Waking up to a different London
Saturday, 3 May 2008, 08:29
So the BNP has one person on the London Assembly. If someone had offered us this two days ago, coupled with a net gain of just ten councillors across the country, we would have jumped at it. The media's one-sided obsession with immigration and migration and in particular the BBC's and Channel Four's fascination with the anniversary of Enoch Powell, together with the obvious collapse in support for Labour, meant we entered polling day fearing the worst.
Even the BNP was predicting 40 new councillors and three on the London Assembly.
That they didn't achieve this was down to the hard work of literally thousands of activists across London and the rest of the country. We have never had so many people involved in the anti-BNP campaign before. Against the odds, both political and climatic, decent people took to the streets and campaigned for HOPE not hate.
We suffered a few defeats but overall we held back the BNP, and in many areas we actually reduced their vote.
Even in London, their biggest prize, we succeeded. In 2004 the BNP polled 4.8%, just missing out on a seat by 0.2%. In the same election UKIP polled over 8%. Since 2004 the BNP has grown significantly in outer East London and generally become a household brand. With the collapse of UKIP we really believed that the BNP were on course for two, if not three, seats.
In the end they just got one. They polled 5.4%, hardly increasing their share of the vote. Obviously, the BNP getting anyone elected is bad but we can all be proud that we helped keep them to just that. Indeed, for much of the day we actually thought there was a chance that we were going to stop them altogether.
The campaign against the BNP will continue. We will expose the incompetence of their councillors, we will highlight the extremism of their politics and we shall work to bring hope instead of hate to communities.
There are several new fronts around the country where the BNP has now emerged and we have to start working. Next year we also have the European Elections where they will pose a serious threat in several regions. However, we feared that London would act as a springboard for future success but with just 5.4% we have shown that the vast majority of people continue to reject the politics of hate and that there is still everything to play for. And in many of their heartlands, such as Sandwell, where the BNP vote has halved in two years, we have shown that we can beat them anywhere.
I would like to finish be reiterating my thanks to everyone who got involved in this campaign. There are lessons to be learnt and techniques to improve but we can safely say that we did our bit to prevent the BNP making a major breakthrough and I look forward to continuing the fight together.
HOPE still won out over hate.
Nick Lowles
The BNP has failed to make its expected breakthrough in the 2008 local elections, ending up with a net gain of just ten council seats. More significantly, its vote in many of its heartlands has gone down, in some cases quite considerably.
On election day the BNP predicted it would win 40 new councillors and three seats on the London Assembly. However, when the first results came in, it quickly became clear that this was too optimistic. As the night continued the size of the BNP failure became apparent.
The BNP won three seats in Stoke-on-Trent and two each in Amber Valley, Rotherham and Nuneaton & Bedworth. It also took one seat in Thurrock, Three Rivers, Pendle and Calderdale. It also successfully defended seats in Epping and Burnley. This takes the number of BNP councillors to 55, up from 45 before these elections.
However, it also lost two seats it was defending in Epping and one in Kirklees.
In most areas the BNP share of the vote was well down on last year, which in itself was down on the previous election, particularly in its traditional heartlands.
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The fall in the BNP vote was especially surprising given Labour’s difficulties. Just under 80% of the BNP’s target wards were held by Labour but it seems that the BNP did not benefit from this. Instead, early analysis seems to show that many BNP supporters either stayed at home or switched to the Conservative Party. Suddenly, for those who wanted to register an anti-Labour vote, there was an alternative.
The BNP’s decline did not happen by chance. Searchlight and the HOPE not hate campaign had been working tirelessly in the key wards for many months. We organised telephone and doorstep canvassing, direct mail shots and localised leaflets. We worked with all the political parties best placed to beat the BNP and co-ordinated work with the trade unions, and faith and community groups.
Nationally, we joined forces with the Daily Mirror to run another HOPE not hate tour of Britain. In addition to our colourful old London bus, daily articles in the newspaper and a daily video on YouTube, we sent out over 150,000 “Get Out and Vote” emails on the day before polling. It was the largest ever email campaign in domestic British political history. Our finest hour came with U-Day two days before the election, when 700 volunteers braved inclement weather to deliver 200,000 campaign leaflets at 200 tube and railway stations in the Greater London area.
The BNP did not achieve its hoped-for breakthrough but there is no room for complacency. With the BNP on course to win one seat on the London Assembly and the European elections, contested under PR, only a year away, the BNP is still a major threat. We should be encouraged that the BNP can be defeated in its heartlands by a strategy that takes the party on rather than ignores it, but there is still a lot of work to do.
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