Sunday 22 November 2009

BNP strongest in places with large muslim populations? Er...nope.

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Various folk have been going on about how the BNP are strongest in Muslim areas. The very lovely Al Jahom quotes Melanie Philips saying that these racist prats are strongest...

"...in areas of high Pakistani and Bangladeshi concentration — but significantly, not where there are concentrations of Indians. Strikingly, BNP support actually falls away steeply in Afro-Caribbean areas."

The evidence for this is an old Manchester University study that (quite crucially) contains no current psephological data relying instead on an old Ipsos-MORI poll and a literature search.

All this suits the agenda of folk like Melanie Philips who want us to believe it's all about Muslims but while that is a big element the statement above is false.

1. The BNP's biggest success has been in the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham where they won 12 seats in 2007

2. Other areas where the BNP has performed well include Rotherham, North West Leicestershire, Nuneaton and Barnsley. None of these areas (perhaps with the exception of Rotherham) have large Muslim populations.

3. The BNP's first breakthroughs - in Bradford, Oldham & Burnley did reflect a response to rioting in largely Muslim areas. But since this time the BNP has declined in these areas.

We can keep sticking our fingers in our ears and singing la-la-la if we like but I take the view that simply saying; "it's muzzies innit" doesn't stack up - that is a factor but has to be set against a host of others like housing policies, unemployment, a crap Labour government and a dreadful bunch of lying MPs.

Finally the BNP will not get 5% of the popular vote come the general election and their best performances are unlikely to see them exceed 15%.

Oh and Melanie, where is Nick Griffin going to stand at the General Election? Oh yes...Barking - right bang in the old NF East London heartland.

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Update: This link - in the comment below - is interesting (although it doesn't answer the question) in that it maps non-white population against BNP membership.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Damn, bitch. You slap hard.

And I see, from your opening remarks, that you are channelling Mummylonglegs.

In the meantime, must you insist on such trivia getting in the way of a jolly spiffing outburst?

Chairs,
Al

Anonymous said...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25541021@N00/4038713677/sizes/o/

Anonymous said...

@Anony: Every heard of white flight?

Anonymous said...

@aljahom: heard of it, but I remain unconvinced that it's motivated by race, rather than a desire for larger homes in quieter suburban streets where kids can grow up and play and access to better schools.