Now featuring on d-squared digest: All BNP, all the time!
By the way, while we're discussing the pros and cons of worrying about the BNP, we ought to be aware that when we're talking about "addressing the very real concerns of the white working class", this is the sort of thing we're talking about. Sheer fucking gesture politics in terms of its actual effect on council housing, highly nasty indeed for the small number of people who get affected by it, and all in all an expensive way to send out the message "there's no black in the union jack, signed the Labour Party" to floating voters in Barking. Yes this is certainly the sort of thing we should be doing in order to forestall the dread spectre o'er our land of the BNP possibly getting three seats on the Greater London Assembly.
Just to forestall confusion here, I'm certainly not accusing Dan of advocating Hodgeist policies. But there is a real political debate here, and it has to be recognised that if we're all going to have a big "worrying about the BNP" party, then this sort of thing is what's on the menu for all the mainstream political parties, and it is both a much more unequivocal signal (if you believe in that sort of thing, which I don't) and a much more directly racially polarising development (if you believe in that sort of thing, which I do) than a couple of low-turnout council seat wins. Which is why I don't want to eat at that particular restaurant.
(In the interests of fairness, since I have mentioned Dan by name here, he is unbanned from comments for this particular post).
Update: Of course, there is the Michael Collins approach of blaming it all on "liberals" or on the 60s (surely there will come a time when we no longer have the 1960s to blame? Anyone who was teaching even in 1969 would be coming up to retirement age now). Collins is to be honest not very coherent above; the factual content of his post is that a problem has been identified, the educational profession are trying to do something about it and there is decent reason to believe that it's class-based and amenable to some sort of targeted solution of the kind that has worked, a bit, for young black men. But this all appears to take second place to the need to have a go at "liberals", the constant nemesis of mankind, and obviously "multiculturalism" has to get it in the neck as well.
But it also places responsibility on new migrants to prioritise learning English when they choose to come and settle in Britain.
ReplyDeleteI wonder (an immigrant writes) if Hodge wants to estimate how many immigrants do not, in fact, try to learn the language of the country into which they move? I wonder if, except for those who are already quite old, she thinks the percentage is anything other than incredibly small among those who are actually intending to stay? I wonder if she realises that nevertheless it actually takes quite a while to become confident in a second language and that the provision of information in people's first language actually therefore saves quite a lot of time, confusion and therefore money?
Te jodes, Margaret.
if we're all going to have a big "worrying about the BNP" party, then this sort of thing is what's on the menu for all the mainstream political parties
ReplyDeleteMaybe so, but I'd rather not have the limits of the thinkable (or worriable-about) set by the current policy biases of the main political parties.
Or: no, the 'racist signalling' argument doesn't automatically (or even logically) lead to the conclusion that mainstream parties should send a racist signal right back. The fact that politicians like Hodge respond like this is part of the problem.
Well if not something like this, what are they going to do? The main demand of the BNP is that politicians should do something more for white people. If there's going to be a "policy response" to that, then it's either going to involve doing more things for white people, or telling white people that they don't really need things done for them. The second is unlikely to work, the first is what Hodge is suggesting. I would choose a third way (at present, and given my overall forecasts for BNP support), which is ignoring the problem and hoping it will go away (which as you know, I think it will).
ReplyDeleteIn many ways I prefer Hodge's approach to that of, say, John Cruddas, because at least she brings it out into the open where you can say "oi! hodge! no!", rather than pretending that the whole thing can be swept under the carpet by building a load of council houses (which might be a good thing to do independently but that's a different question).
ejh: I am enough of a Hayekian and free-marketeer to think that the best judge of whether it is possible for immigrants to function in society with or without learning English might be the immigrants themselves, or at least that it would be a bad idea to institutionalise the principle that Margaret Hodge was going to make the choice for them. Education in Welsh was actually compulsory for non-Welsh schoolchildren living in Gwynedd and I have to say in retrospect that it was quite a jolly waste of time.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure if I understand your point (or whether you have understood mine) since precisely what I'm saying is that immigrants do, indeed, tend to make the decision and to make it in favour of learning the host language. But it's damned hard work if you're older than about nine and it takes time. I think Hodge is latching on to the widespread resentment of the provision of information and services in languages other than English whereas I think it would be a splendid idea if someone were to point out that on a number of counts it's actually a very good idea.
