Britain First and Cynicism

A documentary about Britain's First virtual fascist group, Britain First? Why ever not. With UKIP commanding four million votes at the general election, the press stuffed with xenophobic bullshit as per, and the woman who would lead the Tories pitching herself as Nigel Farage's successor, a little package shedding light on a tiny and utterly marginal fascist group isn't likely to create much harm.

My bad. Of course, Britain First aren't a fascist group. Nor are they racist. As deputy fuhrer Jayda Fransen put it in We Want Our Country Back, the final programme in BBC Three's 'Race' season, BF welcome all British people regardless of race, gender, sexuality, and religion. So BF are fine with Sikhs and Hindus, for example, because they "properly integrate". Muslims, however, are different. They "refuse to integrate". If that was the case, she muses, "there would be no predominantly Muslim areas." With such a penetrating insight, I wonder what she would make of other migrant groups, such as Afro-Caribbeans, the Jews, the Irish, East Europeans, and the English abroad who so or have congregated in the same residential districts. It's also pure coincidence that the target of their hate are overwhelmingly non-white as well.

And so the justification of Britain First's organisation is based on a stupidity so incomprehensible that it can only make sense if it was a cynical lie. And that's the striking thing about the documentary. Much of what Fransen and her boss, former Nick Griffin lickspittle and BNP'er presser Paul Golding have to say is of the same piece. Are the pair of them as gormless and vacuous as they portray themselves, or does a cynicism suffuse their politics deeper than even the most soulless Westminster operators?

This documentary had a few exhibits. Driving around Luton picking fights with young Muslim guys for footage. Putting out leaflets making the - demonstrably false - claim that halal products are subject to zakat donations to jihadis. And, of course, over-inflating numbers on demonstrations. The crosses, the professed Christianity, the pretensions of non-violence, none of it rang true. These weren't the actions of zealots blinded by a set of twisted ideas, but people using these ideas, preying on the committed and the befuddled, and basically poncing a living off their "movement". Britain First is never likely to get anywhere, but for Fransen and Golding it beats working for a living. And they get to parade around like Z listers for those attracted to such things.

That doesn't mean BF should be ignored. Their mobilisations - such as their upcoming demo in Burton-upon-Trent on the 17th of this month - should be faced down. Their pop up paper stalls challenged. Their Facebook idiocies attacked. It gives them attention, which ultimately the frightful fuhrers need to keep the cash till a-chinging, but better that than complacency.