The BNP: Both left AND right-wing.

As well as giving British fascists the chance to go and embarrass us on an international stage, the minor BNP victories in the EU election has led to some arguing that the BNP is actually left-wing, whilst it has led to others reasserting its place on the right of the political spectrum. Unsurprisingly, those who identify as left or right don’t want the BNP infesting their part of the political spectrum.

Of course, you can make great cases for the BNP being on either end of the political spectrum, and I’m not going to rehearse those arguments here. Suffice to say that the BNP is an extremist party, and as a result can sit at the extremes of either the left or the right.

Because aside from the rhetoric, there is bugger all difference between the extremes of the left and the right in practice. Hitler may have despised Stalin and vice versa, but the way they implemented their politics were identical. Hitler had no issue with bending industries to the needs of the state, just as Stalin had no issue with scape-goating and persecuting minorities based on race and/or religion. The BNP, which has the draconian and utterly ineffective economic policies of the socialist left combined with the traditionally* racist policies identified with the reactionary right, simply represents the extremes of any party or political position that believes the answer to the problems faced by a country is a strong state.

Which makes the BNP the best party to illustrate why a small state is best. The BNP are a statist party that want to use the state to suppress minorities and suppress the economy. They simultaneously show the dangers of the extremes of both the left and right wing – you give enough power to a statist party, and that party can break the economy whilst persecuting ethnic minorities on the wishes of a vocal group of ignorant, self-identified indigenous mis-fits.

Doesn’t matter if you are a Tory or Labour, right-wing or left-wing when it comes down to it, since the BNP can claim to sit on either side of that spectrum. Debates about where they sit on that spectrum are smokescreens for the fact that they sit at the extremes of both ends at the same time. On some levels, the BNP are on your side Tory Supporter, they are your neighbours Labour Supporter. If you are traditionally left-wing or right-wing, then the BNP simply represents some of the extremes of your political beliefs. If you want to take anything from this debate then it should be that the BNP simply show how meaningless it has become to talk about the traditional left-right divide when the real political debate should be about how much power you want the government to have.

*Although leftwing Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown adopted that racist, BNP sounding slogan of British Jobs for British Workers, showing that racism is not the preserve of the right.