[Commissar_Will]

I've just had a really scary thought.

The BNP is, basically, Britain's own answer to the Nazi party - they hate immigrants and basically want to keep the "British Race" "Pure", although they'd never put it like that. They appeal to grumpy opinionated Middle-Class idiots and annoyed Lower-Class people who either think they lost their job to immigrants, hate "Foreigners" generally, or are just generally disenchanted with our current Government - basically, exactly the same as the Nazi's early supporters. And like the Weimar Republic, our current Government, while doing its job fairly effectively, still makes mistakes, and vertainly isn't particularly well-loved by the people. At the moment, nobody thinks that the BNP is anything more than a joke, a sort of social club for Xenophobes. Nobody thought Hitler, and his tiny, radical party, posed a serious threat to the Government in his early years. And he didn't. However, things changed. My worry is that, given similar circumstances, could the BNP do the same as what Hitler acheived? In order to do this, the following would probably need to occur:

1. A major economic or similar crisis - and I mean major here, perhaps even a series of them. The Weimar Government survived plenty of crises without Hitler gaining much more support, but it was all this, coupled with the Wall Street Crash, that finally began to bring it down. Britain is about to go through a recession at the moment - it's nothing major, but if a few major crises hit the country during this time, especially something like Wall Street, it would seriously weaken support for our current Government.

2. A strong, popular and identifiable leader for the BNP - I have no idea who the leader of the BNP is, and don't particularly care - which is exactly their problem. Hitler suceeded because everyone knew who he was (partly through the failure of the Munich Putsch, but "all publicity is good publicity" and all that), and he was undoubtedly a charismatic and popular figure. Without a leader like him, the BNP could never hope to gain any real support outside their small, grumpy and Xenophobic current support group. Most Germans weren't the sort of idiots who would have normally supported a party like the Nazis, but Hitler won over them by stirring up feeling of disenchantment, national pride, and need for change. Hitler overcame his bad press and appealed to the nation as a whole, and the BNP would need to do the same.

I understand that this scenario is highly unlikely. But IMO, given the right circumstances, and presuming Britain won't learn from history, it could well happen. Consider the situation - a recession, coupled with a series of economic and political crises, seriously weakens our Government's already tenuous support. The media and the people alike begin to turn away from the Government, but don't know who to support. Then along comes the BNP, with their shiny new leader Freddy Bloggs (made-up name, don't feel offended if you know anyone called Freddy Bloggs). Freddy seems to offer solutions where other parties have none, and the party's Nationalist message seems rather appealing in these bleak times. They seem to have abandoned some of their more extreme policies, but they also offer someone to blame - ie Muslim extremists, immigrants etc. Slowly, they start gaining more and more seats and power. They begin fixing their victory by fixing votes and intimidating voters. A few see what is happening and try to stop it, but the majority have already fallen to the BNP's message. And before you know it, they're in power. And BAM - Britain closes its borders, leaves the EU, starts building up its armed forces even more, and bans all religions but Christianity. Mosques mysteriously burn down in the night. Immigrants are forced to wear a big "I" on their clothing, or are just booted out of the country. The government begins a crusade against immigrants and Muslim "extremists" in a similar way to how they are crusading against paedophiles at the moment, but even more extreme. Eventually, someone like the US will probably storm in and sort our Government out. But how much damage will the BNP cause before then?

So go on, debate away. Is it possible that the BNP could execute a Hitler-esque rise from obscurity to power? IF they did so, would it happen differently? What could the effects be? And given the right opportunity for the BNP to gain power, how could they be stopped? Am I just a paranoid idiot?

[ForbiddenKnowledge]

I'll come back to this, as I do have quite strong feelings about it, but for now will suffice to say:

I think the BNP needs to win a large number of the population, to put the shits into our current government (Tories included) about how pissed off people are.

Would I want them to have real power? Hell no. It would be a disaster. But the reason they are gaining support, is because they are saying what people want to hear.

[Wargamer]

It really isn't surprising why the BNP grows in power. The government has lied to us so many times I don't remember when I last heard the truth. As such, all anyone needs to do is take an opposing stance.

Regardless of the truth, plenty of people blame immigrants for some of the UK's problems. We have no sympathy for stores of Akmed from Ilovabomb who turned up as an illegal alien, yet cannot be deported for "humanitarian reasons". The cunt is living in a house that British people need, taking a job that British people need, using fuel and food and energy that British people need, and he has no right to do so.

It isn't hard to rally support by promising you'll kick people like that out of the country. It's even easier to gain support if you promise to do it literally.

Besides, the UK is being sleepwalked into a Police State... so we might as well vote in a Facist government.

I for one don't see the BNP being able to make a Hitler-esque rise to power; Hitler drew a lot of strength from hatred against other countries (due to the after-effects of World War I), whereas a vast amount of Hate within Britain is aimed firmly at London.

[crazedmongoose2003]

So.....Britain will kinda turn into that V for Vendetta state?

Cos that'd be pretty hilarious...I mean no offence to you guys. Australia's Republic movement is growing stronger by the day, we just need to wait for the last group of diehard monarchists to....well....die (seeing at their median age is about 70 this ain't difficult).




Okay okay, serious responce.

From what I'm hearing, it would all depend upon how well your major parties can react to this. Parties that feed off of hate and fear will always have an easier time than parties feeding off love and altruism, even in times of severe disillusionment, see for example the meteoric rise of Australia's One Nation compared to our Green Party, which only started doing well after economic prosperity.

Also depends on how badly the US and EU wants Britain to not crash and burn. Worst comes to worst and the BNP look like they might come into power, the US just has to reenact the Cold War era marshall plan and pour billions and billions of dollars in aid and development into Britain. When faced with that kind of material prosperity and wealth parties like BNP would have nothing to feed off of.


