AN EXTENSIVE campaign has been launched to stop the British National Party winning a seat in June’s European Parliamentary elections.
Hackney has been highlighted as an area of concern by anti-BNP activists, who are urging people to “Hope, not hate”.
Volunteers will be going door-to-door to encourage Hackney residents to register to vote, and the Hackney Trades Union Congress (TUC) has published 25,000 leaflets which will be distributed to every ward in the borough over the next few weeks.
The campaign organisers have also set up a Facebook group which has nearly 150 members. The BNP only needs to gain eight per cent of votes in London to win a seat for the region in the European Union.
John Page, campaign organiser for the TUC, said one of the main problems in Hackney was low voter registration and poor participation.
“There are a lot of people, particularly ethnic minorities, in Hackney who are not registered to vote,” he said. Because of proportional representation, Mr Page said, 12 votes are needed to cancel out every BNP ballot cast.
Hackney Council said there could be as many as 14,000 unregistered voters in the borough, although the ever-changing nature of the population means it is difficult to know the exact figure. In November the BNP’s leaked membership list revealed nine party members in Hackney.
BNP spokesman Simon Darby said east London was an area where the party “definitely” had a good chance of success, and that his party would be campaigning hard in Hackney.
“A lot of our people have been driven out of Hackney and it has become an unbearable place for indigenous Londoners – it’s less than 70 per cent white now,” he said.
The European elections have traditionally had a low turnout, and the TUC said this was something the BNP would try to exploit. In 2008 the far-right party polled enough ballots in the London Assembly elections to secure a seat.
Although Hackney is one of London’s most diverse boroughs, Mr Page said people may vote for fringe parties if they felt powerless to change things in the community. “We want people to get more involved in politics generally so that they can work together to address the issues affecting Hackney,” he said.
Cagdas Canbolat, who is helping to coordinate the campaign, said the BNP may try to use the uncertain economic climate to gain support. “They will try to make out that this is an immigrant issue, when it’s not,” he said.
Residents must register in order to vote by 19 May.
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Nice that your spelling is as poor as your grasp of politics, even if you could spell indigenous, what on earth, exactly, do you mean by it?
It is a pity that the T.U.C does not campaign with the same vigour for the Millions of Indegenous people in the country who have lost and are currently losing their jobs.
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