Kells & Sandwith result
Kells and Sandwith Cumbria County Council by-election result this evening.
This is usually one of the safest Labour county divisions in Copeland.
Previous election, 2005:
Joseph McAllister (Labour): 1,367 (65.8%)
Gordon Brown (Independent): 357 (17.2%)
Leah Higgins (Conservative): 355 (17.1%)
Labour majority: 1010
18th December 2008:
Wendy Skillicorn (Labour): 434 (41.7%, down 24%)
Simon Nicholson (BNP): 418 (40.1%, did not contest in 05)
Brigid Whiteside (Conservative): 190 (18.2%, up 1%)
Labour majority: 16.
Official turnout figures have not been released but I can say unofficially that the turnout was only about 25% and was depressed both by bad weather and the election being a week before Christmas.
In many ways an election at such a time, with a very low turnout, was a freak result, and should not be overstated, but for a party like the BNP to get such a large vote is cause for concern. There will be a lot of people asking how this could happen.
Just to be clear, I don’t think any mainstream party can afford to be complacent about the BNP, and we all need to find non-racist, and non-inflamatory ways to do something about the problems which are making people vote for them.
As the saying goes, for every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clear cut, easy to explain, and wrong.
That’s the sort of solution which the BNP all too often put forward, and the challenge for everyone else is first to find solutions which actually work and then persuade the electorate to support them.
This is usually one of the safest Labour county divisions in Copeland.
Previous election, 2005:
Joseph McAllister (Labour): 1,367 (65.8%)
Gordon Brown (Independent): 357 (17.2%)
Leah Higgins (Conservative): 355 (17.1%)
Labour majority: 1010
18th December 2008:
Wendy Skillicorn (Labour): 434 (41.7%, down 24%)
Simon Nicholson (BNP): 418 (40.1%, did not contest in 05)
Brigid Whiteside (Conservative): 190 (18.2%, up 1%)
Labour majority: 16.
Official turnout figures have not been released but I can say unofficially that the turnout was only about 25% and was depressed both by bad weather and the election being a week before Christmas.
In many ways an election at such a time, with a very low turnout, was a freak result, and should not be overstated, but for a party like the BNP to get such a large vote is cause for concern. There will be a lot of people asking how this could happen.
Just to be clear, I don’t think any mainstream party can afford to be complacent about the BNP, and we all need to find non-racist, and non-inflamatory ways to do something about the problems which are making people vote for them.
As the saying goes, for every complex problem there is a solution which is simple, clear cut, easy to explain, and wrong.
That’s the sort of solution which the BNP all too often put forward, and the challenge for everyone else is first to find solutions which actually work and then persuade the electorate to support them.
Comments
I don't agree with everything you say - for example, there are substantial differences between the Labour and Conservative positions, though nothing like as large as those between both parties and the BNP.
Unfortunately, however, more than four hundred people, over 40% of those who turned out to vote, marked the BNP box and therefore presumably do see it that way. We have to do more to address the problems which are causing this.
I have to agree with John that, in the public eye, there isn't much to call between any of the main three parties. Also, the BNP do address very genuine, non-PC concerns about mass immigration and the rampant destruction of our native culture, faith and heritage. The fact that politicians and the media can only call the BNP vile racists etc will never be a solution. It is an insult to the thinking voter. Stop name-calling and open a debate; if their policies are so wrong then they will simply fall down.
I'm a church-going author with a first class degree from a top-ten university. I also used to be a member of the Conservative party. When I was in the Paras my best mate was a West Indian. I am neither stupid or a racist, but given the chance in my area I would vote BNP.
Thanks for allowing my comment,
Glynn
Thanks for your comments.
You may have noticed that although I very strongly disagree with the politics of the BNP, I try to express this in constructive language. We will not address the problems which are making some voters see the BNP as attractive by insulting anyone who dares mention those issues.
It is extremely important that issues like race and immigration can be discussed in ways which do not stir up either racial hatred or xenophobia. I want to see fair and equal treatment for everyone legally in Britin, regardless of the colour of their skin, their religion, and whether they were born here.
I disagree with most of the arguments put forward by those who say that the attempt to avoid discrimination has been carried so far that the indigenous population is now discriminated against. But we won't eliminate that perception by calling everyone who expresses it a racist.
Unfortunately the impression has been created among a section of the population that the mainstream parties are ignoring genuine social and economic problems for fear of being accused of racism.
I don't think such a charge is entirely accurate, but I do think we need to do more to address some of the problems such as poor housing, and unemployment which are hitting some parts of society extremely hard. We must not let any social group imagine that the BNP are the only people who will do anything about their problems.
