Hands up who remembers the BNP? Old Nick Wassisface on Question Time, a very real fear that they were going to get seats in Parliament, former NF boot-boys sitting on local councils. Nice and easy for anti-fascists. These characters liked nothing better than shouting stupid shit and winding up Muslim sympathisers. Simpler times.
Wassisface got booted out of the club-house – after a speech suggesting that the party go on a scrap metal drive to raise funds. A few of them probably joined the English Defence League, who provide hunting opportunities throughout the year for SWP members, maybe a couple are going to turn up in UKIP.
Nick was one of those irritating idiots who end up being justified not by their own opinions (he was fruit loops, anyway), but by the over-reaction of the opposition. When he was on Question Time, anti-racists stormed the BBC and demanded that he be given no platform. Luckily, the BBC gave him a platform, which he fell off and began the descent into obscurity.
Letting the BNP have their moment worked. Freedom of Speech undermined them. That's not to discount the activities of the protesters – they get their freedom too – but extremists tend to implode when they get attention. The distorted, even wicked philosophy gets exposed, and the Great Threat to Democracy can't do much more than bemoan the lack of coach trips to the countryside, because Muslims.
Hopefully, UKIP will go the same way – but calling them fascists is a bit rich. They have one clear policy (the EU is a bad idea), which is looking more intelligent to leftists after the Greek crisis, a load of racist nonsense (trying to pick up on Islamophobia, mostly) and a free market mentality. What they don't have is the eugenic pessimism of the Nazis, and they even allow gay people to have their own caucus. They are not fascists. They are more like a bad satire on a political party.
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