The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 3

In my last posting, The British National Party and racist Neo-Paganism: is there common ground? 2, I finished the article on Neo-Paganism and racism. I now will look at the similarities between the British National Party and racist Asatru and Odinist groups. Pictures by Stephen Larson

The British National Party, which won two seats in the European Parliament just two weeks ago, has one particularly strong similarity to racist neo-pagan groups. And it should be pointed out that its similarity is politically very dangerous in regards to democracy. It is a racism that tries to eliminate the very definition of both racism and democracy.

In the article I posted I looked at Steve McNallen’s religious view of race which he refers to as “Metagenetics.” He wrote, “We are intimately tied up with the fate of our whole people, for Asatru is an expression of the soul of our race.” Because of this view only the white race is allowed to belong to such religious groups. And although this is supposedly a religious view it nonetheless fits precisely the demands of the BNP’s qualifications for belonging to their political party.

In the Constitution of the BNP they state:

"The British National Party represents the collective National, Environmental, Political, Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain. Membership of the BNP is strictly defined within the terms of, and our members also self define themselves within, the legal ambit of a defined ‘racial group’ this being ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race as specified in law in the House of Lords case of Mandla V Dowell Lee (1983) 1 ALL ER 1062, HL.

2) The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ consist of members of: i) The Anglo-Saxon Folk Community; ii) The Celtic Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community; viii) The Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community; xi) Members of these ethnic groups who reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them.(Ninth Edition)"

BNP’s attempts to define democracy and racism are much like the words from Animal Farm about all animals being equal but some being more equal than others. On racism they, like McNallen, keep insisting that if their party respects other ethnic groups, but insist they stay within their own communities and/or countries, they are not racists. However as one begins to read some of their policy statements extreme ideas emerge.

For instance their statement about immigration begins with views that simply sound very conservative but as it progresses one is reminded of long lines of trains headed for concentration camps. Their statement:

“To ensure that this does not happen [the white population becoming the minority], and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.”

The BNP also has a system for answering questions about racism. In their leaflet "Language discipline" they state, “The precisely correct description of what we are, in the standard terminology of international comparative politics, is a ‘patriotic’ or ‘ethno-nationalist’ party. That is, we espouse, like many political parties all over the world, the interests of the particular ethnic groups to which we belong.” The BNP goes on to redefine the difference between the rights of other ethnicities and the rights of Caucasian peoples.

The leaflet suggests that party members when speaking of none white groups define ethnicity in both the civic and ethnic ways. This means that all other ethnic groups have the rights and duties of citizenship but that only the white groups have the right of staying in the majority as far as population is concerned.

As the author puts it, “This ethnic understanding of Britishness does not impinge upon the civic rights of British passport holders. It is merely an expression of the rights of an indigenous people to be recognised as such, and to have the right to remain as the majority population in their own nation.” This is simply a ruse. If one is a citizen of Britain, one is a citizen of Britain. The right of fecundity belongs to all ethnic groups.

As a matter of fact a rule listed above this double citizenship one helps the reader understand the apparent racism in any of the rules. It is, “Explanations of our ideology should be couched, whenever possible, in terms of specifically British history and the specific national identity of Britain. For example, when discussing rights, we should speak of‘our traditional rights’ or ‘the rights of Englishmen’, not about universal human rights, which is a very different concept.” (Bold original)

The racism of the BNP is blatant but there are other subjects related to racism. This particular political party has a totalitarian bent which is not unlike past totalitarian political parties of the twentieth century. Also there are other connections, such as books and ancient pre-Christian history, which once again reflect the racist paganism of some Asatru and Odinist groups. I will explore these various subjects in following postings.