blueblood1920

Well we are new to this electioneering in Liverpool, the wards are big with around 7000 houses (11,000 voters) to leaflet and canvass. So in two years we have made great strides, We have now become the main opposition to Labour in 3 wards and are only about 100 votes away from taking more 2nds in about 3 other wards. However we now have learned how to electioneer and we are going to be planning some big things in Liverpool with election tactics not yet seen by the good men and women of merseyside. I predict that within the next 4 years we could have a handful of councillors on merseyside.

What we have in our favour now is that the Lib Dems are killing themselves, Labour on the verge of taking control to again kill themselves and we are building ourselves as the real alternative to the Libs and Labour in Liverpool. Also we know we have sympathetic councillors on councils in Merseyside

I know the Birmingham organiser, hes a good guy. Dont know what possesed him to move ti Birmingham though lol.

Dissident Congress

Time will surely tell although there is the possibility of the "Oldham effect" which has also occurred to a lesser extent in Burnley, Bradford, and Sandwell.

__________________
Dissident Congress

Promoting Populist Patriotism

Our Nation - Our People - Our Heritage - Our Future

Wowbanger TIP

Liverpool does have an unusual political makeup, I think I'm right in saying it once elected a Irish Nationalist MP of some description.

You might well be right that the people of that city have an unusually high regard for liberal principles, it could be argued that it has a higher degree of political literacy than the average. Deprivation often provokes an interest in politics and there is no more deprived city in the UK. However to suggest the city is unpatriotic is probably stretching the point, patriotism is simply a manifestation of basic human instincts which are hard wired into every individual.

The city clearly has a big dose of classically left wing voters in it, you only have to look at the make up of its MPs to establish that fact. Also the city has a famously long history of left wing trade unionism extending right up to the recent dockers strike.

In any case even if the electorate of that city were all fully paid up disciples of Mills the BNP has policies that would appeal to this tradition. After all the BNP's most commonly cited object of emulation is Switzerland, one of the most liberal countries on Earth. Also, in theory, the BNP's principle objection to Islam as a ideology is its extremely illiberal nature. It has a radical program of devolution of power to the lowest possible level and is supposed to be the champion of traditional British values of which liberalism is well to the forefront.

The problem is that excellent as the BNP manifesto is, no-one believes a word of it.

Wowbanger TIP

Obviously I have no idea of the results from individual council wards on Merseyside. However I would strongly suspect that talk of seconds and third places disguises the fact that the BNP is thousands of votes behind the winning position. The BNP in Birmingham has frequently talked about seconds and thirds for exactly that reason. In 2006 the BNP came third is half of Birmingham's 40 wards, second in two, this has had no discernible impact on the Party's fortunes as far a winning a seat is concerned.

As DC notes most BNP units follow a similar pattern. Initially progress in fairly easy as the Party has a support base of around 15% and all that needs to be done is stand paper candidates in order to exploit theses votes. However usually this will be followed by a steep decline in subsequent years as BNP voters despair of winning and the impact of Searchlight and Media counter offensives eats into the vote. In Birmingham the vote city wide dropped by a third (10,000 votes) in 2007 and compared to 2006 and have fallen again this year.

Moreover the effect of constant defeat inflicts massive amounts of attrition on BNP units.

I'm very glad to hear that after three years you have begun to understand the basic principles of electioneering. Although I am well aware of the daunting task of running canvass and mobilize campaigns in giant wards, Birmingham's contain around 20,000 voters apiece. Still extended year round campaigns building "Caucasus" could deliver results, although no BNP unit has yet been able to conduct such campaigns yet.

You are seeing here a classic and perennial problem afflicting the BNP. The learning curve of units is to slow to build momentum and counteract the withering effect of the oppositions propaganda. The BNP have known how to use concentration techniques since at least 2002 but no serious attempt has been made to disseminate these through out the party. Indeed no serious attempt has been made to spread even the most basic campaign tactics. This is entirely due to the leaderships failings. They are not interested in seeing you win elections because they don't want rival power bases forming, as happened in Dagenham.

The BNP has huge amounts of support over massive areas of the UK, moreover there is absolutely enormous support for its policy base. However in order to access this support the Party needs to professionalize and adopt not just ordinary conventional tactics but radical agenda setting methods such as those developed by pressure groups. It needs to unload its bullet magnet liabilities like Collett and Griffin and install a competent, transparent and trustworthy leadership.

Unless this happens you are wasting your time.

NB. I should be spending this effort supporting our mutual friends endeavors on other forums, unfortunately I am obliged instead to waste it pointing out the obvious to BNP members on boards like this. Hopefully sense will prevail, Griffin will be overthrown and the vast resources of the BNP's dissident movement will be at the disposal of the Party again.

Ken

Well then, what are we going to do about it?
And what evidence have you that the leaders do not want winning units?

blueblood1920

I think the point of these training schools are to teach members and activists the skills they need and then they can take them back to their groups and branches and teach other members. Also with Birmingham they have Demographics against them, but I would of hoped to have seen a few BNP councillors by now.

Wowbanger TIP

What am I going to do about it? What can I do except try to raise awareness of the problems among members of the BNP, which is what I am doing here.

If you look at the historically successful BNP units you will usually find that interventions form the leadership have resulted in the destruction or retardation of that unit. The best example being Burnley where Steve Smith, the original pioneer of real electoral campaigning, was driven out of the Party shortly afterwords. Similar event have occurred in Blackburn, Birmingham and Oldham. Even the very first "star" of the BNP Derek Beacon left the Party shortly after his success back in the 90's. Spence being another example of this. This is why Griffin has no obvious rivals, he just will not tolerate them.

Moreover if you look at almost any BNP unit you will very little evidence of any knowledge of even basic electioneering tactics. This can only be deliberate because the leadership, after decades of experience, are well aware that competent campaigns can produce results. We see a good example of this is Bedworth this year where the local organiser comes from a family with a long tradition of Labour Party activism and therefore knows what he's doing, won two seats this year. The same could be said of Pat Richardson in Epping.

The technique of swamping with "bussed in" activists a ward is a long standing one used to great effect by the Lib Dems. The BNP have used this occasionally such as in Sedgefield last year but it is not used as a matter of course. Exactly because it could produce results. When it is used it is always as a result of networking among organizers, no co-ordination is carried out by the regional organizers, like Simon Darby, at least in my experience.

I don't have a written confession but anyone with an understanding of electioneering looking at the BNP would conclude that it just has no idea of what its doing in 90% of cases. The leadership must be responsible for this and the only explicable reason is that they fear alternative centers of power emerging.

Not that this an illogical attitude to have. Currently around 5 of the BNP's councilors are renegade and fighting a civil war against the Welshpool leadership who do not have an elected office between them. This represents about 10% of the total number of elected BNP councilors. Although the Party have tried to disguise the figure by attempting to include unelected parish councilors in the total as of May this year. This also hides the fact that the BNP now has less than it had two years ago.

Wowbanger TIP

Sorry FE I did not express myself clearly. I was refering to the South Birmingham organiser, not yourself. And the forum in question was not the BNF.

Moreover I have not posted any posts from here on the BNF, indeed I wouldnt know how to do so.

For_England

My mistake. I'm done with BNF, and won't be discussing it anymore. I think everyone knows where I stand - it is a shame we couldn't all have a free board to discuss nationalism on though isn't it. I hope you stick around here - I enjoy reading your comments.

blueblood1920

I believe steve smith was convicted of electoral fraud and therefor kicked out of the party, now if Griffin kept him in then he would be attacked for keeping him in the party.