BNP win seat on London Assembly

howard Sat May 03, 2008 at 03:04:31 AM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

In the general sadness and shock at Ken losing the Mayorality (and Boris winning) comrades may have missed a couple of things. First of all there were swings TO Labour in several places and we won an extra GLA constituency (Brent and Harrow, Navin Shah).




The new GLA Labour Group is:
Nicky Gavron (List)
Val Shawcross (Lambeth and Southwark)
Navin Shah (Brent and Harrow)
John Biggs (City and East)
Len Duvall (Greenwich and Lewisham)
Murad Qureshi (List)
Jenette Arnold (North East)
Joanne McCartney (Enfield and Haringey)

THAT'S THE GOOD NEWS....

The bad news is that the BNP also won a GLA seat for Richard Barnbrook. This is significant because they have only ever won council seats before. Neither the BNP or the National Front before them ever won a county council or parliamentary seat. So this is a new high water mark for them.

Barnbrook and the BNP won 130,000 votes across London - a big chunk of them in my own area of Bexley.

This is a problem which is not only not going away - it's getting worse. Now they have an office and staff in City Hall itself.

For more see the London Elects Website.

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BNP win seat on London Assembly | 8 comments (8 topical)

Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#1)

by treborc on Sat May 03, 2008 at 08:49:51 AM GMT

Labour knocked on my door a few weeks ago and said vote Labour otherwise we will have  Thatcher back, god she is to old to fart in case she dies. The BNP knocked on my door and spoke about everything that matters to people they hit the nail on the head, sadly I cannot vote for them, it does show the total failure of new Labour to understand anything


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#2)

by Angiem on Sat May 03, 2008 at 09:35:30 AM GMT

I am very saddened to see this. I am very sorry that our party has lost the mayoral contest and this makes it all the worse.

I think that if it had not have been for all the hard work that the anti BNP groups put in the picture may have been worse still.

For the sake of Londoners I hope that the new Mayor does his job better than Labour supporters expect him to.

I wish Ken Livingstone all the best in whatever he does now. I believe him to be one of our most talented politicians who has devoted many years to his great love of serving the people of London.


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#3)

by otware on Sat May 03, 2008 at 11:28:04 AM GMT

Labour has abandoned the working class vote. People bang on about how it's all about the cente ground and middle England, but this is the result of that thinking. It's time to get rid of the looser Brown!


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#4)

by bigpapi on Sat May 03, 2008 at 03:06:13 PM GMT

Please don't get carried away with this: going into the elections the BNP were predicting 40 council seat gains (they got 10) and 2 Assembly seats.  They failed on all counts.  For them not to get 5% in London would have been miraculous - to not get 8% and two seats is a great result for Labour, and the only positive thing to come out of London.


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#5)

by doctordunc on Sat May 03, 2008 at 03:15:32 PM GMT

Yeah, 5% isn't a huge amount (it does make me question these top-up things a bit, to be honest).  The bigger worry about the BNP vote this time was how high they were scoring in some of our safe wards.  It doesn't really show on paper because they are in wards we still won, but it's a worry (Barnsley, etc.)

Did anybody see the 'vote BNP' flag-wavers greeting Boris this afternoon?  Dear God.


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#7)

by oratorhunt on Sun May 04, 2008 at 03:49:32 PM GMT

Having a PR system at least means that the BNP will only get seats in proportion to their votes - and thankfully nearly 95% of voters in London didn't support them.  Unlike FPTP where there are now wards in both Burnley and Stoke where the BNP have 100% of the local councillors, even though at every election the majority opposed them. 


[ Parent ]

Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#6)

by Mark Wadsworth on Sun May 04, 2008 at 03:20:24 PM GMT

Is it really a problem? There will always be a small hard-core of people who will always vote BNP or NF, they have a captive market of plus/minus 5% of the vote, it'll never be much more and it'll never be much less.

 


Re: BNP win seat on London Assembly (#8)

by jkitleft on Sun May 04, 2008 at 09:57:44 PM GMT

The BNP is thriving because of two factors:

1) Is because fascism thrives during times of economic hardship for the wretched of the earth.
2) Is because in the borough neighbouring Barking & Dagenham, identity politics is the core ideal of (dis-)RESPECT.


[ Parent ]

BNP win seat on London Assembly | 8 comments (8 topical)