Bradford Respect Local Election Candidates Announced

Despite Galloway's breezy braggartry that his Respect Party would field candidates in every Bradford ward in the forthcoming May local elections, this has in fact proven to be far from the case. In total, Respect will be contesting only 12 of the city's 30 wards. Predictably, the ethno-confessional identity of its slate of candidates displays a certain bias, with 8 of the 12 being Muslim and one possibly Hindu (Karmani).

Yesterday, a rumour was reported that a Labour Party member in Manningham had defected to the Respect camp, and according to the Statement of Persons Nominated issued by Bradford Council, the Respect candidate is named as Ahmed Ishtiaq. Confusingly, an individual of that same name stood as a Conservative in Manningham in 2006, and not unnaturally in the initial draft of this piece I therefore got him mixed up with his namesake. As you can see from the comments section, the Conservative Ahmed Ishtiaq remains in the Conservative Party, and quite rightly has been rather annoyed that his name has seemingly been sullied by a false association with Respect. I therefore apologise to this latter Mr Ishtiaq who, contrary to what was thought earlier, can in no way be accused of being opportunistic. This error led to the seemingly bizarre situation of Ahmed Ishtiaq backing both the Conservative candidate Abid Majid in Bradford Moor and Respect candidate Mohammad Shabbir in Heaton. All  has of course become clear, now that we know that there are two Ahmed Ishqtiaqs involved in Bradford politics.

Another interesting fact to be gleaned from the list of candidates is the fact that the two ex-BNP councillors Paul and Lynda Cromie now sitting as Independents, have acted as the proposers and seconders of Michael Walls, the Conservative Party candidate for Queensbury. The BNP, which is fielding very few candidates nationwide owing to its implosion, is standing Eric Baxendale in the ward, so evidently there is no love lost between him and the Cromies. A local party which was born of a schism within the BNP some years ago - the Democratic Nationalists - is fielding candidates in Royds, Tong and Wyke. The BNP is now in such a poor state that Baxendale is its sole candidate.

Surprisingly, Respect has not been able to field candidates in Keighley Central or Toller, two of the wards identified in a preceding piece as being good prospects for the party. Realistically therefore, Respect only stands a chance of taking six seats. It may of course take none, although it should make a decent showing in those wards identified. Thanks to Galloway's popularity in Bradford West, the eyes of the media will certainly be eagerly peering at Bradford in early May. Will this really prove to be Galloway's "Bradford Spring", or will it turn out to be a "Bradford squib"?

The full slate of Respect candidates is as follows:

Bolton and Undercliffe - Tazeem Sawaiz
Bowling and Barkerend - Mohammed Asif Khan
Bradford Moor - Faisal Khan
City - Ruqqaya Collector
Clayton and Fairweather Green - Dawud Islam
Great Horton - Salim Jelani
Heaton - Mohammad Shabbir
Little Horton - Alyas Karmani
Manningham - Ahmed Ishtiaq
Thornton and Allerton - Patrick John Mulligan
Tong - Sarah Cartin
Wyke - James Philip Clayton

George Galloway & Bradford Respect Candidates

Guest Book Review: 'New British Fascism: the Rise of the BNP' by Ivan Winters

The following piece is a guest post sent to me by Ivan Winters of the Democratic Nationalists Party - a review of Matthew Goodwin’s ‘New British Fascism: The Rise of the British National Party (BNP) (Extremism and Democracy)’.

