I grew up in a community; a pocket of East Lancashire grey in skies and brick but warm in heart and greeting. Warm, that is, except to those who dared to be different. Provided you were able to blend into the weathered sandstone or take shade in the slate-grey slag heaps you were more than welcome to share the hotpot of your neighbours and your neighbour’s neighbours. Step out from the shadows, however, stand out from the crowd, display a hint of colour beyond the tones of beige and prepare to be exiled – not part of the community. Needless to say I rarely felt part of the mix.

 

At the time of writing, summer should be busting out all over, but back in East Lancashire the darkest of shadows looms behind a political eclipse. Not only are local councils now host to elected members of the British National Party, but the great expanse that is the Northwest itself (which includes such gay hotspots as Manchester and Blackpool) is also now represented in Europe by the party that dares to call itself National, representing what it claims to be the indigenous British community. Essentially, white people.

 

That dear Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, is now member of the European Parliament representing the Northwest of England, whence I hail. As a middle-class white male, am I expected to feel an automatic and responsible infinity with other whites in my socio-economic bracket, thereby establishing with my fellow whites a clear indigenous community unique to these isles? While I appreciate that Nick’s arguments are that as whites we are now marginalised, I wish to take this opportunity to draw his attention to the community in which I grew up.

 

During my formative teenage years I was made aware in less than cryptic tones that, although born into this community, I was a most unwelcome and perverse abomination. On a good day I would be name-called and not unusually spat at by my fellow (white) man, my school books stolen and returned decorated in Neanderthal drawl, suggesting a crude yet interesting pastime I was apparently engaging in on a regular basis – again with my fellow (white) man. Isolated and lonely, I skirted the edge of the playing field with others who wore the ‘misfit’ sash, most of them Asian. Twenty-five years ago Mr Griffin, I was marginalised by the white man, and taken in by the Asian.  

 

How my new Asian brothers welcomed me; they took me home to meet their parents, hard-working and well educated, their mother an education welfare officer who spent her days chasing white boys too drunk to attend school. In the playground, I even took on a new role; as we ran to the (relative) safety of the electricity substation beyond the school boundary pursued by the white masses, the cries of “fucking Pakis” were now peppered with “Paki fucker”. And how we all laughed our way to the secret hideaway of our own private community of warm friendship and shared alienation. Is it not interesting, Mr Griffin, that you seem to have secured your place at the European table on the idea that our communities have somehow been disrupted and degraded by those your party describe as ‘non-white’. And yet there was I like a 13-year-old Juliet whose only love sprung from my supposed only hate, not yet glad to be gay but happy to be Paki.
  

I am now fully immersed in a new community – I even write for their local rag. And while I am not certain that Nick has expressed direct concern for the pink tones of skin south of Streatham, something tells me that he may not be too keen. Perhaps with me being white, he’d be willing to forgive me. Time will tell.

 

So how has it come to this? How can a party so clearly steeped in prejudice have been elected to such a position? It appears to be the fault of minority organisations themselves. Mr Griffin and his supporters have secured their names on the ticket and then in power on the idea that separatist groups such as the Black Police Association are themselves racist in that they marginalise the white man. He appears not to note, or even care, that were it not for the indigenous community of these islands spending centuries oppressing and degrading others across the world, we may not be in this position in the first place.

 

How short are the memories of these fighters for the oppressed white man when throughout our Victorian Empire we mowed down communities in India and parts of Africa to our own ends and benefits, merely allowing those of brown skin to serve us tea and cakes. How right we were to grant these communities the independence from which they should never have been separated in the first place. How shameful that upon granting British citizenship to those who wanted it, we should demonstrate against their moving to these shores and spit at them upon arrival. How quick we are to teach our children of the Nazi rise to power in the 1930s but not of the anti-Jewish demonstrations in London by the British white man. And now, having grown these communities, we seek to elect political parties who seek to repatriate them (get them out).

 

Three hundred miles away in your relatively secure gay community by the sea, take a moment to think of yourself as a British National. Take a moment to think of Doreen Lawrence, whose son Stephen was murdered in 1993 by racist thugs. Take a moment to remember the inquiry that found the police service to be institutionally racist and ask why there is a need for a Black Police Association and, indeed, a gay one. Take a moment to think of the election of the British National Party. Take a moment to think of your representation in Europe.

 

Shame upon the British Nationals. Shame. Shame. Shame.