ReplyDeleteI suspect Cruddas would be right to think that the problems would be much eased if a load of council houses were built. Where people fight for resources, that's where things tend to get nasty and people start explaining why they're in a group that deserve provision whereas different people aren't: and by that stage, rational argument tends to be noticeable by its absence.
Language teaching in Wales. My former partner, English, spent her teenage years in Aberystwyth and went to the "English" secondary school (as opposed to the "Welsh" one. She didn't remember much of the Welsh she learned there. But can you really demand to be exempted from Welsh lessons when you're in Gwynedd or Dyfed? What would happen then?
Of course there are similar issues not far from where I live, with teaching in Catalonia or the Basque country. I don't have any solutions to offer other than to observe that there are no simple solutions, and say something wet about goodwill on all sides. No es fácil.
pretending that the whole thing can be swept under the carpet by building a load of council houses (which might be a good thing to do independently but that's a different question)
ReplyDeleteSurely Cruddas's position on this one (which I endorse, pretty much) is that it's a good thing to do and that it's not a different question?
I'm mildly baffled by the turn this debate is taking. Brief recapitulation.
Hodge: the BNP vote matters, it sends a signal that racists are leaving Labour, we should therefore try and get the racist vote back.
Cruddas: the BNP vote matters, it sends a signal that white working-class voters have grievances, we should therefore identify legitimate grievances of white working-class voters and address those
Davies: the BNP vote doesn't matter, it's not all that big and there have always been some nutters out there
Out of the three, the Davies 'ignore it and it'll go away' approach seems more like 'sweeping it under the carpet' than Cruddas's.
yes, "sweep it under the carpet" was a bad phrase to use. I'd characterise it this way:
ReplyDeleteHodge: The Labour party should make a play for the BNP vote, and in order to do this we need to start enacting specifically racist policies.
Cruddas: The Labour party should make a play for the BNP vote, but it can do this with a sufficiently large council house building program.
Davies: The Labour party (and every other party) shouldn't bother making a play for the BNP vote.
The practical difference between Cruddas and Hodge is a question of economics and/or sociology - is there some housebuilding program which would be large enough to bring the BNP vote back to the Labour party and which is affordable?
I think that on this question Hodge is right and Cruddas wrong - I might be wrong, but I've never seen Cruddas actually back his proposal up with the sort of detailed numbers he'd need, and I don't actually believe that the reason why the BNP are popular in Barking has a lot to do with local housing not being affordable - houses are hella cheap in Oldham, Bradford and Wrexham, for example.
That's why I used the unfortunate phrase "sweeping under the carpet" - JC believes that the BNP vote can be won for Labour without any need for specifically racist policies[1], basically by throwing money at it.
I don't, hence I don't think the BNP vote can be won without racist policies, so therefore I don't think the BNP vote is worth going for. I would actually believe this even if the BNP vote was like 95% of the country, because they would still be wrong, but in actual fact I think the BNP vote is small and electorally unimportant, making it doubly not worth chasing. So I'd characterise myself as wanting to ignore the turd in the living room, rather than sweeping it under the carpet and apologies if you were just about to bite into your lunchtime sandwich.
In general, it worries me that Hodge and Cruddas are trying to impose a whole national agenda onto what is (substantially if not entirely) basically a local issue for their two constituencies. I am sympathetic to Cruddas who must be tearing his remaining hair out at having been gifted Hodge as a partner in the struggle, but I don't think either of them have got a particularly helpful view about what to do about the BNP.
[1]Using this term in the interests of "calling a spade a fucking shovel" - I am sure that Margaret Hodge would vociferously object to having her ideas described this way and there might be some merit to her objection.
(in other words, just to make this specific, when Phil says):
ReplyDeleteHodge: the BNP vote matters, it sends a signal that racists are leaving Labour, we should therefore try and get the racist vote back.
