much more attention than other fringe parties because the doctrine of extreme nationalism is a nasty virus in the body politic. It cannot be ignored. It must be engaged and defeated.

That means raising the alarm to combat apathy. The proportional representation system in European elections means that tiny parties can do well out of a modest showing in a low overall turnout. Even a small increase in the numbers bothering to vote for other parties can put a cap on the far right’s performance.

But the BNP also needs to be beaten with old-fashioned political argument. Its flimsy policies should be rebutted and its underlying motive – to foment fear and inter-racial tension – should be exposed. The BNP works hard to shed its skinhead image. Rule No 1 of its “language and concepts discipline manual” tells activists not to identify the party as “racist”. Rule No 4 instructs them to obey the law. What kind of organisation needs to remind its members not to be thugs?

The BNP has traditionally submerged its “whites first” agenda in the language of economic opportunity. It has campaigned on crime, housing, education, jobs and links them all to immigration. It projects real policy concerns through a prism of race. That creates a tricky balancing act for local MPs who have to persuade voters that they are concerned about the problems without adopting the BNP’s analysis of their cause.

It is true that many working-class white communities have fared badly under Labour. But that doesn’t mean non-whites are winning at their expense. The idea that there is a fixed pool of success – that one person’s gain is another’s loss – is a basic fallacy in far-right thinking. But the BNP turns the shame of underachievement into an aggrieved sense of ethnic expropriation.

The same approach is now applied to the issue of MPs’ expense claims. The public perception of a Westminster elite on the make allows the BNP to project itself as a party of anti-political outsiders. The race issue is thus submerged even deeper. But it is there. When the BNP claims to speak for “ordinary people” against the establishment, it still means “white people”.

The best antidote to the far right would be a movement that aspires to represent everyone who feels disenfranchised, alienated, excluded, regardless of race; a movement that promotes solidarity among poorer voters instead of dividing them. It would speak with moral authority against a political system that looks, to many voters, grotesquely skewed in the interests of a narrow, wealthy elite.

It is a good sign that, eventually, a major national newspaper focuses on that issue, raising concerns for the first ever possible elected of the BNP in a major representative assembly and calling for people to mobilize in order to avoid this would happen.

The Labour party and the Labour Movement for Europe are doing their part.