I’ve been reading an awful lot about the BNP in the lead up to the party’s leader, Nick Griffin, appearing on Question Time tonight. One article that particularly caught my eye was on the BBC News website as the corporation continues to stir up interest in tonight’s show. Dominic Casciani interviews several people, including the BNP group leader on Barking Council, Bob Bailey:
“What we have got here isn’t a community. It’s this group and that group. People move in, they’re transient with their five passports. Nigerians. Congolese, Polish, Lithuanian, lots of Russians.”
We’re sitting in a McDonald’s as he says this. The woman who served us was a headscarf-wearing young Muslim with a sharp East End “innit” at the end of her sentences.
To my left, as we talk, there’s a white family. The late-teens girl is sitting with her mum and a boy who is black. There’s another obviously mixed-race couple smooching and sharing an iPod. All of these people seem to be getting on just fine.
But none of this is visible evidence of a community in Mr Bailey’s view. It’s cultural “wash-out”.
“They can be civically British, with a passport, but they’re not ethnically British. Let’s face it, it’s the look-test,” he says.
Well, Bob, lots of people ask me if I’m Irish… does that mean I fail the ‘look test’ and should go home to, er, Buckinghamshire?
Image via Wacky Racists.
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