I also agree with fair and equal treatment of all. However, this is no longer the case for native Britons in the UK. A very recent example is a law allowing firms to employ non-whites in preference to whites, purely on the basis of their skin colour. This discrimination is fully supported by the Conservatives. Another example is the recruitment goal for 25.9% of all new police candidates to be non-white. Positive discrimination? I think not when only 8% of the population are non-white.
When considering fairness, one also has to consider what that term means. Is it fair for the vast majority of this nation to have its history, faith, laws, language and culture sidelined for the sake of immigrant minorities, especially when they do not want it? One example is the ratification of certain elements of Sharia law in this country. The vast majority are opposed to this, so how is it fair to allow this? And where is the sense in dividing the legal system that has protected our rights effectively for so many centuries?
I was a member of the Armed Forces and would gladly have given up my life in defence of our great country and its culture - just as my father, grandfather and great grandfather were prepared to before me. My grandad fought in WW2 to defend the country he loved - not for the King or to stop a Holocaust he knew nothing about (although he was one of the soldiers who liberated Belsen). I believe that the Conservatives are no longer interested in conserving what is great about our nation; instead you are standing by while it is being fragmented by multi-culturalism. After having studied the BNP for a while, I feel absolutely certain they have picked up the torch that your party has let fall; they are the only party that stands for everything that is truly British.
Once again, thanks for allowing my comments.
Have a very Happy Christmas,
Glynn
It has been a point of British law for centuries that two people freely signing a contract can write into it that any commonly understood set of rules or jurisdictions can be used to administer that contract. At certain points in my BT career I have been involved in drafting, BT's agreements with other telephone companies in other countries, and every one of those contracts had a clause about which legal system would be used to enforce it.
In that sense the option to use Sharia law has always been available, where both parties to a deal want it, under British law, but it has never been forced on those who do not want to use it.
One of the concerns of the Conservative party on this subject is to make sure that this remains the case. I am certain that we will succeed on this point, and therefore, if you are right that "the vast majority" do not want to use Sharia law, they will not have to.
I suspect your comments may have been influenced by the admittedly confused and unhelpful comments of the Archbishop of Canterbury about Sharia law.
Let me make clear that I agree wholeheartedly with the criticisms made by the Conservative shadow Community Cohesion minister, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, about the Archbishop's speech. A man in his position should have had the sense to realise how his comments were bound to be misunderstood and damage community cohesion.
But although Dr Rowan Williams should have realised that his comments were bound to be represented in ways which would do far more harm than good, this is no excuse for all the journalists who exacerbated that harm by seriously misquoting him in ways which were either incompetent or dishonest.
The Archbishop did not argue, as too many newspaper headlines have suggested he did, that the more barbaric and extreme forms of Sharia should be allowed in Britain. He said, in so many words, that no-one in their right mind wants this to happen.
Such principles have not been incorporated into British law, and will not be.
Neither did he argue for Muslims or anyone else to have a separate legal system: in questions after his lecture he stated explicitly that "I am not talking about parallel systems" but about how the law of the land can accomodate a wider range of people with the fewest conflicts.
There are plenty of valid criticisms which can and should be made of Dr William's speech, but an even greater hornets' nest was stirred up because an admittedly silly and unclear speech was very inaccurately reported.
A great many of the fears which lead people to support parties like the BNP are based, not on real problems, but on inaccurately reported stories.
The suggestion that there was going to be a mosque in Whitehaven was another such exaggerated story - a mosque was never proposed, there was a study into the possibility of an Islamic community centre, which was not pursued because there were not enough people who would have used it.
Your willingness to engage with BNP voters and supporters is a pleasant change from the shrill and hyperbolic kneejerk responses typical of most of those connected with the "mainstream" parties, particularly but by no means exclusively Labour supporters. The contemptuous dismissal of people with genuine concerns as evil or stupid and the "no-platform" antics of activists and councillors alike merely serve as a powerful recruiting sergeant for the BNP.
But I disagree with some of your conclusions.
Discrimination in favour of non-Whites is rife, usually in the passive form of fear of the "race card" or of being seen as a "racist". In over 30 years as a fairly junior manager in a large corporate, I saw it in action many times. Black and brown colleagues (obviously not my own direct reports) have boasted to me of their intention to deploy the race card to get their own way. In other cases, middle and senior managers clearly acted pre-emptively to avoid the possibility, actively favoring non-Whites or conceding to their stated or implicit demands. Trade union representatives exploited this fear for both ideological and cynical reasons. My impression is that this sort of thing is very widespread and possibly growing. Sensible measures to deter discrimination and xenophobia and promote integration, laid down in the 1960s and 70s, have in practice created a climate of fear, a state of affairs in which it is a close call for a White person as to whether being accused of racism or paedophilia is the more damaging to reputation, career and even life.
