[lbo-talk] Green/BNP crossover

[James Heartfield]

On the Green Party/British National Party crossover
1) all the broadsheet papers are covering it, Murdoch-owned, Guardian and Independent, too.
2) far from being of no moment, the common ground between the far right National Front and the reformist left was a real political issue: what united them was there patriotic social programmes, which were a real drag on the left that some of us took issue with at the time
3) the common ground between the BNP and the Green Party, as the Green Party's spokesman acknowledges, is their shared view that Britain's resources are running out, and that too many people is the problem

Let it be said that there has been some far right-far left crossover, too. Garry Bushell, who promoted skinhead 'oi' bands used to write for Socialist Worker, Patrick Slaughter (WRP and offshoots) was active in a far-right associated football gang, some of the people who attended a free speech campaign I was involved in at Leeds University later joined the BNP.

Lenin's tomb wrote:

"I am no great fan of the Green Party's liberal leadership, but there is *nothing* particularly astonishing about that 'admission'. The NF used to field former Young Communists as candidates. I'm quite certain there have been a host of former Labour members won to the BNP. So, what could possibly be animating this guilt-by-association tirade against the Green Party by a Murdoch paper?"