Politics - Oh What a Carry On!

After many years of helping the Labour Party cause I decided almost on a whim to resign from the Party today.

I say resign but in actual fact what I mean is that I shall let my membership lapse.

Last Tuesday evening (9 December) I received a seemingly innocent email sent to me and other local members informing us of a BNP Christmas Party to be held in Crawley and a request to meet at the local B & Q to form a spoiling squad.

The actual email was sent via a completely separate organisation called Unite Against Fascism, which seems to have a large body of Labour Party supporters, but is clearly distinct from the Party.

I questioned why I was copied into the email as I am not a member of UAF or any other militant body, however noble their cause might be.

All I know of the BNP is what I gleaned from surfing the web a few weeks ago when their member's list was published to such a media frenzy one would almost believe they were the Ku Klux Klan.

Their website is bound to be biased but their Wikipedia entry is moderated universally so only fact allowed to be published. This makes me draw a conclusion that although I could never join such a party for my fundamental belief that repatriation is wrong, neither could I join a pro Capital Punishment group or for that matter the Tory Party as I have a fundamental belief it is wrong to take a life and I could never live happily with an unequal distribution of wealth whatever the other policies might be.

This doesn't mean I condone any militant action against someone who is not breaking the law and as far as I can see is merely a part of an organisation of like-minded individuals trying to lobby support for their misguided ideals. I seem to remember the founding father of the Labour Party having all sorts of problems with the militant tendency within and without his party and Mr Keir Hardie being publicly harangued by all and sundry, particularly for his radical support of women's suffrage - God forbid!

What possible political threat are the BNP? Apparently they have up to 100 local council seats across the UK, so if democracy demands they have a voice then so be it. Would we be incensed if they began to turn up to disrupt our Labour Party meetings?

But I hear you say - their manifesto is abhorrent to any right-minded citizen's sensitivities - but why?

There is much I disagree with within the Labour Party but on balance I agree with enough to want to help win an election and I agree with far more than I do with the other parties as I feel Labour Party members tend to have good hearts - on the whole.

As a Christian there is also a lot I disagree with within the Christian Church but enough I agree with to want to wear that badge and again, fellow Christians tend to have good hearts - on the whole.

Having a cursory glance at the BNP website and its Wikipedia entry I can quite understand a band of human beings signing up to it, perhaps hankering for nostalgia or having real fears about our country's identity as a sovereign nation. Although I believe it to be at best a misguided sense of patriotism founded on a fallacy, surely we have not become so corrupt that we can no longer allow free speech.

The philosopher Voltaire has had quite an influence on my life one way or another and ironically it is an apocryphal quote of his that springs to mind here. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” (Voltaire said something similar but these actual words were written by Evelyn Beatrice Hall, under the pseudonym S. G. Tallentyre in her 1906 biographical book The Friends of Voltaire).

Voltaire’s sentiment is right in my opinion and democracy lives and dies by the ability or otherwise to stand firm against militancy but not be drawn into a Sysyphean cat-fight.

Subsequent to my reply I received several considered responses mainly informing me of how the BNP have “encouraged” members to make obscene phone calls to our Labour Party councillors night and day and also that certain members were on their ‘red watch’ whatever that might mean. My immediate thoughts on this are that I would doubt a political party would act in such a manner (it is more likely individual member’s responses) but then again I was surprised to see the Labour Party taking such an ill-considered approach to a rival organisation! The point here is that if we looked after our own business and did not engage the BNP then we would not have to fight this pointless war.

I also received a response from a homosexual member accusing me of being homophobic. This was in fact the straw that broke the camel’s back as I pre-empted this response in my closing remarks.

For the record, I do not believe that homosexuality should be celebrated but that is merely a Christian viewpoint and nothing to do with this present argument. I also believe that homosexuals are human beings and I have the same love for them as I do any human being and so I certainly do not consider myself homophobic.

As it happens as the days have gone by I have received several more emails in support of my sentiments about “bully boy” tactics and how I should not be afraid to speak up for something I believe in. This heartened me considerably as if the truth be known I was very upset that I had upset this homosexual respondent as this was not my intention at all and it was on reading his reply did I feel I must withdraw firstly from the forum and after some thought, from the Party, as I do not want to make the same mistakes I have made in the past in my personal life by being insensitive to other people’s points of view.

I am not a political animal and I am certainly not PC, in fact I think the world is going mad, slowly but surely. I can no longer take my bicycle into places I have done for 30 years and when I ask why I am quoted health and safety laws. “What if someone was to fall over your bike or it fell on them”. Do we live in enlightened times – wasn’t this always a possibility. Have we had a glut of bicycle misfortunes lately that I have missed reading about?

Where will it all end – in disaster I’m afraid