Also, your aspiration that people legally present here should be treated fairly and equally sounds fine in principle, and works in small-scale practice. Indeed, as a baby-boomer liberal I have always treated individuals as individuals, regardless of origin, in a manifestation of decent and unforced non-racism (as opposed to the smug, self-conscious, "hey look at me, I'm being nice to the Darkies" political anti-racism which seems to pass for decent behaviour among the Righteous Left).
But your good intentions break down in the face of numbers. I live in South-East London. When I leave my house shortly, I am more likely to hear Yoruba spoken on the street than English. When I catch the train into London, the odds are that Whites will be in a minority on the platform and in the cariiage. The voices of passengers conversing or talking on their mobiles will be in Yoruba, West African English, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Punjabi. To hear a native English speaker, of whatever colour, comes as a pleasant surprise. In major High Street shops in central London you find yourself communicating with the staff in a sort of international English pidgin. I occasionally undertake a particular 5-mile bus journey across South London. The bus is always well filled and people board and alight frequently. It is now a matter of routine to find myself the only White passenger on the bus. Think about that up there in Whitehaven: a double decker with 40 or 50 Black people and one White man, as a matter of everyday routine. If there are other Whites present on the bus, as soon as they speak they reveal themselves to be foreigners. The route travels through busy streets where you find yourself playing "spot the white man".
Those of the open-borders, post-nationalist persuasion will say "So what? - They're all people. We're all the same colour under the skin", (a sort of livid dark red, I guess), "This is the way of the future". There are two answers to that, both sensible. The first is the nationalistic view of the BNP and their cohorts, that this place is our "tribal homeland" and should not be overrun with all and sundry: that the UK is not, as many Africans I have spoken to seem to believe, some kind of terra nullius open for conquest and settlement. It does not seem unreasonable to me that as an Englishmen in my own homeland, I should prefer to find myself predominantly among other English people of similar language, culture and customs.
The second is a pragmatic one. In Cumbria, your now relatively modestly-sized immigrant population will be happy, even keen, to fit in. Not necessarily abandoning their homeland culture, no-one would ask that, but recognising the primacy of the native society and their own "resident guest" status. But once these communities reach critical mass, that changes. They will turn inward, they will assert their collective interests without concern for the natives, and they will favour their own, politically, socially and economically .
I can see London visibly balkanizing around me. And we natives, with our post-tribal national social structure, will be the losers. At least we can draw a little Schadenfreude from watching the Woolwich Somalis beating up the Afro-Caribbeans in preference to the few remaining Whites.
Unconstrained mass immigration, even more than the transition to a debt-driven consumer fantasy economy which is now so spectacularly unravelling, is destroying this country. I am, as I say, a classic liberal baby-boomer and was an Old Labour voter for the first half of my adult life. I have voted Green, LibDem and Social Democrat in my time, largely on a tactical basis. In the last London mayoral election I voted Conservative for the first time in my life, but that was more to get rid of the dangerous and corrupt Marxist Ken than out of support for Boris and the wishy-washy Cameroons. I do not want to be driven into the arms of the BNP or its ilk, but if the mainstream parties fail to address the issues instead of hiding behind cosy fantasy platitudes that do not reflect social and economic reality, then it may be only course open, whatever the consequences.
The last sentence should of course read:
... if the mainstream parties continue to fail to address the issues, preferring instead to hide behind cosy fantasy platitudes....
Sigh!
Thanks for your long and detailed post. You have obviously put a lot of thought into this.
Immigration always generates both benefits and costs, but regardless of the ethnicity and culture of the people concerned, those costs begin to increase exponentially once the numbers for net immigration begin to exceed the capacity of the economy and society to integrate the people coming in.
It is extremely important to emphasise that this is a problem of numbers and not of race or religion, and the numbers issue can still apply when white European christians are involved.
The current government's immigration policy has been an incompetently managed shambles which has frequently swung from one extreme to the other on an almost daily basis. All too often the result is that we get the worst of both worlds. We do need properly managed, non-racist policies to control our borders.
John - Glynn did say that he would vote BNP given the chance, but you did not, and I can't find anywhere on this thread the suggestion that you are a BNP voter or supporter. Happy to confirm that nothing I wrote was meant to infer that you are.