The European Elections and the Far Right 

Article by Victoria Hales. Edited by Sarah Purssell. Additional Research by Michelle Brien. 

2009 has been a tough year for Britain’s traditional governing parties. They have fought through a recession, a scandal over expenses, and a poor electoral turnout for the European Union elections. These factors have greatly benefitted smaller political parties as people turn away from the traditional groups to seek other, less corrupt, solutions. The results of the European Union elections show this trend. Although the Conservative Party still came out on top the smaller UK Independence Party beat the other two major parliamentary powers, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party to gain 16.5% of Britain’s vote. The sinister outcome of this shift to smaller political parties is the increasing popularity of the British National Party (BNP). The 2009 European Union election results saw the BNP gain two seats in the European Parliament and there was a political shift to the Right across Europe. This has sparked a worry that Britain, and Europe, will see a re-emergence of fascism in the twenty-first century. 

The BNP’s policies are situated on the far-right of the political spectrum and are very different from the politics we are used to. The strict anti-immigration stance that the BNP promotes is well known and is a huge contrast to the previous political stance that Britain has held, which has been politically accepting towards immigrants, especially to those from within the Common Wealth. Not only do the BNP want to withdraw from the European Union they also want to leave the defensive alliance NATO. This extremely nationalistic ideology is very similar to the beliefs held by the fascist regimes of the 1930s. The BNP has often been accused of being racist and one look at their constitution provides support for this assertion. Membership of the BNP is restricted to those defined within the terms ‘of a defined “racial group” this being “Indigenous Caucasian”‘ and the BNP’s constitution states that they are ‘wholly opposed to any form of racial integration’. These racist ideas are reminiscent of the Nazi attempt to create an Aryan Race both within Germany and throughout Europe, to the disadvantage of all other races. Politicians from the major political parties remarked upon the gains that the BNP made in the European Union elections warning that any more support for the far-right could lead to fascism becoming a threat in Britain. The media has also commented on the effect that the BNP having seats in the European Parliament could have on the rise of the extreme right. It is the BNP’s similarities with the fascist regimes of the early twentieth century that have scared people into believing that fascism is once again becoming a political force in Europe. 

Yet the BNP’s success in the European Union elections was extremely small. The BNP can not be seen as a threat to British democracy and the recent shift to the Right throughout Europe can not be seen as a force to rock European stability. The UK has a total of 72 seats in the European Parliament and the BNP have control of only two of these. On the other hand, the three parties that we are all familiar with and who are mainly situated in the centre of the political spectrum have a total of 50 seats and by far overcompensate for the existence of two BNP members in the parliament. The threat posed to British politics and society by the BNP has been exaggerated by both the media and politicians worried that their vote is being taken from them. The BNP are not likely to become politically significant in Britain for the same reasons that fascism has historically always failed to penetrate British society. The European elections use the system of proportional representation to allocate seats in the European Parliament, the British political system uses the first past the post system which makes it more difficult for smaller political parties to gain power. Thus the traditional political institutions of Britain mean that the BNP are not a party to worry about. The climate in which fascism succeeded in the 1920s and 1930s was one of harsh economic depression whilst societies were also trying to deal with the aftermath of World War One. The stability in British politics since the major changes post World War Two leave no room for extreme political groups and the recession that has recently hit Britain has not affected the country in the same way as the depression of the 1930s changed most people’s lives in Germany, leading to fascism’s breakthrough. However, the Great Depression of the 1930s struck Britain as well as Germany and there were still no major political changes, this shows the immense stability of Britain’s political system, which will probably not be changed by the recession of 2009. Thus Britain is not looking for a radical alternative political system or ideology, the BNP is not needed and therefore will not have political success. 

The BNP will never gain mass public and media support in the way that previous fascist groups have. Any political party tainted by association with fascism, and the dreadful consequences of the Nazi regime, will never again reach a position of real power within the established political systems of the democratic West. The worrying aspect of the BNP is not its link to fascism and the fear that the BNP may signal the beginning of fascism in the twenty-first century but its inherent racism, a belief and attitude that is not tolerated in Britain. Thus Britain’s politicians and media should be concerned about the fact that the BNP are becoming more popular, but not because it may signal a new era of fascism, rather because their political gains demonstrate a wider acceptance in Britain of their racist ideologies and this is something that must not be allowed to go any further.

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