Nationalist victories in Europe, but catastrophe for BNP
Posted by admin978 on May 25, 2014 · Leave a Comment
Results are being declared across the continent in elections to the European Parliament, and H&D confidently expects to report nationalist victories in Hungary, France, Austria, Belgium and Greece – perhaps even elsewhere.
Marine Le Pen’s National Front won the elections in France, with around 25% of the vote. In Hungary the nationalist Jobbik party has polled around 15%. The national socialist Golden Dawn party in Greece triumphed over far left terrorism and state repression, polling 9.4% to take third place nationwide and gain three MEPs.
Some of the best nationalist results were in Austria, where the Austrian Freedom Party has polled around 20% and should double its number of MEPs from 2 to 4.
In Germany the hardline nationalist NPD seems likely to have won a European seat for the first time, despite polling only 1%. The German constitutional court had ruled that the previous “threshold” system, under which parties needed to achieve at least 5% to win any seats at all, was unconstitutional – and the court later ruled against even a modified 3% threshold. Given that Germany presently elects 96 MEPs, this gave the NPD a strong chance. To be truthful, if German nationalists had got their act together they would easily have won several seats under the new system. But the movement in Germany is so chaotic that even minimal competence could not be guaranteed….
In Denmark the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party polled 26% and won most seats, but this is not really a nationalist party and would prefer to ally with David Cameron’s Conservatives – not even with UKIP, and certainly not with real nationalists. Similarly in Germany the new anti-Euro ‘Alternative for Germany’ party has made strong gains, winning around 7%, but their new MEPs would again prefer an alliance with Britain’s Conservatives. Another party of this ilk is in Finland: the anti-Islam but essentially conservative True Finns party who polled 12.9% (up from 9.8% last time).
In Sweden a more radical (though still mainly anti-Islamic) party, the Sweden Democrats scored one of the best results continent-wide, polling 9.7%, up from 3.3% in 2009 and electing MEPs for the first time. They will be part of a projected alliance with Marine Le Pen’s forces.
In the Netherlands, Europe’s best known Islamophobic politician, Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom Party, had a difficult start to the campaign when several of his own party officials objected to his apparent efforts to shift the party’s agenda onto a broader anti-immigrant stance. This internal party crisis over “racism” has led to Wilders’ party falling from 17% to 13%: they won 4 MEPs last time, but will drop to 3. Though they will presumably ally with the French National Front in the European Parliament, there remain big questions over whether they are nationalists or merely anti-Islam.
In Bulgaria the nationalist ‘Ataka’ party was crushed, losing both their MEPs after their vote fell from 12% to 3%. Bulgaria’s infant democracy – plagued by endemic corruption and economic crises – has seen several brief bursts of support for protest parties. It seems that Ataka’s moment has passed, with most of the vote shifting to a new party – ‘Bulgaria Without Censorship’, who have taken 10.4% in their first campaign.
Similarly in Romania the nationalist Greater Romania Party, which in 2009 elected 3 MEPs including its leader Vadim Tudor, slipped this year from 8.7% to 2.9% and will lose all three seats, having again lost support to various independent populists and protest parties.
The political and economic crisis which has damaged establishment parties across Europe has also had an effect in Spain, which until recently had a predominant two party system. Both the mainstream conservatives and the mainstream socialists suffered, but despite a lot of publicity the UKIP-style ‘Vox’ party has failed, polling only 1.6%. The big winners in Spain have not been nationalists or right-wing Eurosceptics, but rather the far left.
In Italy the big winners were the ‘Five Star Movement’, a populist protest party founded by television comedian Beppe Grillo. They took 25.5% in their first European election campaign, finishing runners-up behind the mainstream left Democratic Party. The big losers were the mainstream conservative ‘Forza Italia’, led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, whose vote fell from 35.3% to 17.0%. The regionalist ‘Northern League’ fell from 10.2% to 6.0%. Italian nationalists have paid the price for years of splits, and have fallen behind the extreme left. The strongest nationalist party, running a joint slate labelled ‘Brothers of Italy – National Alliance’, polled 3.5%.
Here in the UK the BNP were heavily defeated, with further progress for UKIP and an unexpectedly good night for the Greens. Every single result declared was a lost deposit for the BNP.
In the Yorkshire & Humber region the BNP lost the seat which was won by Andrew Brons in 2009. The BNP vote fell from 9.8% to 1.6%, a lost deposit and utter humiliation for a once proud nationalist party.
In the East Midlands region, which contains some traditional nationalist strongholds, the BNP vote fell from 8.7% to 1.6%.
In North East England the BNP vote has collapsed from 8.9% to 1.7%, which means a lost deposit for the party in that region. UKIP and Labour each gained a seat here, with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats each losing a seat.
Another lost deposit for the BNP was in Eastern England, where the vote for Nick Griffin’s party fell from 6.1% to 0.8%. UKIP topped the poll in this region, and gained a seat at the expense of the Liberal Democrats (who were again wiped out and this time finished behind the Greens).
In South West England the BNP vote fell from 3.9% to 0.7%, and the party finished bottom of the poll behind the English Democrats. Needless to say this was another lost deposit.
In South East England the BNP vote again collapsed from 4.4% to 0.7%: this was another region where the BNP finished behind even the English Democrats.
In Nick Griffin’s home region of Wales, his party’s vote fell from 5.4% to 1.0%: only a fraction ahead of the tiny Britain First party run by Griffin’s former associates Jim Dowson and Paul Golding, who polled 0.9%.
At 1.30 a.m. (UK time) we were still awaiting results from the London region, because Third World style chaos affected the counting of votes in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. This was no surprise to those of us who know the area… Eventually at 3 a.m. London’s results were declared, bucking the national trend by delivering a landslide victory to Labour and only modest gains for UKIP, who retained just one seat in the capital. But in one respect London was in line with the nationwide results: the BNP vote slumped from 4.9% to 0.9%.
Finally in Scotland the BNP vote fell from 2.5% to 0.8%, beaten by Britain First on 1.0%.
We will update this page tomorrow as final results across Europe become known, and the next issue of Heritage and Destiny will reflect on the future for post-Griffin British nationalism, as well as the prospects for some form of meaningful alliance between the wide variety of more successful European nationalist parties.
