The Sun and the BNP

The Sun newspaper appears to be celebrating the "increased popularity of the BNP", which is being picked up and promoted by the BNP itself: http://www.general-election-2010.co.uk/uk-party-political-news/%E2%80%9Cbnp-gaining-in-popularity%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%94-the-sunAnd according to a recent YouGov poll, 1/3 of BNP members read The Sun: Who votes BNP and why (Searchlight report)A new survey into the attitudes of BNP voters has produced some startling revelations. Unsurprisingly BNP voters are overwhelmingly opposed to immigration and asylum seekers but a sizeable number also share the BNP’s hardline attitudes about citizenship and racial superiority.It shows that BNP voters are predominantly working class, drawn from former Labour-voting households and feel more insecure about their economic prospects.Conducted by YouGov from 29 May to 4 June, the survey questioned 985 BNP voters as part of a much bigger study of the political views of 32,268 people.The study tells us that men are twice as likely to support the BNP as women, 44% of BNP voters are aged 35 to 54 and 61% are drawn from the social groups C2DE. One third of BNP voters read The Sun or the Daily Star, whereas only 13% read the Daily Mirror and those reading The Guardian and The Independent are statistically insignificant. One fifth claim to be members of trade unions or trade associations and 36% identify themselves as skilled or semi-skilled manual workers.On one level the report tells us little new. More BNP supporters regard immigration as one of the key issues facing the country at the moment – 87% compared to 49% among all voters. Again unsurprisingly, 94% of BNP supporters believed that all further immigration should be halted. This compares with 87% of UK Independence Party voters, 68% of Conservative voters, 46% of Labour voters, 43% of Lib Dem voters and even 37% of Green voters.Only 4% of BNP voters believed that recent immigration had benefited the country.What is more startling is the strength of the racial attitudes of many BNP voters. In a result that gives the lie to the BNP vote simply being a protest, 44% (compared to 12% of all voters) disagreed with the statement: “non-white British citizens who were born in this country are just as ‘British’ as white citizens born in this country”.Among BNP voters 21% strongly disagreed with the statement compared to just 1% of Greens and Lib Dems and 2% of Labour and 3% of Conservative voters.More disturbingly, 31% of BNP voters believed there was a difference in intelligence between the average black Briton and the average white Briton.http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=template&story=284