Knocking on doors every weekend in Harlow, I sometimes come across people who say that they are disillusioned with the main political parties and they will be giving their vote to the British National Party (BNP).

The BNP misrepresent themselves in public to make themselves appear to be a mainstream political party. But the BNP is not a normal political party. It is a racist and fascist organisation that grows on fear, loathing and division. It offers cheap solutions for problems within Britain.  It stands against basic British traditions of fairness, tolerance, democracy and equality. 

As British, we are:

·        Proud Britain’s diversity is a source of strength. London was awarded the Olympics because it is the world in one city.

·        Compassionate The British are one of the most caring nations in the world. Live Aid, Band Aid and Make Poverty History all started here. The British public gave more per person than any other nation for the tsunami disaster of 2004.

·        Peaceful We want everyone to live together in peace. We understand that society is worse off when we are all divided.

·        Respectful Every year Britain remembers the 355,000 people who gave their lives fighting Hitler’s fascists and keeping our country free.

·        Promoting Equality We believe that everyone is born equal and that no one should be discriminated against because of the colour of their skin or their religion.

Fascism stands for the murder of millions, the annihilation of entire communities and the destruction of democracy and human rights. The BNP has its roots in the neo-Nazi group the National Front and has links with the white supremacist, violent group Combat 18. The Channel Five documentary Neo-Nazi Hate Rock showed that the BNP receives money from the sales of neo-Nazi hate music and fundraising. Leading BNP member Mark Collett was caught on Channel 4’s Dispatches documentary in 2002 praising Hitler and claiming that Nazi Germany would have been a better place to live than some parts of Britain.

What would happen if the BNP were elected?

·        The BNP would kick out all those people who were not born in Britain. What if every other country in the world kicked out the British? A staggering 5.5 million people would be sent back here – far more than would leave our shores. This includes 800,000 from Spain, most of whom are pensioners.

·        If non-white people were ordered out of Britain then the NHS would collapse overnight. 16% of nurses are from minority ethnic communities, as are 40% of new dentists and 58% of new doctors!

·        The BNP would introduce apartheid into Britain. The BNP call for whites to be given first preference in housing, education and jobs. This is no different from apartheid South Africa, a racist regime which the BNP supported.

·        Mixed-race relationships would be outlawed. The BNP constitution opposes any racial integration. Articles in BNP journals condemn mixed-race relationships as “mongrelising the white race”.

·        The BNP’s answer to violent crime is to allow every household to have a gun. This barmy idea was in the BNP’s 2005 general election manifesto.

The BNP claims to be the party of law and order but its ranks are full of people with serious criminal records.

·        They have several connections with people in regards to crime and terrorism. 

Most recent example: The conviction of ROBERT COTTAGE for possession of explosives has once again highlighted the link between BNP members and racial violence and terrorism. While the BNP moved quickly to distance itself from the actions of a man who stood in three local elections as a BNP candidate, he joins a growing list of BNP members who have engaged in some form of terrorist or murderous behaviour.

·        Chesterfield BNP activist Martin Glasgow was jailed for 12 months for a racist assault against an Asian man in June 2006.

·        Darlington BNP member Anthony Weeks was given a ten month jail sentence, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay £600 in compensation to his victim and order to do 80 hours community service after admitting racially aggravated assault against an Egyptian customer at his place of work, a local cash and carry. After telling his victim that he was a member of the BNP, Weeks then shouted "All you foreigners should not be in my country" before punching him. He was spared jail after his victim spoke up for him. The judge stated that "but for Mr Noaman's intervention, you would have gone immediately to prison."

The BNP are a single issue party and their record demonstrates that they just do not want to represent people:

·        In 2003, Broxbourne’s first BNP councillor was elected serving a four year term. The only time he ever spoke in the council chamber in those four years was to ask for the air conditioning to be turned down.

Common Myths:

They say: Immigrants are taking all our houses, the Council gives them preference over people who have been on the list for a long time.

The Facts: Bill Rammell MP wrote to Harlow Council’s Chief Executive who confirmed that 98 out of 100 people housed by the Council are people from the Harlow housing register. The remaining 2% includes those women housed in the Harlow women’s refuge. While the refuge does accept women from outside the area, women from Harlow needing this service also have the option to live in refuges in other areas. The only other occasion the Council agrees to house people from outside of Harlow is through a national system to help people move to be near friends, relatives or to their work. This system also allows Harlow people to move to other parts of the country as well.

They say: The Government has just given Harlow 2020 and Harlow Council a grant of £200,000 to provide better housing services for migrants.

The Facts: The Fund will be paid for by increases to migrant visa application fees. This means that the fund is paid for by migrants themselves. Migrants who bring dependants will pay an additional fee per dependant. This recognises the fact that those who bring dependants to the UK tend to consume more in public services than those who do not.

Secondly, one of the main criteria for the funding was the requirement to demonstrate that projects bring benefits to the settled as well as the migrant community in an area. For example additional English language provision for migrants will mean reducing the cost to public services from translation and interpretation to the benefit of the whole community.

What is the Labour Government doing to tackle illegal immigration?

The Government is delivering the biggest shake-up to our border protection and immigration system in decades.

Our tough new Australian-style Points Based System, together with our Earned Citizenship plans for newcomers, will reduce overall numbers of economic migrants coming to Britain and the numbers awarded permanent settlement.

Using the flexibility of the points based system that ensures we only have the migrants whose skills we need, we will now be more selective about the migrants who enter. And we will ensure domestic workers have a fair chance of applying for skilled jobs first.

We are delivering this through action in 5 key policy areas:

·              We are strengthening our borders – new UKBA with 25,000 staff to protect the UK border, with an additional £140 million to improve our enforcement effort.

·              We are more selective about who we let in – points-based system, only those with skills we need are let in.

·              We are ensuring fairness and ensuring newcomers play by the rules – earned citizenship rules make clear we expect newcomers to speak English, to work hard, support themselves and pay tax.

·              We are managing the local impact of migration - As set out in the Earned Citizenship Green Paper, we believe that newcomers should have to pay a little extra before they become citizens, creating a fund of tens of millions of pounds a year to help police, schools, councils and local health services deal with the short-term pressures of migration in their areas.

At this difficult economic time, we fully understand the anxieties people have about their jobs and the number of foreign workers employed here.  But equally, it would run contrary to the principles of the single market and indeed harm British people working abroad for us to exclude foreign workers completely from employment in the UK.

What would the Tories do?

In contrast, the Conservatives regularly ‘talk tough’ on immigration but they vote soft.

Amongst the measures, Tories have voted against include fines for hauliers who attempt to smuggle in illegal immigrants; the early removal scheme which allowed us – for the first time – to deport prisoners early on in their sentence and limits to benefits for asylum seekers;

The Tories claim they are serious about protecting our borders from abuse, yet they remain committed to scrapping the Government’s main methods of protecting our borders and individual identity, including consistently voting against the points based system.