Media, special interest confusion as historic week opens
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=7293
An historic week opens today as Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons will take up office as holders of the British National Party’s http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=7278 of slander, intimidation and physical violence clearly failed. Since the results were announced on 7 June, the opponents of nationalism have displayed intense confusion about where they should go from here in their attempts to prevent the BNP from becoming widely seen as part of the “mainstream.”
The traditional controlled far left, corralled into a noisy alliance called Unite Against Fascism (UAF) which is essentially a front for the private http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=6398 soon after. They also vowed to “protest” outside the installation of Brons and Griffin to their democratically elected offices. In an act seen as desperate, they have even engineered a “petition” called “Not in Our Name” against the BNP pair, although what the petition is supposed to accomplish remains unclear.
One of the issues that helped to undo the effort to block the BNP votes was the UAF’s own long standing policy of “No Platform,” meaning that no group or person UAF deems to be politically incorrect should be allowed to debate, campaign or even speak. Both main political parties, the ruling New Labour as well as the Conservatives (whose leader David Cameron openly supports the UAF), held to the “No Platform” policy, which only displayed their arrogance and sense of entitlement, as well as their lack of answers to nationalist concerns, to a disgusted electorate.Much as special interest agitation has exposed liberal US politicians to scorn after bogus “information” fed to the government labeled millions of ordinary citizens as potential “terrorists,” so too the extremist stance, and tactics that flowed from it, of UAF and other leftist “analysis” has cost the far left dearly. The first to suffer the consequences has been the “No Platform” policy itself, the linchpin of “militant anti-fascism.” Even Nick Lowles of Searchlight admitted that the BNP’s “election is a game changer. Debates around no platform, access to the media and political representation will change whether we like it or not and we will need to adapt accordingly…Searchlight comes from a proud tradition of No Platform, a belief that fascism should not be allowed to air its politics of hate publicly. We have always opposed legitimising fascism through public debate and where fascists try to incite hatred within communities through provocative marches and actions, we have backed mobilisations against them. While I still adhere to this in principle I also believe that we have to accept a new reality.”
That “new reality” has seen BNP leader Nick Griffin, especially, given access to the media through interviews, and while the questions have been uniformly hostile and provocative, the very fact that the leader of an openly nationalist organization is allowed on television shows that the situation has changed.
Martin Wingfield, a media expert and longtime editor of the BNP’s newspaper, has tracked how the election has changed the approach the media take to nationalism in general, as well as the nationalist agenda.
Martin Wingfield:
MORE evidence that the media are struggling with the thorny issue of how to cover news of the British National Party.
An item on the Sky News website this morning highlights remarks made by disgraced Home Secretary David Blunkett, but the body of the story concerning the persecution of the two BNP teachers, Adam and Mark Walker, comes across very clearly. Any right-thinking person ignores the silly Blunkett soundbite and feels uncomfortable for the two young teachers being discriminated against for their political beliefs.
There’s a similar, desperately-seeking-negativity type of story in the Daily Telegraph also. The newspaper gleefully reports that the BNP have been unable to form a group in the European Parliament (25 MEPs needed) which can access another £2 million of European funding.
The report carries a rather sinister photo of Nick just to ensure the maximum negativity, yet journalist Peter Hutchison fails to realise that the article in itself – the British National Party on the European political stage – gives the BNP a huge credibility boost. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/5769464/BNP-fails-to-find-allies-to-form-new-bloc-in-Europe.html…
I’m glad too that Guardian columnist Hugh Muir has found our two new MEP’s websites. It will give me an incentive to keep them updated knowing that Hugh might give them a plug in his Diary Column and put the Guardianista off their muesli and yogurt. Hugh’s offering today is http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/hugh-muir-diary.
http://martinwingfield.blogspot.com/2009/07/medias-dilemma.html