Voters? Concerns on Immigration Spin British Campaign

[Religious Dick]

April 16, 2010
Voters? Concerns on Immigration Spin British Campaign
By SARAH LYALL
LONDON ? Few people in the working-class neighborhood of Barking seem willing to proclaim unalloyed enthusiasm for the ultra-right-wing, anti-immigration British Nationalist Party. But get past ?hello? in any conversation and their feelings come spilling out.

?I?m not a racist, but they?re letting so many of them in,? complained Bill Greed, 66, speaking of foreigners. ?They come and sign on for benefits. A lot of the children in schools don?t even speak English. There?s so many illegal ones that the government can?t even find all of them.?

The B.N.P.? ?I agree with what they?re saying, but not with how they go about it,? Mr. Greed said.

As they prepare for the national election on May 6, Britons everywhere identify immigration as one of their biggest concerns. But in few places is the issue so urgent, or the electoral choices so stark, as in the borough of Barking and Dagenham, on the eastern edge of London. With little support for the Tory or Liberal Democratic Parties here, the race is between the unpopular ruling Labour Party and an emboldened B.N.P. capitalizing on its rival?s weaknesses.

Once Barking and Dagenham were white, blue-collar bastions, with 40,000 people employed at a huge Ford factory. Now 35 percent of the residents are from ethnic minorities, up from 5 percent 10 years ago. The factory has given way to a diesel engine plant with one-tenth the work force. Unemployment stands at 8 percent.

The influx has put a serious strain on services, particularly housing. Mick W., a 20-year-old maintenance worker who did not want to give his last name because he is employed by the Borough Council, said his family waited a decade for decent public housing while immigrants with large families leapfrogged ahead.

?I don?t mind the ones who come and get a job,? he said, ?but all they do is claim, claim, claim.? The B.N.P.? ?I can?t see them running the country, but I support what they stand for.?

The B.N.P. says it stands for many things, but chief among them is an implacable belief that Britain belongs to indigenous white Britons. Until a judge struck down the provision last month, the party had a whites-only membership policy. It favors an immediate end to immigration and the repatriation of people of foreign descent.

In 2006, the party won 12 of the 51 seats on the Barking and Dagenham Council, its strongest showing anywhere in the country. This time, it hopes to secure 14 more seats, enough to take control of the council, its 300 million pound annual budget and its 9,300 employees. It is also working to unseat Margaret Hodge, the Labour stalwart who represents Barking in Parliament.

Ms. Hodge?s opponent is Nick Griffin, the B.N.P. leader. A well-dressed, well-spoken Cambridge law graduate, Mr. Griffin, 51, has denied that the Holocaust took place, and also said that Hitler ?went a bit too far.? In 1998, he was convicted of distributing material likely to incite racial violence.

But in recent years Mr. Griffin has taken care to moderate his public statements as his party seeks mainstream electoral success. Last year, he was elected to the European Parliament from North West England.

In Barking, B.N.P. supporters are campaigning against Ms. Hodge by using her maiden name, Oppenheimer, apparently in a bid to court the anti-Semitic vote, and by falsely accusing her of supporting a fictitious plan that ? the story goes ? pays Africans to move in, presumably increasing Labour?s electoral base.

?It?s the most important election I?ve ever fought and the one I feel most passionate about,? Ms. Hodge said as she campaigned door to door last weekend. ?I came into politics to fight racism, and the idea that these people could get a seat in Parliament or get control of a council is just against everything I stand for.?

In a place full of angry, disaffected voters, many of whom did not want to come to the door or who closed it upon discovering a politician was standing outside, her task was not easy.

Ms. Hodge tried to enumerate Labour?s achievements, but then changed tactics as she gauged the anti-government mood on the doorsteps.

?It?s been a horrible time, but it?s a two-horse race here, I?m afraid,? she told one woman, who identified herself as a Tory sympathizer. ?If you want to keep the B.N.P. out, you?re going to have to swallow hard and vote for us.?

