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Local elections: the politics of division? |
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The BNP fielded candidates in 40 different wards across Birmingham in the local elections in May 2008. Although it failed to gain a single seat, the results suggest the BNP has managed to tap into the concerns of a significant minority.
Of 40 wards contested, the BNP finished:
Across all of the 40 wards, the BNP averaged 7.52% of the vote. If Birmingham City Council employed a system of proportional representation similar to the Greater London Assembly, the results would be enough to give Birmingham its first BNP councillor.
It seems the BNP achieved its gains by exploiting resentment of funding targeted at ethnic minority groups and, in particular, immigrants. In one of its campaign briefings, the BNP lists 32 organisations that organise along ethnic lines, ranging from the National Black Police Organisation to Asians in the Media to the National Association of Nigerian Communities.
The brap position
Ill-considered government strategies that encourage people to celebrate, respect and promote the formation and attachment to groups based on ‘difference’ have had some unintended and unwelcome consequences, notably separatism and feelings of exclusion. And Birmingham’s election results show that separatism can be exploited by far-right groups to devastating effect.
There is mainstream provision for disadvantaged groups: the question is why this provision is not being accessed by everyone. Disadvantaged white and BME groups who feel they can’t access this support should be brought together to revise, reshape, and rework that provision so it’s responsive to everyone’s needs.
brap believes that equality can’t be achieved by reinforcing notions of the ‘other’. The irony is that many of the BNP’s voters share their economic and social disadvantage with the people their vote was aimed against. So if we want to tackle the politics of division, the challenge remains to enable all communities to recognize what unites them rather than highlight what divides them.
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