I see, via Chris Brooke, that those of you who live in the South East of England (and many of you who don’t, but live in bits of the Midlands that have been desginated as part of the South East) are now represented by an “Independent” MEP, which must be a bit of a shock. The question is, which is worse?
1) having an MEP who is a member of UKIP
or
2) having an MEP about whom rumours that he has joined the BNP are suffiicently believable that he has to deny them in a stop press on his website?
BTW, his biography is well worth a read; I was especially glad to see that he regarded Jeremy Thorpe was an acceptable leader for one of his previous parties. No playing of the pink oboe in the BNP, I’d hope. Commiserations to the lot of you. (Creepy link for Shane Warne fans
Update: I don’t know why I’m even more interested in this than Chris Brooke, but there you go. The delighful Mr. Mote is quoted in this article as saying:
The formation of a genuine centre-right multinational group in the European Parliament is long overdue. So is the need for the clear expression of the views held by millions of European Union citizens who profoundly disagree with the federalists and their vocal left-wing
Le Pen and Mussolini are on the center-right?
{ 10 comments }
jim 01.12.07 at 4:13 pm
I used to live there. I guess once I left it went downhill.
broke 01.12.07 at 7:32 pm
Yes, it’s a favourite ploy of swivel-eyed bigots to brand themselves ‘centre-right’. This is presumably to reassure any wimpish voters who only to want to be a little bit nasty to foreigners, refugees, brown people, etc etc, that they can vote for them with an easy conscience.
I note from Mote’s biog he used to work for The Farmers Weekly. Suspect, or what?
Hasan Jafri 01.12.07 at 10:20 pm
Le Pen and Mussolini are indeed on the center right, along with Musharraf and Mephistopheles. And don’t forget Frau Merkel. She is the center right’s new poster girl.
Not that being centre right is all bad. Segolene Royal is moving French socialists to the centre, no? Liberty — in a Chanel suit — leads new France with success, even BEFORE being elected. Britain needs an MEP like her.
astrongmaybe 01.13.07 at 5:19 am
The old joke about Rhodesia can come home now: “Surrey with the lunatic fringe on top.”
TheIrie 01.13.07 at 6:31 am
Henry – Off topic but, in a discussion you had on Bloggingheads you pondered whether there are any heresies in politics. Can I suggest that challenging the idea that voting in elections = democracy = freedom is one such idea? After what our ancestors went through to get the vote, its value now is completely unquestioned. I would argue though that it simply allows ‘them’ to better manage ‘us’, with a veneer of legitimacy (and this is as much the case in the occupation of Iraq, as in US/UK domestic affairs). Heresy?
chris y 01.13.07 at 10:34 am
And on top of all that they have to live in the south east of England…
I would suggest a corollary to theirie’s heresy, that pluralism is more important to freedom than democracy, and that democracy is neither sufficient nor necessary to pluralism.
madison 01.14.07 at 3:03 pm
I have no interest or familiarity in the subject, but “rumours that he has joined the BNP are suffiicently believable that he has to deny them” [sic] strikes me as a little strange. Is the denial of a rumour really an indication of how true it is? I can think of quite a few other aspects of the rumour which the denial might be addressing. Pervasiveness or seriousness are probably the most obvious. But then again, as I said before, I’m clueless when it comes to this specific case; so, like, whatever.
m.
Pete 01.15.07 at 9:46 am
People are voting for him because it’s the only way to express their desire for less European integration/expansion, and less European regulation.
harry b 01.15.07 at 10:48 am
madison — I think the issue is this. It is occasionally rumoured that the BNP is in negotiations with various UKIP or ex-UKIPers, trying to get them to join. The first name anyone thinks of when those rumours get going it Mote’s. There’s a reason for that.
pete — in a roughly proporitional representation people who want less European integration/expansion/regulation who have decent views about the world could form their own party and run their own candidates. The only parties that in the UK that run agaist Europe are riddled with people who are, on other issues, revolting. People either don’t feel strongly enough about Europe or don’t feel strongly enough about fascists.
KH 01.17.07 at 1:34 am
Evidently Mr Mote has signed on with Identity, Taditional, Sovereignty at a bad moment. Stephen Castle in Wednesday’s Independent:
“Far-Right Group in Disarray as MEPs Seek to End Its Funding”:
… The only British parliamentarian in the far-right grouping, Ashley Mote, a former UKIP MEP, turned on his 23-year-old Bulgarian colleague, Dimitar Stoyanov, over comments made in yesterday’s Independent. Mr Stoyanov, of Bulgaria’s Ataka Party & the parliament’s youngest MEP, had denied being anti-Semitic but said he opposes the “Jewish establishment”, which uses normal Jewish people “like pawns”.
Justifying criticism of Roma communities, he argued: “If you put the children in a bad parental environment you cannot expect them to integrate. If you turn a daughter into a prostitute when they are 12 years old you cannot expect them to develop a moral awareness. They are sending their daughter out begging or selling them to older men. Sometimes you forget about human rights because of ethnic rights.”
Last night, Mr Mote said: “I think the comments… reflect the inexperience & lack of political nous of the young man concerned. I have twice given him the opportunity to make a statement & he has rejected the opportunity to do so.”
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2160082.ece
[I do like the bit about “lack of political nous.”]
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