Fears about immigration are echoed across Britain, where new arrivals have added to a leap in population in the last decade. In a country that is already among the most crowded in Europe, the prospect of even more growth inflames people?s fears at a time of financial crisis and worries about terrorism.

Concerns that immigrants are unfairly taking up public resources in such places as schools and hospitals have been aggravated by anti-government newspapers like the populist Daily Mail, which regularly publish articles that gnaw at public anxiety.

Earlier this month, for instance, The Mail reported on a hospital with employees from 70 countries who spoke such poor English, it said, that they had to take state-financed language classes. On Sunday, the paper reported that Muslim women who are hospital workers are being now allowed to cover their forearms because of religious modesty, in contravention of standard hygiene rules.

Perhaps belatedly, Labour is acknowledging how deeply voters feel about immigration. On Monday, it said it would require that all local government workers who deal with the public be able to speak English. In Dagenham, Meg Hillier, a fellow member of Parliament and a minister in the immigration office, was campaigning alongside Ms. Hodge, armed with a sheaf of information about Labour?s immigration policies.

?We deport someone every eight minutes,? Ms. Hillier said. ?We fingerprint anyone who comes in for over six months. Foreigners now have to carry special national identity cards.?

Ms. Hillier said the government was not pandering to xenophobia, but responding to public concern. ?People are allowed to have fears about immigration,? she said.

At the Barking Saturday market, where white faces mingle with brown and black ones, and where burka-shrouded forms glide past women in tank tops, 72-year-old Freda Shaw surveyed the scene last weekend and shook her head.

?I don?t think the B.N.P. is the answer ? they?re just racist,? she said. ?But look ? there?s not one white shop here. Where I live, you need a passport to get in.?

As it happened, Dominic Carman, the Liberal Democratic candidate for Parliament, was campaigning down the street. He has a single goal: to stop the B.N.P.

?They?re the obvious beneficiary of the protest vote against the ineptitude and incompetence of Labour,? he said. ?The B.N.P. are capitalizing on the problems here by blaming it all on immigration.?

Mr. Carman gestured at the market stalls, a cacophony of noises and odors and exotic goods from around the world.

?The true spirit of multiculturalism is alive and well in this market,? he said. ?This is what Nick Griffin wants to destroy.?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/europe/17barking.html?pagewanted=2&ref=todayspaper

[Religious Dick]

The battle for Barking
Cahal Milmo reports from the east London constituency where Nick Griffin is trying to unseat a Labour minister

Saturday, 10 April 2010

The Koranic verses are ringing out from a stereo on Hamza Myatt's market stall on Barking's pedestrianised high street.

The 36-year-old ginger-haired and white-skinned Muslim convert swapped his life as a financial adviser in South Wales to proselytise for his new faith in the outer reaches of East London three weeks after the 9/11 attacks. He now spends market days noisily selling Islamic literature.

A few feet away from Mr Myatt's stall, at a mobile snack bar selling tea and bacon butties, where customers are trying on keffiyeh scarves and checking through DVDs on Islam for children, stands a furious Derek Carlton.

Pointing his finger towards Mr Myatt's loudspeaker, now broadcasting an imam's sermon, Mr Carlton, 46, a maintenance engineer, says: "Yes, I will vote BNP and that is why. I have no problem with other religions. What I have a problem with is when it changes the character of your town and you're not allowed to say anything about it.

"The BNP is saying what no one else will. Slowly but surely, people like me are being pushed aside in favour of outsiders. You can't tell me it's racist to be annoyed that my children can't get a council house in the same place as their parents because they've all been handed over to Africans and Muslims?"

Welcome to Barking and Dagenham, the former industrial heartland of the white working classes, now a bellwether for the rising fortunes of the far right.

It is far from unthinkable that the citizens of this London borough will wake on 7 May to find the British National Party running their council. If its confident prediction that it can more than double its contingent of 12 councillors comes true, a party whose leader, Nick Griffin, once denied the Holocaust and said "Hitler went a bit too far" will find itself in charge of services to 165,000 people and an annual budget of ?200m.

