Under True Proportional Representation, the BNP Would Have 12 Seats
Under a true proportional representation system, the British National Party would already have twelve seats in parliament, a leading anti-BNP academic has warned.
In a near-hysterical article published on the Public Finance magazine’s blog, Professor Ted Cantle, executive chair of the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) at Coventry University, said that other political parties dismissed “concerns about migration and the impact on local services as ‘ignorant’ or ‘racist’ at our peril.”According to Professor Cantle, the ConDem “plan to cap annual immigration is just a scratch on the surface of a much larger and more fundamental issue for the UK and its local communities.
“In 2001 the British National Party picked up just 47,000 votes, and by 2005 it had grown to 192,000,” he wrote.
“This year it was 563,000 — far from the collapse in support suggested by reporting on the general election result and the focus on the defeat for BNP leader Nick Griffin.
“Under a proportional representation system, for example, the BNP would now have 12 seats in parliament,” he continued.
“Based on a new analysis by iCoCo . . . this appears to be part of a genuine trend of gathering support that threatens the stability of the UK.
“Increased population numbers and changes in the composition of local populations have increased pressure on local services, and these have to be understood and addressed,” Professor Cantle wrote, going on ot make the usual string of allegations against the BNP.
“There is a danger in regarding the BNP as a spent force. They lost ground because of campaigns to oppose them on the ground in places like Barking and Dagenham, but also all the minority parties were squeezed by the media focus on the three main parties, especially around the televised debates.
“That may not be the case next time. We have to recognise they do tap into real concerns, as the ‘bigoted woman’ incident showed and we need more debate, not less, to answer these concerns.”
* The “Alternative Voting” system upon which Britain will be asked to vote next May is not true proportional representation and has been identified by the Electoral Reform Society as producing even greater distortions than the current first-past-the-post system.