Firstly, I would like to thank Ivan for submitting this for the attention of readers. Secondly, perhaps a little comment is necessary by way of introduction. Ivan was one of Goodwin’s interviewees, and has been an active participant in nationalist politics for a number of years. Although he is currently a member of the Democratic Nationalists, he has formerly belonged to the BNP, UKIP and the Conservative Party. It is therefore interesting to see such a book reviewed by someone from within the nationalist movement itself, who possesses some insights that Goodwin, owing to his position, was not able to make. Of particular interest (from my perspective), are Ivan’s observations re Goodwin’s stereotypical assertions about the demographic characteristics of the BNP’s support base, for it is part of the mainstream mythology that almost all supporters of the BNP and nationalism more widely, are poorly educated and poor. This, if one accepts Winters’s analysis of certain wards with which he is familiar, proves to be erroneous. Indeed, it would seem that BNP canvassers avoided targeting some of the voter types and housing areas that Goodwin and others see as having been the most fruitful for the party.

Winters’s observations regarding the self-selecting nature of the sample, and the skewed impact of the small number of BNP activists interviewed (only 27), are apposite. A key point here is that individuals from professional backgrounds were reluctant to volunteer themselves for very obvious reasons, for BNP membership or support has ended the career of many an individual. In fact today, the voicing of sentiments that could be perceived as nationalist or anti-globalist, can have quite a negative impact upon your career prospects, certainly within the public sector (and that’s putting it mildly). However, to Goodwin’s credit, he did honour his agreement to anonymise his sources; so, although we may not agree with his findings or with his politics, I must tip my hat to Goodwin for his professionalism and ethics on this score.

Of course, Goodwin’s approach and methodology reveal significant flaws within the social scientific paradigm, with which all of us who have engaged in such research are familiar. Generally speaking, and unavoidably I am afraid to say, it falls quite some way short of the standards set by the natural sciences of chemistry, biology and physics, and cannot therefore be adjudged to produce knowledge of a similar objectivity or value. In fact much of it, as is noted in the review below, starts off not with a view to testing its thesis to destruction à la Karl Popper, but with finding evidence supportive of the thesis, which is often of a certain (usually Marxisant) slant. Well, before boring you with a discursive lecture upon social scientific methodology (which is unpopular enough with students of its various disciplines, let alone with normal members of the general public), I lay before you Ivan’s review. I am sure that he, and indeed I, would welcome any comments. It is published without amendments and represents solely the opinion of the author (although I do generally concur).

A review of ‘New British Fascism Rise of the British National Party’ by Matthew J. Goodwin. ISBN  978-0-415-46501-4. By Ivan Winters, Democratic Nationalists Party.

The first time I heard that Matthew Goodwin had published this book was when it was mentioned on Eddy Butler's blog. Eddy also mentioned that he was among the sample of Nationalists that Goodwin interviewed for this book. Actually Eddy both myself and Jim Lewthwaite were also interviewed for this book. Goodwin told us he was doing the interviews as part of a research thesis while he was at the University of Manchester. Since then he has moved on to be a politics lecturer at the University of Nottingham and the 'thesis' is now a 235 page book. If you think his name is familiar then, Yes, he is often interviewed on TV (usually the BBC) as the resident 'expert' on the British political far right.

The book is of course in some respects behind the curve as it talks of the growth of the BNP while we are now witnessing the (terminal ?) decline of the BNP. The book is well written in clear readable English. Despite having been written by what is effectively a social scientist there is little use of bizarre concepts or unintelligible theory names. There are a few typos but this is normal in modern printed material. Most publishers do not employ large numbers of proof readers because of labour costs (unlike H & D with it's excellent volunteer proof readers !) which means that if computer spell checks are used instead if a 'typo' is a valid word the system passes it.

