Most politicians have a set of long-held ideological beliefs which have driven them into politics in the first place and, while most find his ideological beliefs abhorrent, Nick Griffin is certainly no exception. From what I can gather, the opinion that dominates his political views is that this country was a 'better' place in the 1940s, if not at its best, because immigration to Britain since then has changed it, in his opinion, for the worse.
This is a bizarre opinion for many reasons, but, nevertheless, it is an opinion. However, if the BNP feel so strongly that this is the case, what is the point in them if they can't make any changes in line with this opinion?
They have dropped their policy of forced repatriation, and would simply offer a small financial incentive to migrants to return to their country of ethnic origin, and this would change things to a very small extent.
Ok, so they want to pull out of the EU, but so do UKIP; they want to reduce (or stop) immigration to this country, but so do UKIP (and others); they want to stop 'positive discrimination', but so do UKIP and, probably, the Conservatives. Griffin's brainwave this week to sink boats coming from Africa to Europe might not be a policy shared by others, but they are never going to be in a position to implement it.
What, therefore, is the Unique Selling Point of the BNP? The few concrete policies that they do have a shared by other, larger, parties anyway, so the only unique thing left about them is that they are clearly a bunch of racists and fascists covering their extreme views with populist rhetoric because that's the only way they can make electoral advances. Andrew Marr's interview with Nick Griffin this morning clearly demonstrated this.
All political parties make compromises with policies to appeal to a wider electorate, but most retain policies that are unique to them and their ideological commitments. The BNP has abandoned all its unique (and barmy) policies because Nick Griffin knew the Party would never make progress whilst retaining them. But, as a consequence, they are now scarcely more than a racist but impotent pressure group with a moderately good PR strategy, making electoral gains because the two main parties are constantly just fighting over the votes of those occupying a small patch of the middle ground.
The vacuousness and hopelessness of the British National Party should be their downfall, but it's up to us all to make that point clear to the British people at large.
