interesting read

Barking MP wannabe Nick Griffin gives some revealing answers in an interview in this month's 'total politics' magazine.
http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=809

Here are a few excerpts:

Some years ago, you went on an all expenses paid trip to Libya. Has the BNP ever had money from Colonel Gadaffi?

No, we didn't at the time. We got a big crate of green books, which promptly disappeared in customs, so we didn't actually get any.
But you were asking Gadaffi for money, weren't you?

We were asking them for money if they were giving it, yes.

You had no reservation about going to a government that supported terrorists, and asking them for financial support?

We looked at Gadaffi's ideas. A lot of what was said about Gadaffi in all probability is propaganda.....

You have this notion of going back to the 19th century and wanting to impose tariffs on lots of things, which would mean some products would double in price.

Sure, what we're looking at with the redrafting of this is to say, it has to be far more nuanced, that it has to be done over a period of time.

Your core vote, I imagine, is the white working class, not very well-off. This is going to hit them.

That's why it has to be done in a very steady, slow and nuanced fashion. As long as it's creating proper jobs and helping in a rather more closed economy, it's helping to raise the tax base. It's helping families to help themselves not being forced to be a burden on the state. It's going to be a benefit.

What about another one which would hit the same group of people, increasing VAT?

We've never said we're increasing VAT.

I think you'll find you have.

We believe the Labour Party and the Tories without a shadow of a doubt would increase VAT. We know they're going to increase VAT to 20 per cent after this election, and put it on food in harmonisation with Europe so it's coming anyway, and that's wrong. I'm sure we haven't said we'll increase VAT.

You need to read your own literature. How would you cut the national debt?

By stopping bailing out the banks because they've crippled themselves. They should all go to the wall. And we should simply pick up the pieces. That would stop it getting that much worse.

RBS, the Bank of Scotland, Lloyds - you'd have let them all go down the pan?

We'd have let them all go down the pan. And then we'd have nationalised all the assets and turned it into a national reconstruction bank so that where people are still paying mortgages and all the rest, there would be money coming in. We'd have looked after the shareholders and written everybody else off.

But what about national debt?

We would get it down. It's safe to assume there'd be a great reluctance of the assorted financial institutions around the world to lend money to a BNP government, although generally they lend to everybody, don't they?

At a price.

Well, there's a profit to be had, so they certainly would do. We would deal with the fact that we're getting into debt more and more by not being in the European Union.

I still haven't heard what you would do in the next two years to address the huge level of borrowing that we now have.

We would set about eliminating all the sectors of the politically correct servile state that we possibly could, which goes well beyond translators and all the rest of it. We are in a terrible hole. Things have got to be fairly drastic to deal with it. For instance, health and safety inspectors in restaurants, we pay a fortune for them.

That would save a pathetic amount.

It isn't made up of a couple of huge sums, this expenditure. It's across the board. It's an example.

How would you reform the benefits system?

By recreating a proper hard industrial base in this country to create real, decent, well paid jobs. That would raise the overall wage rates up and make it worth people's while working so they could afford to work. There are people all around the country who genuinely can't afford to work. It's madness. Once there's work out there that is decently paid and people can take it. If they don't take it and they're fit to work, they can starve.

Can you think of one positive aspect of immigration?

Well, a wide range of curries is a plus. But there again, I've got the recipes.

The reason I ask that is when you look across the range of policies you outline on your website, almost every one you look at - and you demonstrated it earlier with the environmental stuff - leads back to immigration.

It's a fair summary of the situation, as all things are interconnected. Secondly, it's a failing of ours and a failing of quite a lot of our writers, as they are all virtually untrained and virtually all volunteers. They write about things with their own glasses and perspectives on. We'd be better as a propaganda machine if we did have it separated out and even where you could see a connection we didn't point to it. But we're not a spin party.