It's like how, Australia. In 1996, right after our recession, we didn't have too many migrants back then, and race related violence was almost unheard of. Yet 60% of Australian citizens thought that the level of migration was too much.

Fast forward to today. Australia is the very picture of economic prosperity as long as you ignore our high interest rates (which will go down before the end of this year anyway thank you Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and all of China). We have heaps more migrants than before, a lot of race related problems in fringe communities, yet only 30% of citizens think the rate of immigration (which is much higher now) is too high. We have three racist parties right now (compared to the one before) yet they can't even rub together 0.5% of the popular vote (compared to 4% before).



Basically, with first world countries, the middle class is everything. You keep the middle class happy and all is rosy. Or else fringe groups like BNP starts to get a voice.

[ForbiddenKnowledge]

Originally Posted by Crazedmongoose

So.....Britain will kinda turn into that V for Vendetta state?

Cos that'd be pretty hilarious...I mean no offence to you guys. Australia's Republic movement is growing stronger by the day, we just need to wait for the last group of diehard monarchists to....well....die (seeing at their median age is about 70 this ain't difficult).

Actually, the way the government is taking this country, our current leaders are more likely to turn the country to the V government, rather than the BNP.

[Genmotty]

Originally Posted by Crazedmongoose

So.....Britain will kinda turn into that V for Vendetta state?

But England Prevails! Strength Through Purity, Purity Through Faith and all that lot.

No. I think that it is a possibility, but unlikely. That is if our current government was affected by a set of disasters portrayed like in the story then it's likely.

The BNP are [rant] F***ing Idiotic Tosspots [/rant] anybody with enough knowledge about the country to do their research can see that most of what they preach is untrue. But we already knew that.

The main point is could they? My answer is no, because as much as they don't like it a substantial portion of Britain is of differnet nationalities. Even I am! I certainly won't vote for party that might have me kicked out the country. Therefore for that reason they will face a good portion of votes against them. But there isn't enough people in the country who are not nationals to stop them. But their is a substantial amount of infomed voters yet at the same time there is a good portion on uninformed.

While the BNP say stuff people like, I think that here in Britian most people have enough sense to see that the party is what it is and won't illusion themselves with its fascist policies.

Even then if they did get elected in, I doubt they could council the House of Lords on everything they want. Mindyou I'd probally be on the streets against them even if they had a hope of winning a general election.

Genmotty

[Commissar_Will]

Originally Posted by Genmotty

The main point is could they? My answer is no, because as much as they don't like it a substantial portion of Britain is of differnet nationalities. Even I am! I certainly won't vote for party that might have me kicked out the country. Therefore for that reason they will face a good portion of votes against them. But there isn't enough people in the country who are not nationals to stop them. But their is a substantial amount of infomed voters yet at the same time there is a good portion on uninformed.
Genmotty

You're right there - the proportion of British people of different nationalities would be the BNP's main bar on getting a majority. But the question is whether given a rather terrible set of political crises, a large proportion of the populace would turn to the BNP. And they are trying to appeal to a wider audience. For example, because I live in Daily-Mail reading Middle-Class Idiot Land (ie London's 1930's suburbs), we recieved a BNP election flyer for the Mayor of London thing. In it were quotes from various impressionable idiots saying why they'll be voting for the BNP. Among the usual disgruntled Working-Class people and rich Nationalists were quite a few "ordinary" (insert massive air quotes) people, such as an Irish student saying how the BNP apparently love the Irish to bits and won't let their jobs go to the dirty immigrants, and some other people saying things about the BNP's slightly less inflammatory policies. It all smacks of rather weak propaganda, but it shows that they're trying to broaden their horizons. Increasingly, they are trying to appeal to people of other religions (so long as they're not Islam), particularly Jews, Hindus and Sikhs (although they still don't let members of Hinduism and Sikhism enter the party, which rather smacks of hypocrisy), and they even have some party members with Jewish ancestry, and who are even Jews themselves - again, somewhat hypocritical due to the anti-Semitic nature of the party's history, particularly under John Tyndall. Oh, and apparently they're OK with immigrants as long as they're white. : They're desperately trying all the time to appeal to more and more people, but whether anyone except the "usual suspects" would support them given a country-wide crisis is the real question.

[Captain Archais]

the BNP apparently love the Irish to bits

Even though they'd be far more inclined to send Northern Ireland back to the '70s, or even the '20s? I could hardly see them letting NI unify with the Republic, unless the Republic was 'persuaded' to join the Union again. "What's that Mr. Loyalist Thug? The dirty Nationalists are trying to take your jobs? I'll send in the troops immediately"

What do they mean by "British Race" anyway?

[crazedmongoose2003]

Well that's (fortunately) a problem any racist nationalistic parties in a migrant country faces. They keep having to redefine just which races they're okay with. First it's only anglo-saxon descent, then any western european is A-okay, then maybe if you're Jewish or European but not from the mediterranean.....etc etc.

It's funny that hatred of muslims has united the fundamentalist Jewish right and the evangelical right (and by that extension, xenophobic nationalists in western nations). Few hundred years ago these two groups should be actively trying to slaughter each other.....well no they wouldn't, more accurately the Christians would be trying to slaughter the Jews and the Jews would try to evade that...

[Wargamer]

Thank you, Crazed, now I just have this insane desire to create a "Christian Fundy" propaganda poster of the Jesus doll doing that "double point" thing, grinning, and the following printed next to him:

"Towel head? Knock 'em dead!"
"If he's a Jew, he's cool with you!"

That is entirely your fault, not mine. :P