Why the BNP is not the voice of reason

The parties are full of talk about how they are going to build prosperity and maintain services and provide jobs.

But they’re a lot less willing to talk about the details of the tax hikes, job losses and cuts they’re going to have to make to keep the country afloat.

And then there’s the British National Party, which likes to project itself these days as the reasonable voice of the working man and woman, while keeping a lot more quiet about that awkward racist, Nazi thing lurking in the party’s background.

We invited all our local candidates to submit statements about why you should elect them and we published them on the website. (You can read them all here.)

The contribution on behalf of the dozen BNP candidates standing in Rotherham is full of talk about protecting greenbelt land, immigration control, welfare reform, support for the police - all nice, reasonable stuff that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from a Labour politican, or a Tory or a Lib Dem or any of the other mainstream parties.

So you’ve got to wonder why the candidates can’t actually STAND for a mainstream party.

You’ve got to wonder why truly reasonable people would want to be associated with an outfit like the BNP.

Why? Well here’s their leader Nick Griffin talking (at his 1998 race-hate trial) about the murder of six million people in World War II.

“I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth was flat ... I have reached the conclusion that the 'extermination' tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and latter day witch-hysteria.”

No, it’s not Mr Griffin. It’s a well-documented fact.

Mr Griffin has had a long career littered with court appeances, protests and controversy during which he has used the cover of “free speech” to attack Jewish people, Muslims, immigrants, gays, climate change campaigners, refugees, and black people, while allying himself with luminaries such as Colonel Gaddaffi and the Grand Wizard of the Klu Klux Klan.

He leads a party that grew out of the thuggish and overtly-racist National Front and which, as recently as last month, was banned by a court from recruiting any more members until it changes its constitution to comply with the Race Relations Act.

So, if you are tempted to vote BNP next Thursday you should be very clear what you are voting for - because they really are not telling you the whole story . . .