This weekend, hundreds of BNP supporters are expected to descend on the area. In an email, Mr Griffin appeals for as many members as possible to target the constituency over the weekend. "A victory in Barking and Dagenham will benefit every region and branch in the country, as a breakthrough of that magnitude will cause a political earthquake and publicity frenzy," he writes.

Margaret Hodge, the Labour minister and incumbent MP against whom Mr Griffin is standing for Parliament, is calling for supporters to come out in force to match the BNP's canvassing effort. Mr Carlton, one of an estimated 5,000-10,000 voters in Barking and Dagenham whoare BNP supporters, is the embodiment of a radical change in the far-right party's fortunes in this area.

In the 1997 general election, the BNP mustered just 894 votes, or 2.7 per cent of the vote. In the 2008 London Assembly elections, the BNP vote in some wards hit more than 38 per cent.

Alongside Stoke-on-Trent council, the BNP has made no secret of the fact that securing power in Barking and Dagenham is its priority. Mr Griffin has stated that his candidacy is designed to allow him to take the "flak" from anti-BNP campaigners while his activists focus on the "real prize" of the council.

The Independent understands the party is close to fielding a candidate for each of the 51 local authority seats with the aim of securing the 14 extra councillors it needs to seize its "prize". It could take as little as 1,000 votes in six wards to hand power to the BNP.

The roots of this grim transformation from a protest vote to candidate for power lie in what its opponents admit has been a "perfect storm" of issues that pander to the extreme right.

Against a backdrop of deindustrialisation which has seen the powerhouse of the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham wither to less than 5 per cent of its previous workforce, the area has experienced considerable immigration with some wards going from a ethnic minority population of about 5 per cent to up to 35 per cent since 2000.

As one opponent put it: "The BNP are like winter potholes. They slide into a gap in our communities and wait for bad weather." One such political "pothole", repeated to The Independent by a large number of residents, is the notion that the borough's influx of migrants is politically-inspired. A Government scheme to persuade immigrant families in inner city London to free up council housing by subsidising a move out to cheaper areas such as Barking and Dagenham resulted in 30 families moving in ? seven were white, nine were Asian, nine were black and five did not specify their ethnicity. The maximum subsidy was ?16,000. Most received about ?4,000.

This has not stopped the BNP running a campaign it calls "Africans for Essex", stating that the borough has been flooded with immigrants paid ?50,000 a time to slant the electoral arithmetic of Barking and Dagenham in favour of the ruling Labour administration, which has 34 seats on the council.

It is a fallacy that the extremist party continues to peddle, taking pictures such as Mr Griffin posing by a banner advertising a Nigerian Islamic group.

Eddy Butler, the BNP national election organiser until he stepped down last week, added: "The Labour Party has deliberately transported African migrants into this part of Essex to create an electorate willing to vote Labour." His words appear to strike a chord on the streets of the constituency.

The lack of social housing is a major problem locally and a key electoral issue. Margaret Thatcher's right-to-buy policy cut the housing stock in an area which includes the vast Becontree estate, the world's largest public housing project. Successive Labour governments have stymied the development of new homes, leaving a council waiting list of 11,695.

Last month, a scheme was announced to provide 145 new homes in two years ? the first new council homes in Barking for 25 years. Such has been the inertia of central government, the local Labour Party has distanced itself from its national policies. Phil Waker, the Labour councillor in charge of housing, said: "New Labour has been complacent ? especially on housing. We will fight any government on this issue."

By contrast, the BNP's response on the issue has been erratic. It set out plans for a giant caravan park of 1,000 mobile homes sited on public land in Dagenham set aside for permanent housing. When it was pointed out that the ?1,000-per-caravan budget would create a Steptoe & Son eyesore without facilities, the idea was dropped in favour of what Mr Griffin has dubbed a "sons and daughters" policy to give the offspring of current tenants first refusal on homes.

