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Not-So-Secret Army
The Guardian leads with the news that one of its reporters spent seven months undercover with the hard-right British National Party, rising to the rank of Central London Organiser.
During his time as a mole, he came across a network of deception by BNP members. Middle class members had their membership details encrypted, while meetings were clandestine, members directed to "safe houses" by rendezvous points: Members were instructed in the arts of counter-surveillance to avoid detection by the authorities.
Leading figures in the party were also supplied with a guide on how to behave in public, in order to "reflect credit on the party", supposedly on the instructions of BNP leader Nick Griffin who is reportedly keen to clean up the party's image. Part of this drive involves orders not to use racist or anti-semitic language in public.
There are also plans to start campaigning in some of London's wealthier boroughs: Kensington, Belgravia and so on.
Terrifying stuff.
Really? A total of 229,000 people out of 7,000,000 voted for the BNP in last year's elections, just over 3.2 percent of total votes cast, though commentators fear the vote will rise. Because the votes are concentrated in Britain's grimmest neighbourhoods, this gives the far right council seats: 50 BNP councillors were elected in 2006 and the party became second biggest in the London council of Dagenham in May. It is also said to be gaining support in deprived working class areas in the north of England as voters lose faith in Labour.
However, there are 20,000 elected councillors in England and Wales. The BNP makes up only 0.25 percent of this.
That's not to say the BNP isn't a worry. Its anti-immigrant policies are unpleasant, and even its cleaned-up rhetoric is outrageous. Its members are regularly hauled up on assault charges, while Nick Griffin and a party activist were charged with inciting racial hatred earlier this year. Both men were cleared, and emerged from the courts claiming that they and other BNP supporters were being persecuted for uttering truths about multicultural Britain.
And it's likely that the Guardian's insider scoop will add fuel to the fire of the BNP's claims. For every reader who'll choke into his espresso upon reading of the party's wicked plans, there will be sympathisers who think, "well, it's no surprise the BNP's members want to keep their identities secret, if they can expect Guardian journalists to go snooping into their business."
The fact that BNP membership attracts such criticism from the establishment is worn as a badge of honour by many of its supporters.
Extremist parties thrive on what they describe as harassment by the authorities. In France, Jean-Marie Le Pen's oft-proclaimed outsider, anti-elite status helps him to a good 15-18 percent of the presidential vote. In Ulster, Sinn Fein used the same tactics, devastating the moderate SDLP who it accused of being too tied up with the Anglo-Irish status quo. Sinn Fein sure as hell didn't post its membership lists either. Indeed, when Loyalist terrorists got their hands on the personal details of SF members an enquiry was called.
The BNP also whinges about harassment by anti-fascist groups, who try to disrupt its meetings and marches: More evidence, as far as the party is concerned, that its members must go clandestine to avoid attacks in the press and in the street.
Cultivating a sense of persecution by authorities while pushing into respectable neighbourhoods with "clean up your act" tactics fit with Le Pen's Front National's strategy too. Le Pen's daughter Marine, tipped to succeed him as leader, is behind a drive to make the FN "respectable", cutting out overtly racist statements and distancing herself from the party's skinhead following in favour of disillusioned middle class voters in France's south and in the Paris region.
The BNP has a long way to go to reach the levels of support enjoyed by the FN or many of Europe's other far-right parties. It is short on brains, but has plenty of muscle. The antics of its, ah, "physical force nationalism" wing will ensure its level of support remains low. If it wants its ratings to improve, the BNP needs to ditch the thugs.
If that is not possible, it will fail: If it does remove the threat of violence from its philosophy, its manifesto will have to stand trial in the free market of political ideas like anyone else's.
Like its British ancestor, the National Front, the BNP could fizzle out or fall prey to factional in-fighting before it even gets there (does it occur to Griffin that there might be BNP supporters who enjoy making anti-Semitic remarks? What will become of them... well they could always join RESPECT).
Indeed, how much do we need to worry about a party that is so desperate for sentient members it promotes a mole - and a Guardian journalist, at that - to the post of London Organiser?
NB: Edited for spelling & clarity twice - hey, it's Christmas.
