James Bethell is Director of Nothing British.
It’s sad to lose, but how are you meant to feel when your team just doesn’t turn up to play?
That’s how it felt after another no-show by the Right when a handful of the English Defence League provoked a bottle-throwing riot in Harrow and a weekend-long tummy-button analysis by observers of extremism.
There seemed enough airtime for anyone with an opinion. John Denham MP, the Communities Secretary, spoke thoughtfully about his fear of Mosley-style provocations that lead to the 1930s Cable Street riots, and then quickly replaced his sensible observations with nonsense after the Left accused him of pandering. Tony McNulty, the local MP, struggled to keep a straight face as he denied that Britain’s struggling working class have a legitimate grievance against the Government and defended multi-culturalism. Searchlight called for politicians to stop talking about immigration so much. A trendy-specs-wearing Martin Smith from the UAF was filmed (35 seconds into the clip) milling with the rioters with a big grin on his face.
The only thing missing was a contribution from anyone on the Centre-Right, let alone the Conservative Party. A request from Nothing British to CCHQ for a quote after it was all over on Sunday night got the response, “we’re waiting to see what happens”.
It was a typical example of the Right’s heads-down strategy that is rooted in the age-old but out-of-date “deprive the BNP of the oxygen of publicity” philosophy. After the BNP’s two wins in the European elections and nearly one million votes, this has become a convenient but dishonourable excuse for those wary of toxic subjects like immigration, social cohesion, Islamism, Europe and Britishness.
This silence has its dangers. If the Right does not step up to the microphone, they leave a vacuum that is quickly filled with a misleading liberal consensus: that the rioting in Birmingham and Harrow are caused by the Rothermere-ite press and manipulative British-jobs-for-British-workers political rhetoric; that the best way of restoring peace is to close down the debate about issues like immigration, integration and the competition for jobs; that these protestors are just dangerous yobs preying on the misguided fears of foolish people; that Britain’s ruling class doesn’t have a case to answer.
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