BNP handwashing

The Daily Mail and Melanie Phillips have always attempted to distance themselves from the BNP. And today's article by Phillips isn't the first time that she has tried to wash her hands of any connection between her constant anti-Islam columns and the anti-Islam views expressed by people like the BNP.

I've pointed out before how Phillips's rhetoric is almost indistinguishable from the drivel peddled by Geert Wilders; yet she attempted to call the BNP 'odious' before in an article which has mysteriously disappeared off the Mail's online archive - possibly because it was swamped with hundreds of pro-BNP comments, some claiming that Phillips herself was in no position to attack the party.

Phillips, of course, is as hated by the BNP as anyone else from a 'non-indigenous' ethnic background and if you should dare to wade into the Stormfront messageboard (and I don't recommend it just after breakfast) regarding that first article you'll see vile filth like this, under the headline "Jew attacks BNP":

The odious BNP is only gaining ground because voters feel so utterly betrayed.
No they are gaining ground, because you are a Jew, and people can see through your lies. They are fed up of this government treating them like second class citizens in their own country, being brushed aside for the Muzzie or Negro. Finally the sheep are waking up, and you Melanie Phillips should apologise... for being a Jew.
You are a traitor to this country, and a traitor to the White Race. I shall add you to the list Melanie ;)

Awful. Today's piece from Phillips is basically the same argument in slightly different words - essentially the BNP are gaining ground because the PC Government refuses to tackle Muslim extremism:

But that is not the reason for his appeal. Those who support him do not in the main do so because they are racially prejudiced. It is because he also opposes mass immigration, Islamisation and the loss of sovereignty to the EU.
These are all legitimate concerns which are widely held by people who fear the loss of Britain's historic identity - but which are stigmatised as beyond the pale by an intelligentsia which considers any such expression of nationalistic sentiment to be a form of racism.

I don't know whether Phillips thinks that people who are going to 'add her to a list' for being Jewish are really expressing legitimate concerns about immigration which are denied to them by a liberal intelligentsia. What do you think? I always look for the simplest answer - that people are racist because they're racist, and that racism is racism because it's racism. Sure, you can dress it up any way you like, but it's still racism.

According to Phillips, if you call racism racism then you're only making it worse. What shall we call it then? Parsnips? People are being parsnips because they hate immigrants. There. Is that better somehow? No, I didn't think so.

Melanie again:

Such distinctions should fool no one. The BNP is hostile not merely to Islamic supremacists but to all Muslims, including those who threaten no one's way of life.

What is the difference between extremist Muslims and ordinary Muslims though? Not a great deal, if you're Melanie Phillips:

The problem, however, is that it doesn't understand what Muslim extremism is. Believing that Islamic terrorism is motivated by an ideology which has 'hijacked' and distorted Islam, it will not acknowledge the extremism within mainstream Islam itself.

*

As Rhetorically Speaking points out:

It's a really rather important distinction for Phillips to create because she has herself been a regular proponent of the idea that radical Islamists are trying to turn Britain into an Islamic nation under Sharia law.
Furthermore, Phillips has proven rather careless in drawing a line between mainstream UK Muslims and the supposed radical plots of a minority - either blaming the mainstream for failing to respond to her personal conspiracy theories, or failing to mention the majority mainstream at all.

This happens from time to time. The Mail often attempts to draw a line in the sand, despite its frequent attacks on Islam and moderate Muslims from news reports and commentators alike, that it is nothing to do with the rise of the BNP. Which may be true, but if you do venture onto BNP forums you'll find one newspaper above all others which is constantly linked to as evidence of immigration madness and Muslims taking over Britain - the Daily Mail. More so even than the Express, whose appalling front pages have recently taken a turn for the comically racist:



Now the Mail might like to think that that's just an accident. It might use the sophistry of Phillips to claim that the problem is a real one about Islamisation, not dealt with by a PC Government too afraid to upset Muslims, leading to resentment and, as she has previously put it, a choice between "national suicide or being called a racist", and that the BNP is garnering support because of that. But what if that's wrong? What if the BNP is attracting more supporters because its ideas, through friendly newspapers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express, have become more mainstream and acceptable? What if those newspapers, much as they claim to distance themselves from the racists, are actually helping them to grow, by misrepresenting immigration, misrepresenting the threat of Islam, ramping up the fears about Britain, questioning the Britishness of second-generation immigrants, and so on? What if that were true?

Is it a coincidence that the most pro-BNP comments on this story about the BNP's apperance on Question Time get hundreds of approvals? Is it a coincidence that in the story itself, the Mail never dares question Nick Griffin's assertion that plenty of people from ethnic minority backgrounds are backing a racist party with a whites-only constitution? Is it a coincidence that one week ago, the Mail lambasted the BBC for allowing the BNP's disgusting views to be aired without question, yet does exactly that in this story?

The Mail and Melanie can wash their hands of it all they like. But deep down they must know.

* That's from the July 8 article about 'sleepwalking into Islamisation' which has since been removed from the Mail's online archive. Why they took it down, you'll have to ask them, but happily enough there's a copy on a dedicated website.