The first three chapters of this book are a simplified history of Fascism/Nationalism in this country up until the last decade. I say 'simplified' for a reason, Goodwin has used existing sources for his 'research' and doesn't go very deep into the various parties or their leading personalities. In fact a reader can get better coverage of the NF and various splinter parties from approx 1990 to the present era using Peter Rushton's recent history series in H & D. As an example of Goodwin's failure to research in depth try this : 'join the Referendum Party, a Eurosceptic party that disintegrated shortly afterwards.' (P 133). The Referendum Party was of course a single issue Party, founded by the millionaire Sir James Goldsmith, in the run up to the 1997 General Election. The single issue the Party campaigned on was that the major parties should accept in their manifestos that Britain should not enter a single European currency without a National Referendum. By Polling Day in 1997 all three parties had accepted this. Having achieved his objective, Sir James, who was terminally ill with prostate cancer, wound up the Party (he died some six weeks later). Of course looking now at the carnage in the Eurozone the Referendum Party in 1997 may have done more for the average voter than the three major parties have achieved in 14 years since then. Because of Goodwin's sloppy research and failure to use easily accessible sources I would have to rate the first part of the book 4/10 as a Nationalist or 7/10 for non-Nationalist (a non-Nationalist would have received a basic but simplistic history lesson).

Turning to the next part of the book, chapters 4 – 6, cover the BNP's organisation, it's increasing appeal and the groups it appeals to for both voters and activists. In this section Goodwin sets out the sociological theories that he and other researchers have developed to explain the rising number of voters for National parties. He includes among 'other researchers' researchers who have looked into similar parties in Europe (FN, VB et). Having set out his theories he then goes on to produce 'evidence' to verify his opinions. In fact I hope to show, without having to make a great deal of effort, that his evidence is poor and methodology flawed !! Goodwin postulates that the main support base for Nationalist parties are the 'losers' in modern society. This includes unemployed, poorly educated, often older workers who are in semi-skilled or unskilled trades. A further factor which often applies in Nationalist 'hot spots' is exposure to immigration and the perceived competition for jobs and resources, social housing etc. Another factor which he repeats on numerous occasions is a mentality of being under threat from 'settled Muslim communities' (this is obviously different from  exposure to immigration as immigration includes non-Muslims such as Poles et). Finally he suggests that the groups involved have a feeling of 'disenfranchisement', in other words they think the three major parties have failed them and are disgusted by main stream politicians involvement in such sagas as 'Expensesgate'. I can begin by correcting Goodwin on one obvious item. 'Settled Muslim communities' is a misnomer as a combination of immigration, high birth rates and aggressive behaviour towards neighbouring non Muslims as is mandated under sharia law and the Quran means that 'Expanding Muslim communities' is a better description.

I could of course at this point point out the example of the most famous Nationalist Party in history ! Despite the fact that Hitler's Nazi Party had the word 'Arbeiter' (worker) in it's title (NSDAP) Hitler achieved election on the backing of middle class German voters who were among the great 'losers' of the Weimar inflation followed by the Great Depression. Most German workers voted Communist.

Turning to Goodwin's description of typical BNP voting areas I can look at my knowledge of two Met Districts in West Yorkshire, Bradford and Kirklees. I can well remember listening to a conversation with (Kirklees BNP) Cllr's David Exley and Colin Auty. Both were talking about campaigning in their wards. They avoided campaigning in 'social housing' areas, 'the estates' because people living on the estates either were not on the Electoral Roll, or did not vote or were 'tribal' Labour voters. They canvassed the middle class owner occupied housing in their wards.

Reviewing the two Met Districts in more detail let's start in North Bradford, Worth Valley Ward. This is a rural area of some villages, hamlets and isolated terraces of houses with virtually no social housing, in fact it is 'Bronte country'. One group that Goodwin misses completely in his theories is rural voters. At one time Labour was perceived as a 'Metropolitan' Party with the Tories and Liberals contesting for the rural voters vote. Now all three parties are effectively Metropolitan parties. A further factor leading to a feeling of 'disenfranchisement' among rural voters is that under the Heath/Walker local govt reforms of '74 and more recent reforms initiated by John Prescott many rural voters were moved out of being County Council voters and now vote in 'outlying wards' of 'Unitary Authorities' or 'Met Districts'. To see a further example of this let's mention one of BNP's first success stories in Burnley MDC, Cliviger Ward. Cliviger is not an inner city ward but a village several miles out of Burnley on the road to Todmorden. As further proof of continuing rural voter support for Nationalist parties the remaining BNP Cllr in Burnley MDC (also County Cllr) is S Wilkinson who represents Padiham, a small market town several miles from Burnley.