Placed alongside incidents including a local BNP vote against sending a message to congratulate the British Olympic team at the Beijing games because it included athletes such as Dame Kelly Holmes and Amir Khan, and the fact that BNP councillors occupy the bottom seven places for attendance, opponents say its record speaks for itself.

Mrs Hodge, targeted by the BNP with leaflets attacking the ?50m fortune she inherited from her Jewish father, said: "I have spent three years exposing the true nature of BNP councillors in Barking. I want to turn this threat into an opportunity to destroy their credibility nationally." The announcement last week that the BNP's head of publicity, Mark Collett, had been reported to police for alleged threats to kill, amid talk of a major split in the party's higher echelons, has raised hope among opponents that its challenge could implode. The BNP swatted aside claims that Mr Butler had stepped down, saying he was focused on Barking and Dagenham.

An unorthodox campaign may play a pivotal role in the "Battle for Barking". A nondescript office block on the A13, overlooking a corner of the vast Ford plant that once employed 50,000 but now provides 2,000 jobs, is the HQ of Hope Not Hate ? a coalition of activists including the Searchlight anti-fascist group, unions and community groups. It has been building a network among women's groups, churches and others uncomfortable with the BNP.

Its campaign will harness the full paraphernalia of modern electioneering, including an email list of 142,000 voters, telephone canvassing and targeted leafleting. Sam Tarry, the Dagenham-born activist leading the scheme, said: "The days have gone when the BNP could be dismissed as swivel-eyed Nazis. In the last general election, people were cagey about saying they'd vote BNP. That shame is no longer there. Our job is to expose the BNP for what they are so decent people don't vote for them. We will be relentlessly negative about what the BNP are ? their record in power, the criminal record of their leader and their damaging policies."

Nearby lies the council ward of Goresbrook, the epicentre of BNP support in Barking and Dagenham. Its streets are lined with terraced houses, many displaying the signs of right-to-buy ownership such as conservatories and extensions. One, with a Union flag and a St George's flag fluttering outside, belongs to Richard Barnbrook, the former art student with a penchant for erotica who is the BNP deputy leader on the council. He says London will be "decimated" by immigration if the party fails to win Barking and Dagenham.

As she walks past, Beryl Ferguson, 64, a retired shopkeeper who has lived on the estate for 42 years, begs to differ. She said: "I voted for that lot [the BNP] last time but not now. I've got Africans a few doors down and you get used to each other. We've got to rub along. The BNP don't want that, do they?"

Back at the market Mr Myatt is less optimistic. "Democracy is a bit of a myth in this place," he says. "We will have democracy for one day and then it is back to an elected dictatorship.

"The problem is that here we're heading for a BNP dictatorship. For the moment, they leave me alone but what if they come to power? They call Islam wicked. I'd love to meet them face to face and put them right. This is my country as much as theirs. What are they going to do? Take away my British passport?"

Barking: Result in 2005

*Labour: Margaret Hodge, 13,826, 47.5 per cent

*Conservative: Keith Prince, 4,943, 17.0 per cent

*British National Party: Richard Barnbrook, 4,916, 16.9 per cent

*Liberal Democrat: Toby Wickenden, 3,411, 11.7 per cent

*UK Independence Party: Terry Jones, 803, 2.8 per cent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-battle-for-barking-1940734.html

[Michael Tee]

People who are afraid of change, who want to roll back the clock, will be attracted to the BNP.  But it sounds to me like the other candidates are going to be relentless in exposing the Nazi ideology behind BNP, and most Brits do not take well to Nazis.  I think the Liberal Democrats will be the ones who really cash in on Labour's failures.  They've got a very articulate leader who by all accounts shone out in a TV debate with the other leaders and easily won the exchange.  Labour's day is done, I'm afraid.  They really abandoned their core constituency  when Blair took the U.S. side and invaded Iraq, and a lot of left-wing Labour supporters will sit this one out.