Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

Britain 193
Romanian Jewish refugee background, Howard focused strongly on the
anti-immigration theme, placing this at the centre of his self-declared ‘Battle
for Britain’ (ibid.). Once again, the Conservatives failed to move much
beyond their core vote in 2005.
Still on the margins – radical right populism
Given the decline and splits in the NF, the BNP − formed by ex-NF members
in 1982 − managed to establish itself as the dominant force on the British
extreme Right by the mid-1990s. Although it initially adopted a traditional
extreme Right approach, its leader since 1999, Nick Griffin, has sought to
reposition the party, following the well-beaten path of radical right parties
on the continent, by seeking to distance it from old style neo-fascism and by
developing a more populist platform. Nevertheless, the BNP has stated that
it does not regard non-white people as British, even if they have been born
in the UK and are British citizens. A perhaps truer insight into Griffin’s strategy
can be gleaned from the speech he gave to the American Friends of the
BNP in April 2001 in which he explained: ‘so, what are we now doing with
the British National Party? Well we tried to simplify its message in some
ways and to make it a saleable message. So it’s not white supremacy or racial
civil war or anything like that, which is what we know in fact is going on,
and we’re not supremacists, we’re white survivalists’ (BBC Website).
The BNP’s ethno-populism emerges clearly from an analysis of its recent
election manifestos, 3 which illustrate its use of anti-Establishment populism
(blaming the governing parties for allowing Britain to be over-run with
immigrants) and ethno-pluralist frames which stress the need to maintain
Britain as an ethnically homogeneous unit. Thus, its most recent general
election manifesto presented immigration as a ‘crisis without parallel’ in
which ‘Britain’s very existence’ was threatened’ (2005). Its attack on multiculturalism
and the role of the political Establishment was reflected in the
following excerpt:
Abolishing multiculturalism, preserving Britain: The present regime is
engaged in a profound cultural war against the British people, motivated
by the desire to create a new ethnic power base to replace the working
class which they have abandoned in pursuit of their enthusiasm for globalisation,
justified by a quasi-Marxist ideology of the equality of all
cultures. (2005: 17)
As Jens Rydgren has shown (2005) the growth of radical right populism in a
number of European countries can be partly explained by the agency role of
party leaders who have adopted the ethno-populist and anti-Establishment
master-frames that have proved successful elsewhere, with the French Front
National acting as a particular inspiration. Thus the radical Right populist