Returning to Worth Valley Ward the Cllr fitted Goodwin's theorem, C Kirby was a brickyard worker. Moving on to Keighley West Ward this fits the theory very well with two large council estates and a Cllr, A Clarke who was a single parent either on a low income or benefits. Moving down to South Bradford we have Wibsey Ward, an area of middle class owner occupied housing with one small estate (Smith Avenue – at most 200 houses) and some Asians moving in to one end of the ward. The successful Cllr, A Redfearn was a bus driver. Then we have Wyke Ward a mixture of working class and middle class owner occupied housing with a few high value houses, some Asians moving in and two small estates (Delph Hill & St Mary's – at most 400 houses). The Cllr, J Lewthwaite was a college lecturer now working as a security officer. Between Wyke and Wibsey we have Royds Ward. This has two large estates, Woodside and Buttershaw (the film 'Rita, Sue & Bob too' was set here !) but it has remained a safe Labour Ward. Finally, in Bradford Met, we have the Nationalist stronghold of Queensbury. This Ward, like Wyke, is a  mixture of working class and middle class owner occupied housing with a few high value houses. In a Ward of over 7000 houses the estate (Hungerhill) is approx 150 houses. The successful Cllrs, Paul & Lynda Cromie are self made millionaires !!

Moving down to Kirklees MDC I have already pointed out the Auty/Exley theorem of where their voter base came from. Turning to the Kirklees Cllrs Colin Auty was a self employed decorator (now a pub manager), David Exley is an electrician and the third Cllr R Roberts was a former Tory Cllr and a solicitor.

I would suggest one of the reasons why Goodwin's analysis fails to recognise the amount of BNP support among middle class, professional, academic, and monied groups is his methodology. His methodology uses a (very small – see below) sample of interviewees. This is a 'self referencing' system where some of the interviewees suggest to the interviewer other persons who the interviewer might find it 'useful' to talk with. Remember, of course, the BNP has had various 'security breaches' where professional persons who have had their BNP membership exposed have had their careers wrecked. As a result many professional persons, BNP members, who are contacted by a 'University researcher' asking to interview them for his 'thesis' are likely to say 'No' as they are worried that their confidentiality may not be respected and it could cost them their careers. In fact and to his credit Goodwin appears to have fully maintained the confidentiality of his interviewees. His interview methodology can arguably be said to have discouraged professional & academic members of the BNP from coming forward whilst unemployed and skilled/semi-skilled workers would not be deterred from being interviewed.

One alternative source of information about the employment of BNP members available in the public domain is the membership lists. Looking at the Nov 2008 list (M Single edition) we can glean a lot of info. Yes, there are no details of employment by some of the members but others are listed as 'Proof of entitlement seen' which means they are paying reduced membership dues as either pensioners, students or benefits claimants. Of the remainder there are a wide variety of employments including armed forces, professionals, academics, self employed, small business owners and some larger entrepreneurs such as S McLean. In fact that leads to another 'disenfranchised' group that Goodwin has missed. I am referring of course to current and ex-servicemen. These are people who have risked their lives for 'Queen and Country' but who now feel that the 'Military Covenant' has been disowned by the three major parties so they have to look elsewhere. 

One final point about the middle section of the book is that it contains  a substantial amount of statistics in one place. This includes opinion polling, comparisons of election results and a  wide range of other data. Two minor gripes are firstly that a couple of the statistical tables are presented as 'logistic regression model' which means that the figures are presented as a number such as '0.49' which has to be multiplied by the 'standard deviation' . Unless you have an A level in statistics those tables are meaningless.  Fortunately only a couple of tables have this problem but more seriously some of the  charts list results of 'opinion polling' but fail to tell you the sample size. Come on, even a 'tabloid' like 'The Sun'  reporting a 'MORI poll' quotes the number of persons interviewed.  If I had to mark the second section of the book  I would award 7/10 not least because of the range of data it provides.