Even though you like the spin chapter in Mein Kampf so much. In your 2005 manifesto you said: "We will end immigration to the UK and reduce our land's population burden by creating firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home." What does "firm" mean and what does "home" mean, because they are quite difficult to define?

Firm would mean that certainly in the case of serious criminals and illegals and people whose right to work was removed. For instance, when we left the European Union, there wouldn't be a choice about it. They would have to go.

Where?

If we are talking about the Eastern Europeans, who have got the right to come here, it is obvious where home is. With most people, it is clear where they have come from. If people have entered this country and torn their documents up, then even if they have been granted asylum, they shouldn't have been, and we would reverse that.

But if you don't know where they have come from, you can't return them there.

If you want to, you can virtually find out which village they come from in Africa with DNA tests. Someone has got to take them. But their presence here isn't fair. And it is not legal.

Just because you want to send them somewhere, doesn't mean that the state you want to send them to has to accept them. What do you do if they say no?

Well... we'll find some silly European liberal state which will happily take them. Someone will take them.

You reckon?

Yes, someone will take them.

"Firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home..." Is that policy still your policy now?

Yes, broadly so. Let's reword the bit in the case of ones who have no right to be here. It would be firm. It wouldn't be brutal, it would be firm. In the case of people who have come here legally, who are integrated into our society, we would say: "Look it is on the table. If you want to take it, you can take it."

There are about 5.5 million British people who have emigrated or are working abroad. Do you think that the countries in which they live should encourage them to return here?

That is up to them. That's their right. We have African leaders all over Southern Africa, begging Britain to stop poaching our NHS staff. They use them as cheap labour. They often aren't up to the skill levels that are the best that we can produce. Once they have been here, if we could say to those countries: "Here is money for infrastructure and so on. We will help you with foreign aid because you will have a larger population." We would use it partly to undo some of the damage that mass immigration has caused.”

total politics editorial sums up the interview thus:


http://www.totalpolitics.com/magazine_detail.php?id=807

At a time when Britain is not feeling confident about itself, the BNP is trying to play on emotions of fear and abandonment. Our interview with Nick Griffin contains the familiar rubbish about "bloodlines" being ended and his party's continuing infatuation with Islamophobia and anti-semitism. But beyond those serious points, the policies of this party follow no principle or reason.

Griffin wants to impose arbitrary tariffs on goods, making them more expensive and particularly hitting the less well off. Do people want a supermarket shop that might cost twice as much? He says he'd deal with national debt by getting out of the EU and scrapping health and safety inspectors. That's it, no other answer. He wants to find out which village in Africa asylum-seekers may have come from, using DNA. It's deep-set paranoia rather than offering voters an alternative.

The BNP is a legal political party standing for election. But when its position is scrutinised, it falls apart. The fact is the party is not a serious proposition - at anything. Its record in local government is pathetic; its councillors have a terrible track record in office. It's a tragedy that it is seen as a legitimate protest vote by some.

It was said the best disinfectant for the expenses scandal was transparency. The fact the BNP is racist is well-known. It is time to ensure its policies are transparently clear to voters, and shown to be ill-thought out, back-of-the envelope facades for its deep-set prejudices. We must trust the voters. We still have smaller extremist parties than other countries. But it must be clear that putting a cross by the BNP at the ballot box is no protest - because the party itself has no answers to anything, merely the smell of racism, hate and fear."


Strong stuff and bang on the money -

but just to reiterate - Mr Griffin's rather blase approach to relations to Colonel Gadaffi. Itw as all a big joke.
Tell that to the family of PC Yvonne Fletcher - gunned down by one of the Colonel's London embassy staff in 1984.

And interesting comments about imposing tarrifs which would hit exactly the white working class constituency that Griffin hopes will unseat Margaret Hodge.

And on benefits ...'If they don't take it and they're fit to work, they can starve...' nice.

And when it comes to immigrants - does he plan to DNA test the non-white population in Barking and Dagenham before he sends them home?

Interesting reading - and remember this man wants to be Barking's MP.