Cruddas: the BNP vote matters, it sends a signal that white working-class voters have grievances, we should therefore identify legitimate grievances of white working-class voters and address those
which I agree is broadly accurate as a description of the two of them, I disagree on two counts:
1) psephologically, I don't agree that the source of the BNP vote is Labour; I think they're instinctive Conservatives who in the past have either voted Tory or not turned out. (Cruddas himself got almost exactly the same number of votes in 05 as in 01; Hodge dropped a couple of thousand, but then she is Margaret Hodge).
2) politically, I don't agree that "identify legitimate grievances of white working-class voters and address those" describes something different from "try and get the racist vote back", which is arguable the other way, but see above.
Something which I don't think I raised in my own screed is that, even if you go all hodge about this, the BNP lies about it constantly, they have succeeded in the past by doing so, and they're not going to stop.
ReplyDeleteHodge and Cruddas are of course both conditioned in their views by being southeastern MPs where housing is the issue. Given that it is the issue in the SE, one might suggest that *doing something about it* isn't such a bad idea compared to the current policy of handwringing, pearlclutching, and barely concealed racism.
I think the BNP vote is probably sociologically very different in very different areas. I should also imagine that it would become more well-off, on average, the more successful the party became, both as cause and effect.
ReplyDelete[I think the BNP vote is probably sociologically very different in very different areas.]
ReplyDeletehmmm ... demographically, probably very different, but psychologically very the same. As I said earlier, the big question about the class profile of BNP is whether they swallow UKIP or vice versa.
[Given that it is the issue in the SE, one might suggest that *doing something about it* isn't such a bad idea ]
Potentially true, but what? Fundamentally, if you have a lot of people who want to live in the same place and you don't want to ration the land by price, then that is going to be a really expensive problem to solve.
Building lots of council housing, particular in Barking and Dagenham is a 1960s (and 1930s and 1950s) utopian dream of liberals, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteahhh but those were the old tower blocks which everyone knows were the result of an evil experiment, possibly carried out by postmodernists. The housing that Michael Collins wants to have built there consists of stone cottages, each with its own quarter of an acre of garden, like the middle class live in (absolutely all of the middle class live in houses exactly like this) and like the working class used to live in before they were tricked into abandoning their birthright for magic beans... err, tower blocks. By the liberals.
ReplyDeleteOf course this means that the boundaries of Barking and Dagenham will end up stretching well into Suffolk, but come on people, are we serious about beating the BNP or are we not?
Some years ago now, I went to a meeting organised by the developers responsible for what replaced the old Hulme (or rather the old new Hulme). They'd put a lot of work into consulting the community (i.e. the people evacuated from the flats) and paid a lot of attention to what the community actually said - I think it was in the contract. And what they said was (a) yes, these pictures of smart new medium-density four- and five-storey developments are very nice, but we'd rather have a house with a bit of garden, thanks all the same; and (b) yes, there are lots of exciting residential opportunities elsewhere in the city, but you did say we could have first refusal and we will, ta.
ReplyDeleteWhat struck me wasn't so much how predictable these answers were but how genuinely surprised the developers seemed to have been. You mean... you don't like living in a fourth-storey flat? Whyever not?
Of course, the result - much lower-density housing than had been envisaged, with much fewer empty properties than planned - was a distinct disbenefit for anyone else in the area who needed somewhere to live. Which is why you shouldn't ask people what they want, I guess...
Yes we have had similar exercises in North London. There's a bit that can be done with opening up brownfield sites and intelligent planning, but basically housing is always (how you want it, where you want it, at the price you want it), pick (at most) two. It is probably venturing into genuinely mindless contrarianism to defend every aspect of the tower blocks but they really weren't built that way out of sheer cackling evil, they were very popular at the time (and I note that although Camden currently has quite a lot of empty council houses, it doesn't have many empty flats in tower blocks, although this might be a result of demographics rather than anything else).
ReplyDeleteThis is my problem with the Cruddas approach - it's not just "build lots of council houses", it's "build lots of council houses in Dagenham" and it isn't obvious to me how you'd do this, or whether the white working class would actually thank you for removing right-to-buy which is a fundamental part of his deal.
There is a big problem in Barking and Dagenham with 'perception', encouraged by the BNP and by Hodge.
ReplyDeleteThe reality is that quite a few upwardly mobile people from ethnic minorities have moved to Barking and Dagenham to buy houses because they are relatively cheap there, which has the effect of making the borough visibly more ethnically mixed.