Turning to the final section of the book I found this the most interesting reading. The section mainly covers what makes people join BNP (rather than just vote for it) and what makes them become 'activists'. One item that is referred to is 'collection action frames' (P 155) which are described as organizing ' the experiences and perceptions of of supporters', 'shaping how they define particular situations and conditions'. 'Frames render events or experiences meaningful'  'they simplify and condense often complex trends in society', ' they cultivate beliefs and meanings among supporters which legitimize their cause and inspire them to become active'. This and similar concepts such as 'survivalism' (you will all have heard Nationalist speakers speaking of population trends and stating that it is 'essential' to act today to protect our ethnic group because according to the demographics tomorrow will be too late !) are explained clearly and with good use of quotes taken from the interviews he conducted.

The final section of the book includes an index, the listing of the extensive notes and cross references to other sources and two appendices regarding 'Methodology'. It is here, on the first appendix, that I found a major flaw in his methodology. The interviews are listed by number of interviews, date and area of the country where the interview(s) were carried out. This shows that the entire analysis is based on 49 interviews with 27 activists spread over a five year period. Of these no less than four of the interviews were with N Griffin. In the later part of the period when this book was being written up, 2009-2010, BNP contested the County Council elections and the European Elections. In those elections the Party polled nearly a million votes and had a membership of 9-10000 members (NG claims more but I am using what I believe to be more reliable sources !). To analyse such a large organisation based upon 26 activists (ignoring NG again !) seems very thin evidence. Some of those interviewed may not even have been members – both myself and Jim Lewthwaite were in fact 'expelled members' when we were interviewed. Another flaw in the interview methodology is that Goodwin interviewed only in England with only one of the interviews in the (East) Midlands – once again I am ignoring interviews in Welshpool. So in addition to virtually ignoring the Midlands Goodwin totally ignores Scotland and Wales (he could legitimately ignore Ulster as being the interview period BNP was not registered to campaign in Ulster). Do members in the 'devolved regions' have different motivations for joining BNP compared to members in England. After all there are other, more successful, 'Nationalist' parties in Scotland & Wales. These are relevant questions as of course the book is about the rise of the British National Party not the English National Party but Goodwin fails to explore this area.

One final comment. Jim, myself and I understand other interviewees were told that we would receive complimentary copies of Goodwin's 'paper'  when he had completed his research. We are still waiting ! We were interviewed in 2008. Even the BNP has managed to get it's 2008 accounts submitted since then !

‘New British Fascism  Rise of the British National Party’ by Matthew J. Goodwin. ISBN  978-0-415-46501-4. Paperback 9.25” x 6.33” 235 pages. Published by Routledge. List price (paperback) £26.99 although it is available for less from Amazon. List price (hard back) £85.50 !!! Jim Lewthwaite obtained the copy I reviewed from Fred Wade Booksellers (an excellent source of specialist books) Halifax, HX1, (01422) 354400.

Andrew Brons to form ‘new’ political party?

So suggests a discussion on the British Democracy Forum posted yesterday; or, more accurately, it claims that he is to effectively ‘takeover’ a small existing one: the Democratic Nationalists. Could there be an element of truth in this? Before turning to this specific question, it is worth setting the scene with respect to the state of Andrew Brons’s current political home: the BNP.

