British election defeats for xenophobic Ukip, nazi BNP

This video from England says about itself:

Meet Sieg Heiling BNP member, Nazi skinhead and BNP activist Tommy Williams from Sheffield. Tommy is a convicted drug dealer and a personal friend of the BNP chairman Nick Griffin. Tommy’s BNP membership was confirmed by the leaked BNP members list, and he was also photographed providing “security” for the BNP Red White and Blue Festival in Derbyshire as recently as 2008. Tommy also runs the “Covert Undercover Nuisance Tactics” blog (really, the name says it all) which openly supports the Nazi skinhead group Blood and Honour, who take their name from the motto of the Hitler Youth, as well as running a pro-B&H channel HowlingWolves14 on You Tube.

Predictably Tommy Williams also appeared (using his “sneakygits@hotmail.co.uk” identity) in the leaked list of the Blood and Honour website, alongside other confirmed BNP members like Clive McElhinney from Tonbridge, Andrew Nixon from Chester, Janette Brunning from Farnborough and Karl Powell from Merseyside, among others.

By Lamiat Sabin in Britain:

BNP demise cemented with complete vote collapse

Saturday 9th May 2015

THE DEMISE of the BNP was cemented yesterday after minority socialist and anti-austerity groups overshadowed the far-right party in poll results.

A total of 1,667 people voted for the BNP, but nearly every other smaller party, such as the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (Tusc) and National Health Action, overtook them.

The Tories’ disdain for unions and the appalling strangulation of the NHS in their hands — with more punishing cuts to come — led to Tusc and NHA gaining traction.

TUSC’s vote doubled to 36,327 from the last general election.

NHA, a group set up three years ago to fight the dismantling and privatisation of the health service, followed with 20,210 votes.

A total of 514,819 people voted for the BNP in 2010 but it failed to return an MP under former leader Nick Griffin.

He was booted out in October for trying to “destabilise the party.”

This year, only eight candidates stood — down from 330. The sharp drop suggests that the end is nigh for the extreme right-wing group.

Matthew Collins, of Hope Not Hate — whose campaign contributed to the collapse of the BNP, said that the party was “always going to fall short” as its membership was lower than 20 years ago.

“It’s no surprise that the party is severely doomed. It is dead,” he added.

The group Cannabis Is Safer Than Alcohol (CISTA) also beat the BNP, with 8,419 ballots cast in its favour. It was founded this year to campaign for drug law reform.

Only anarchist group Class War fared worse than BNP, attracting 526 votes shared between seven candidates.

By Paddy McGuffin in Britain:

A little to smile about as Farage fails in sixth MP bid

Saturday 9th May 2015

PADDY McGUFFIN ponders Farage’s loss and Ukip’s failure to make parliamentary gains

THERE was precious little to smile about yesterday for those of us on the left.

But you would have needed a heart of stone not to guffaw when Nigel Farage failed to become an MP for the sixth time.

After half a dozen failed attempts, you’d think he would have got the message by now. And maybe he finally has, although I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Ukip supremo — now ex-supremo — looked like someone had handed him a soft drink instead of a pint when the result finally emerged shortly before lunchtime yesterday.

Having promised an earthquake, Farage was quickly waking up to the realisation that it had been nothing more than a tawdry knee-trembler bitterly regretted in the cold light of day.

The result, in Thanet South, saw Farage comfortably beaten by his Tory rival, with Labour coming a distant third in the poll.

As the count was read out and the result became clear, the venue rang out with mocking cries of “Bye bye, Nigel!”

Farage’s grandiose predictions that his party would be kingmakers fizzled out like a damp squib.

The significant political gains he had confidently predicted signally failed to materialise — rather like the millions of Bulgarians he claimed were going to swamp the country.

Ukip even lost one of the two seats they’d pilfered from the Tories earlier this year through defections, when Mark Reckless failed to retain Rochester and Strood and the constituency reverted to the Conservatives.

In his resignation speech, Farage attempted to put a positive gloss on the steaming canine excrement of the Ukip campaign.

“I have seen a shift in our vote,” he said, in possibly the understatement of the year. “I saw it yesterday in Broadstairs. I saw people saying: ‘Nigel, we’re going to vote for you in the local elections, we love what you stand for, we agree with you, we can’t afford to have a Labour-SNP coalition.’”

For the last time, Nigel, the voices in your head are NOT real people.

He said he would “take stock” after the electoral drubbing. Well, that should take all of five minutes — make sure you’ve still got all your MEP’s expenses squirrelled away and bugger off.

The first thing on his agenda however, he said, was a holiday.

I’d avoid Europe if I were him.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Lack of Ukip breakthough is ‘enormous victory’

Saturday 9th May 2015

THE Stand Up To Ukip campaign group hailed the far-right party’s failure to make a breakthrough as an “enormous victory” yesterday.

Despite predictions of major gains from party leader Nigel Farage, Ukip was left with only one seat after the election and Mr Farage was forced to stand down after failing to win in Thanet South.

Stand Up To Ukip joint convenor Jo Cardwell said: “Farage came to South Thanet thinking that he could divide working-class people by using racist scapegoating.

“But what Farage did not envisage was the level of resistance to both his Thatcherite politics and attempts to divide us,” Ms Cardwell said, while adding: “Neverthless, it is now crucial we are not complacent.

“Ukip have scored some high votes nationally off the back of the disgusting scapegoating of migrants that mainstream parties and the media have also been engaged in.

“It is essential now we continue to build a broad campaign to challenge Ukip’s racism, bigotry and anti-working class agenda so that legitimate anger around the effects of austerity is not misguidedly aimed at migrant and minority communities.”

NIGEL FARAGE’S ramshackle stewardship of the right-wing UK Independence Party was in doubt yet again last night as senior party figures turned on each other in spectacular fashion: here.

A disgraced Ukip MEP who was expelled amid allegations of expenses fraud is still sitting with the anti-EU party in Brussels, prompting claims she has been “secretly” kept on to maintain its access to EU funds. Janice Atkinson MEP was thrown out of Ukip in March and is facing a police investigation for fraud, but she is still sitting with the party in the European Parliament, allowing it to claim higher levels of financial support and staffing: here.

A Ukip council candidate has been sacked by National Express after making disparaging remarks about interracial marriage – in another day of bad publicity for the coach company. Steve Latham, who is standing for Ukip in the Newton ward, in a Sandwell council byelection on 9 July, and is a coach driver for National Express, made controversial remarks on Facebook: here.

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