The 'perception' is that lots of brown people are being imported into the borough to steal the social housing that is the birthright of the salt-of-the-earth WWC people whose grandparents moved to the Becontree estate between the wars.
This 'perception' was most notoriously encouraged by the BNP in a B&D by-election in 2004, in which they claimed in a leaflet that Africans were being subsidised by the council to buy houses in the borough.
politically, I don't agree that "identify legitimate grievances of white working-class voters and address those" describes something different from "try and get the racist vote back"
ReplyDeleteYou believe that there are no policies in the set "not designed to appeal to racists" and also in the set "might persuade significant numbers of voters not to vote BNP"? That's a big and, to me, intuitively implausible claim - but I suppose a lot depends on where the BNP are getting the votes from.
the big question about the class profile of BNP is whether they swallow UKIP or vice versa
Dredging for information on UKIP councillors, while I was researching my recent feat of psephological anorakism, I came across a UKIP-friendly forum which had attempted to list all the current UKIP councillors - and given up. The problem is partly decentralisation, partly lack of resources, but mainly the fact that not all UKIP councillors sit as UKIP. Apparently there are several Independent and Residents' Association councillors out there who campaigned openly as UKIP members, and were effectively elected under UKIP colours, but don't rock the boat once elected by forming anything as crassly political as a party group. (Non-political people in politics, that's what this country needs. Non-political people who follow non-political leaders (like Kilroy) and read non-political papers (like the Daily Mail)...)
UKIP has the edge here. One or two BNP councillors elected this time defected to Independent status straight after the election, but explicit neo-fascism doesn't allow enough definitional leeway for them to be seen as sort-of-BNP in the way that other Independents are sort-of-UKIP.
1) psephologically, I don't agree that the source of the BNP vote is Labour; I think they're instinctive Conservatives who in the past have either voted Tory or not turned out.
ReplyDeleteI think that's pretty accurate. My gut sense (extrapolated from a sample size of 'my dad') is that Labour voters in 'traditional Labour areas' will say they'll vote BNP but end up staying at home and grumbling about darkies in the pub.
That was me, thwarted by Safari's odd interpretation of Blogger CSS.
ReplyDeleteYou believe that there are no policies in the set "not designed to appeal to racists" and also in the set "might persuade significant numbers of voters not to vote BNP"?
ReplyDeleteIt might not be an empty set but a) so far, what I've seen has looked a lot more like Margaret Hodge's latest go than anything else (and she is not the only Labour minister to have fished in this pond; Blunkett was very fond of having a go at the asylum seekers and b) as I've said, I don't think that it's true that the BNP vote is based in economic grievance and therefore susceptible to solutions that raise all boats (except impractical ones like throwing so much money at the problem that you stuff their mouths with gold, which looks awfully like buying Labour votes with taxpayers' money).
My gut sense (extrapolated from a sample size of 'my dad') is that Labour voters in 'traditional Labour areas' will say they'll vote BNP but end up staying at home and grumbling about darkies in the pub.
ReplyDeleteThis may well be true, but perhaps it's worth observing that the traditional Labour vote has shrunk: there are rather fewer gut Labour people about and the sons and daughters of the gut Labour people may have rather fewer inhibitions about (a) voting for a party other thanLabour (b) voting BNP specifically. In other words, it may not be people's dads who are the problem...
Do you think there'd be any mileage in middle-class BNP voting? I'm thinking about the Nick Cohen arguments about the British middle classes in London being squeezed out by the super-rich - the 'native' middle class, I suppose. I suppose that could be the UKIP's role.
ReplyDeleteSome of the BNP councillors who have been elected have in fact been elected for quite agreeable districts.
ReplyDeletebut remember, that the official meaning of "Middle class" in the sense Matthew and Nick Cohen use it is £100,000 a year. I think a couple of BNP councillors are UKIP defectors (and, embarrassingly for UKIP, vice versa). I can see a vague angle here for the native population of St John's Wood being priced out of their homes by economic migrants from American investment banks, or the English-speaking population of South Kensington feeling like an embattled minority surrounded on all sides by the French.
ReplyDelete