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Saturday 8 May 2010

How Barking & Dagenham saw off the BNP

Well justified celebrations here from Hope not hate:

"It's official: the BNP suffered a humiliating defeat in yesterday's election.Not only did the BNP fail to elect Nick Griffin or Simon Darby to Parliament, they also failed to take any council seats in Barking & Dagenham and Stoke-on-Trent. The BNP is divided and defeated - and it's all thanks to you ... this ... victory ... belongs to all of us who stood for hope, not hate."

Billy Bragg explains how Barking and Dagenham saw off the BNP here:

"This is a huge victory for the antifascist movement. Hundreds of activists have made the trip up the District Line to Barking and Dagenham in the past few weeks. Hope Not Hate, a non-partisan organisation led by Searchlight magazine and supported by trade unions, organised a forensic campaign that identified and then got out the anti-BNP vote.

Almost 1,000 volunteers came through the doors of the Hope Not Hate HQ, distributing 130,000 leaflets aimed at pensioners, black and Asian voters, young voters, women voters and male voters who had been identified as opposing the BNP. The results of this massive effort were visible when Barking's Labour MP, Margaret Hodge, defied all the night's trends and the laws of gravity by increasing her majority.

The people of Barking and Dagenham have resoundingly rejected the fascism of the BNP. Now the Labour party needs to begin to address the genuine concerns of the local population, white and black, about jobs, housing, education and health care. It was these issues – and the pressure put on them by incomers looking for the cheapest housing in London – that allowed the BNP to gain a foothold in the borough."

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