A nasty taste

Sunday 9 September 2012

The title of this often-frightening book is lifted from a front-page headline in The Sun, suggesting an alternative meaning for BNP.

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Bloody Nasty People: The Rise Of Britain’s Far Right by Daniel Trilling Verso, £14.99 Reviewed by Doug Johnstone

It's interesting that Daniel Trilling, assistant editor at The New Statesman, uses that as a source because the book does a good job of highlighting how the mainstream media and mainstream politics have been complicit in the rise of ultra-right-wing politics.

Interesting too that in 234 pages, Scotland doesn't merit a mention. It might have been illuminating for Trilling to examine why the BNP and predecessor organisations such as the National Front have never garnered the same support in Scotland as in England. That aside, Trilling does an excellent job of charting the social, political, cultural and economic conditions which the likes of Nick Griffin have at least temporarily managed to exploit to gain elected councillors and even MEPs.The book jumps around in time and place, with a fascinating chapter about far-right politics in the post-war period, but Trilling's focus is mostly on the BNP, starting at their initial local council success in the Isle of Dogs in 1993. This was a template for future successes, initially in other deprived areas of London, then spreading north to the likes of Oldham and Burnley. BNP tactics are simple. They feed a sense of unfairness and disenfranchisement with party politics and social conditions, painting themselves as different from arrogant mainstream parties and fostering a sense of injustice. One of the more arresting themes here is how the far right's approach has changed over the years. For the most part (and certainly for their media image) gone is the ideological framework of racism – the idea white people are fundamentally superior. Instead, Griffin paints white people as a victimised underclass, manipulating a complicit media with fabricated tales of Asian families jumping housing queues, or police not prosecuting immigrant offenders for fear of being called racist. Trilling shows statistics never bear out the propaganda, but that barely registers with BNP supporters with a mindset very similar to that of conspiracy theorists. Trilling concludes by busting 10 myths about Britain's far right (such as "the threat has passed"), a passionate plea for us all to be vigilant.

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A nasty taste

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