Andrew Brons

The Rise and Demise of the BNP
A few years ago, the BNP looked as if it might hold out the promise of breaking into the mainstream of British politics and becoming a credible moderate nationalist party. Its membership peaked at circa 14,000, but has been on a downward trajectory ever since; now, the party is estimated as possessing between 2,000-3,000 members. Despite the protestations of its leader – Nick Griffin – and his apologists, the subsequent collapse in the BNP’s fortunes has not primarily been due to concerted media and political opposition, but to problems within the party itself. These include a lack of internal party democracy; bad strategic decisions; the adoption of some frankly outlandish policies, and the presence of some equally outlandish individuals with an inexplicable fetish for German National Socialism. This latter fact has of course given opponents of the BNP a very large stick with which to beat the party and its members again and again. Nick Griffin’s own failure to distance the BNP from Holocaust denial and his attempt to defend David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan on the BBC’s Question Time were both gratuitously unnecessary and disastrous for the party.

The failure of mainstream political parties in the UK to do anything other than vigorously advocate and facilitate globalisation, mass immigration and multiculturalism over the past couple of decades, meant that many people who joined and voted for the BNP did so not because they were ‘Nazis’ or ‘fascists’ as the party’s detractors liked to claim, but because they saw in it a potential vehicle for the articulation of their concerns. Unfortunately, this vehicle proved not to be roadworthy owing to its reckless owner and driver – Nick Griffin – a man whom time has revealed to be interested not in the salvation of his country, but in the salvation of his bank balance. He grew the party to a size at which he could make a decent living from its membership, and having done so, appeared to be content to tithe the party faithful and to purge the party of its more talented high profile members whilst promoting incompetents to senior positions. This, in essence, is why the BNP has been a manifest failure in terms of practical politics.

A Leadership Challenge and a ‘parallel party Structure’
Despite the aforementioned, some people of talent have remained within the BNP, and Andrew Brons, elected as MEP for Yorkshire and Humber at the party’s high watermark in June 2009, must surely rank as foremost amongst their number. He unsuccessfully challenged for the BNP leadership earlier this year, losing to Griffin by a mere eight votes. Some within the party blamed those who had left to set up the British Freedom Party or to join the English Democrats for Griffin managing to maintain his grip on power, and a degree of bitterness amongst some party members with respect to those who left – particularly towards Eddy Butler and his endorsement of the English Democrats – has been evident on this score.

Following Brons’s defeat, Griffin’s mismanagement of the BNP has continued with the consequence that the party has remained split down the middle, with the Brons faction last month making moves to establish a “parallel party structure” within the BNP in the hope that should Griffin finally bankrupt the party and be compelled to relinquish the leadership, an effective replacement would be waiting in the wings. Unfortunately for those advocating this approach, there is no sign that Griffin has any intention of going anywhere, which means that the parallel party strategy could prove to be futile. It is thus likely that Brons’s realisation of this reality has prompted his decision – should the rumours prove to be true – to join the Democratic Nationalists, a small nationalist party registered by breakaway members of the BNP in March 2008. The primary motivating factor for its formation was dissatisfaction amongst many members at the failure of the BNP leadership to address their legitimate concerns regarding the absence of effective democratic procedures within the party, as articulated on the ‘Enough is Enough’ blog.

The Democratic Nationalists: a suitable Vehicle?
Dr James Lewthwaite is currently the most publicly well-known member of the Democratic Nationalists. Unlike Nick Griffin, Dr Lewthwaite can be counted as amongst those who place their political principles ahead of personal interests, and for this he has paid a heavy personal price insofar as his academic career was cut short by the University of Sheffield because of his involvement with the BNP. He now works as a security guard.

Since its foundation however, the Democratic Nationalists have not fired the public imagination, and have polled consistently poorly where they have stood. One of the reasons is the party’s near invisibility and the modest scale of its resources. It is currently reckoned to possess somewhere in the region of 50-75 members, with its strongest base being in Bradford where it has previously fielded candidates at ward elections. Its website is in desperate need of a revamp, both in terms of its presentation and content. Its sketchy outline of policy needs to be fleshed out and content needs to be regularly augmented by topical articles, for it can appear at first glance to be essentially a ‘dead’ site dating from the early days of the internet. Alternatively, should Brons join the party, it could make more sense for the BNP Ideas site to be rebranded as that of the Democratic Nationalists, for BNP Ideas is far easier upon the eye and features a regular stream of articles that are of superior quality to those posted on the shoddy official BNP site.

