The right and our electoral system
Mike Ion thinks the Labour leadership should do more to combat the rise of the BNP:
Labour will not lose the next election because of the rise of the BNP in places like Stoke (Mike's example). It makes no difference if Labour's 10,000 majorities in Stoke's constituencies are cut by thousands because of the BNP or abstainers. What will cost Labour the election is the loss of places like Worcester or Oxford East*. And although abstentions or BNP votes by white working class voters in those areas could be a problem, they are less a danger than middle-income floating voters swinging to the Tories. It was his grasp of this fact that helped Blair win three elections.
So, could it be that ignoring its core support - and the rise in the BNP this threatens - is one of the prices we must pay for our first-past-the-post system?
* corrected in light of comment.
Gordon Brown would send out a powerful message to his party's core supporters if he were to personally throw his weight behind a call for a new "coalition of the willing" that will help to blunt the advance of the far-right in this country by addressing some of the genuine concerns of white working-class voters while at the same time openly challenging those concerns that have no factual or legitimate basis.I fear Mike's plea will go unheeded. The fact is that our electoral system gives Labour little incentive to fight the far-right, or listen to its core supporters.
Labour will not lose the next election because of the rise of the BNP in places like Stoke (Mike's example). It makes no difference if Labour's 10,000 majorities in Stoke's constituencies are cut by thousands because of the BNP or abstainers. What will cost Labour the election is the loss of places like Worcester or Oxford East*. And although abstentions or BNP votes by white working class voters in those areas could be a problem, they are less a danger than middle-income floating voters swinging to the Tories. It was his grasp of this fact that helped Blair win three elections.
So, could it be that ignoring its core support - and the rise in the BNP this threatens - is one of the prices we must pay for our first-past-the-post system?
* corrected in light of comment.
Chris
Somewhat naively perhaps I am trying to make the point that we (Labour) should take on the far-right for principled reasons and not simply for electoral calculation.
Posted by: Mike Ion | May 28, 2008 at 06:09 PM
NZ has a mixed member proportional representation system, and winning the floating voter is even more vital. A major party can lose votes to the more extreme parties of its ilk, but they'll support it in a coalition (messy but workable). To govern, you must capture the middle. If the sentiment shifts, the major parties shift that way too. Plus ca change, plus ca meme.
Posted by: Owld Grumbleton | May 28, 2008 at 06:26 PM
I'd bet money that the appeal ,such as it is, of the fascists is "law and order" rather than "the darkies."
Personally, I suspect giving ratboys and people who like a fight something nasty to vote for, namely the BNP, will pull them in at the polling booth whilst working people say frig it, I'm not voting for any of the dishonest, patronising, willfully ignorant, self serving shitbags...I reckon that's where your swing comes from.
Posted by: Scratch | May 28, 2008 at 07:06 PM
I think you mean Oxford East... West is a LibDem/Tory fight...
Posted by: Innocent Abroad | May 28, 2008 at 07:39 PM
It what way are the BNP 'far-right'? Given their healthy appetite for nationalisation. Worker's control. Worker's rights and all the other baggage of a 1930's socialist? Of course they have that unattractive anti-immigrant thing, but what with Brown's call for "British jobs for British Workers" and Labour's anti-immigrant dog whistle politics in Crewe, the BNP seem to me to be the more 'traditional' left-wing party and that is why they wouldn't get my vote.
Posted by: Recusant | May 29, 2008 at 12:00 PM
It what way are the BNP 'far-right'? Given their healthy appetite for nationalisation, worker's control, worker's rights and all the other baggage of a 1930's socialist? Of course they have that unattractive anti-immigrant thing, but what with Brown's call for "British jobs for British Workers" and Labour's anti-immigrant dog whistle politics in Crewe, the BNP seem to me to be the more 'traditional' left-wing party and that is why they wouldn't get my vote.
Posted by: Recusant | May 29, 2008 at 12:01 PM
"So, could it be that ignoring its core support - and the rise in the BNP this threatens - is one of the prices we must pay for our first-past-the-post system?"
The core support of each party are the extremists. It is probably just as well if we pay little attention to them.
Posted by: ad | May 29, 2008 at 08:03 PM
"So, could it be that ignoring its core support - and the rise in the BNP this threatens - is one of the prices we must pay for our first-past-the-post system?"
The core support of each party are the extremists. It is probably just as well if we pay little attention to them.
Posted by: ad | May 29, 2008 at 08:14 PM
Given the New Labour have:
- suspended habeas corpus
- planned and waged aggressive war
- introduced ID cards and a DNA database
- expanded CCTV and now council surveillance to truly Orwellian proportions
- promoted hysterical fear of terrorism to decimate civil liberties and undermine the rule of law
- merged state and corporate power
I find this focus on the 'far-right' BNP something of a potemkin village.
Oops, I forgot:
- colluded in disappearance and torture
But New Labour are 'Centre-left'?
Posted by: Antipholus Papps | May 30, 2008 at 04:16 PM