Saturday, May 03, 2003
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By Hasan Suroor
The Labour Party, on the other hand, suffered an embarrassing blow losing some 800 seats in what was billed as the first biggest test of public opinion after the Iraq war. The party admitted that it lost many votes because of the unpopularity of its Iraq policy, particularly among Muslim voters. But the BNP confounded its critics with an impressive performance. In a dramatic show of its strength in the racially sensitive northern England town of Burnley, it became the second single largest party after Labour as it picked up eight seats giving it enough clout to claim a place on the council's executive for the first time. The party gained five new seats in Burnley sailing past the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who had been widely expected to benefit from the anti-Labour sentiment. The BNP made its electoral debut in Burnley on the back of race riots two years ago, and its triumph in Thursday's elections shows that it has come to stay as a political force in this impoverished town after exploiting the latent racial tension between its white residents and the large Pakistani and Bangladeshi population.
Dismay
Mainstream parties expressed dismay as the BNP gained a foothold in several other areas winning 16 seats across England — opening its account for the first time in the South-East and West Midlands. "We went into this election as a party only in the north of England; now we are a party for the whole country,'' said its leader Nick Griffin, a savvy Hitlerite, who himself failed in his attempt to win a seat in Oldham — another immigrant town which the BNP sees as a potential haven for racist politics. The BNP's performance was seen as a slap in the face of anti-racist groups which have consistently sought to wish it away by dismissing it as a marginal force. Indeed, there were still attempts to play down its victories with Shahid Malik, a member of Labour Party's national executive saying: "We've got to get this in perspective. There are some 22,000 councillors in this country. The BNP have got 15 or so.'' But he acknowledged that even "one BNP councillor in this country is one too many''. The Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, accused the right-wing tabloid press of feeding xenophobia which was then exploited by groups like the BNP. "Peddling nonsensical stories on asylum has had an impact on people's views. Papers that have peddled these stories should look into their hearts and see what they have done,'' he said. The elections, which were fought mainly on local issues such as crime and asylum, saw the Tories and Lib Dems improve their positions at the cost of Labour.
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