The question is: why would Brons wish to join the Democratic Nationalists, and why would the Democratic Nationalists wish to have Brons? If he did join, what role would he assume? As a sitting MEP capable of bringing a significant number of members to the Democratic Nationalists and of removing the cloak of invisibility which currently masks the micro-party, one would assume that he would be given a senior if not the most senior role in the party. If so, one could perhaps draw a parallel with the recent experience of the British Freedom Party, which after its launch in November 2010 experienced a fractious first year witnessing an early split followed by many months in the doldrums, until last month its founding Executive Council members stood down in favour of the Chairmanship of ex-UKIP member Paul Weston who is now seeking to relaunch the BFP as a ‘new’ party. Might not Brons attempt something similar? It would after all, be a quicker option than launching an entirely new party from scratch, and represent a far more rational approach than the current wait and see ‘parallel party structure’ one.

If Brons moves across to the Democratic Nationalists no time should be wasted in setting out the party’s ideology and vision which must be tempered by electoral pragmatism: the aim of party politics first and foremost should be winning elections backed with a solid popular mandate. This necessitates focusing on a few key issues of concern to the public, first and foremost of which should be economic policy based upon sound nationalist principles: anti-globalist, protectionist and technologically innovative. Few people voted for Blair in 1997 or in subsequent elections because they wanted mass immigration, multiculturalism and the imposition of the attendant ideology of ‘diversity’ backed by stiff legal measures, but this is what they got; they voted for him because they were convinced that Labour could handle the economy more effectively than the Tories. It is primarily upon the question of the economy that elections are won and lost, and true nationalists have better solutions to the current structural crisis in which we find ourselves than the globalist free marketeers. The British Freedom Party had hitherto adopted an unambiguous anti-globalist economic policy, but since Paul Weston assumed the helm, I have a sinking feeling that it is rapidly shifting in the direction of advocating Atlanticist Thatcherite economic policies, as suggested by the following recent comment that he made in an interview published on the Vlad Tepes blog: “UKIP I think are good, and we are essentially UKIP but we will talk about Islam.”

Winning Elections
Today, the key to winning elections lies in effective communications and finely honing and disseminating messages that resonate with the public. Nationalists possess many messages that the public would wish to hear, but for too long the voices of cranks have drowned these out and caused the public to stop up their ears and refuse to listen. The cranks who have held back nationalism in this country for so many years must not be permitted to wreck nationalism’s prospects in the years ahead. A serious nationalist party must have nothing to do with them.

Another trap that should be avoided is that of becoming fixated upon a single issue with which the party becomes irrevocably associated in the public mind, as in the cases of UKIP and EU withdrawal; the English Democrats and an English Parliament; the British Freedom Party and anti-Islamism. A successful nationalist party will address all of these concerns, but should not make any one of them the central plank of its electoral campaign, for should it do so, it will undoubtedly fail. Yes, do air these issues, but keep pushing the nationalist position on the economy over and over again to demonstrate that nationalism offers our people the prospect of a better future than any of the alternatives. The conditions are right for nationalism to make a breakthrough, the only real things holding it back being poor strategy and fragmentation between different nationalist factions.

If Brons decides to switch parties, this will have a serious impact upon the BNP which could easily lose half of its existing membership as a consequence. However, it is likely that a small rump BNP would continue under Nick Griffin's leadership as a zombie party, offering a refuge for the hard of thinking and those predisposed towards the cult of (a deeply flawed) personality. This would continue to be a hindrance to nationalist politics in the UK insofar as it would siphon off the votes of that proportion of the nationalistically inclined electorate that is unaware of the reality of the party. 

One other question that naturally suggests itself should Brons join the Democratic Nationalists is: how will his employees Eddy Butler and Chris Beverley, both members of the English Democrats, react?