The far-right British National Party won its first seats to the European Parliament Monday, revealing a troubling shift in British politics, and in an unusual bout of post-election organizing, tens of thousands of Brits have begun pushing back online.
"Hope Note Hate," a campaign that says it aims to counter and "expose" the BNP's "extremism," began collecting signatures Monday morning from citizens who feel the BNP does not speak for England.
The effort drew over 26,000 supporters in under 24 hours. That's a strong start for an unusual project; organizers are simply promising to deliver a list of supporters to the European Parliament when it swears in its new members.
Ari Melber
The far-right British National Party won its first seats to the European Parliament Monday, revealing a troubling shift in British politics, and in an unusual bout of post-election organizing, tens of thousands of Brits have begun pushing back online.
"Hope Note Hate," a campaign that says it aims to counter and "expose" the BNP’s "extremism," began collecting signatures Monday morning from citizens who feel the BNP does not speak for England.
The effort drew over 26,000 supporters in under 24 hours. That’s a strong start for an unusual project; organizers are simply promising to deliver a list of supporters to the European Parliament when it swears in its new members.
Gary Younge, a Guardian correspondent and columnist for The Nation, discussed the BNP’s rise last month:
In the absence of any confidence in the mainstream, a volatile and disillusioned electorate is poised to reward the margins. The European elections look set to deliver big wins for the nationalist United Kingdom Independence Party, the racist British National Party and the Greens. Thanks to proportional representation and the toothless nature of the European Parliament, these upcoming elections provide the perfect opportunity for a protest vote. But the signs are as predictable as they are portentous.
A party with historical roots in the working class that fails to advance the interests of that class will engender cynicism. New Labour’s electoral project was based in no small measure on the calculation that the poor had nowhere else to go. A small but determined minority have retreated into their national and racial laagers in search of solace rather than solutions.
The web activists are hoping to shame the BNP, and maybe bring some former Labour voters out of those laagers.
Ari MelberTwitterAri Melber is The Nation's Net movement correspondent, covering politics, law, public policy and new media, and a regular contributor to the magazine's blog. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where he was an editor of the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. Contact Ari: on Facebook, on Twitter, and at amelber@hotmail.com. Melber is also an attorney, a columnist for Politico and a contributing editor at techPresident, a nonpartisan website covering technology’s impact on democracy. During the 2008 general election, he traveled with the Obama Campaign on special assignment for The Washington Independent. He previously served as a Legislative Aide in the US Senate and as a national staff member of the 2004 John Kerry Presidential Campaign. As a commentator on public affairs, Melber frequently speaks on national television and radio, including including appearances on NBC, CNBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Bloomberg News, FOX News, and NPR, on programs such as “The Today Show,” “American Morning,” “Washington Journal,” “Power Lunch,” "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell," "The Joy Behar Show," “The Dylan Ratigan Show,” and “The Daily Rundown,” among others. Melber has also been a featured speaker at Harvard, Oxford, Yale, Columbia, NYU, The Center for American Progress and many other institutions. He has contributed chapters or essays to the books “America Now,” (St. Martins, 2009), “At Issue: Affirmative Action,” (Cengage, 2009), and “MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country,” (Inner Ocean Publishing, 2004). His reporting has been cited by a wide range of news organizations, academic journals and nonfiction books, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, FOX News, National Review Online, The New England Journal of Medicine and Boston University Law Review. He is a member of the American Constitution Society, he serves on the advisory board of the Roosevelt Institute and lives in Manhattan.