A. Millar has some interesting things to say about the British elections, Boris Johnson (don't miss Mary Jackson's article) Richard Barnbrook and the BNP over at Brussels Journal:

...Already, Johnson has pledged to get tough on crime, and, among other measures, will make a police presence more visible, ban drinking alcohol on the Tube (subway trains), and will strip anti-social youths of the right to free travel. At the end of his first week in office Johnson will also invite mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg for talks, in order to help him establish policies and practices for London. (Bloomberg had declined to visit London when Livingstone was mayor, allegedly because of the latter’s support of suicide apologist Al-Qaradawi.) As London – and Britain as a whole – has been increasingly plagued by the kind and scale of gang violence that once ravaged New York City, and annulled by previous mayor Rudy Giuliani, New York would seem the perfect example for London. This move by Johnson, would also seem to be a part of the Conservative’s thinking, for, notably, Cameron said in March: 

I've been to New York and seen how you can have zero tolerance, beat-based policing that defeats crime and restores trust in the police. And with a Home Secretary like David Davis we can do that here.

 
If the Conservative Party made history with its sweeping success and wining of the election for London mayor, they were not the only party making headlines for electoral gains. Richard Barnbrook of the BNP won a seat on the London Assembly, after years of aiming for such a high profile. The party needed 5% of the London votes to secure one of the twenty-five Assembly seats, and managed to achieve just over that at 5.3% of the votes. This was, however, a modest win by the scale of some predictions. Tim Hames in The Times announced a few weeks before the election, “Prepare for a shock BNP victory,” and seemed to imply that two or three seats were quite possible for the party.
 
BNP leadership would undoubtedly point out that they now have a hundred seats country-wide, and would suggest, no doubt, that if their win in London was less than expected it was due to adverse publicity. Both The Times and the BBC lessened their criticism of the party in the weeks leading up to the election, though some others probably increased it. The Daily Mail not only compared Barnbrook’s style of dress with Hitler’s – on the rather flimsy basis that both at one point or another have worn brown – but let much of his past slip a few days prior to the day of voting. The most surprising of the paper’s revelations was, perhaps, that Barnbrook is currently getting a divorce from a woman he married a decade or so ago, and that the one-time art student had directed an artistic movie (some have called it “gay porn”), described by the newspaper as, “naked young men […] flagellating each other and simulating gay sex acts while homo-erotic poetry is intoned.”
 
Attacks on the BNP are nothing new, of course, and party head Nick Griffin has clearly developed a talent for nullifying tricky questions on the party’s stance on race and immigration, and for portraying it as the most moderate party imaginable (though, one with principles, you understand). Being interviewed on television, Griffin is affable. Barnbrook, in contrast, would benefit from a few lessons in public speaking.
 
He seems to have been caught off guard by a swath of audience exiting as he was about to deliver his acceptance speech. “Like rats leaving sinking ships,” he barked, launching into a fiery, yet monotone tirade that could only have pleased a hardcore of BNP voters – except for a lengthy aside about girlfriend Simone Clarke, which probably pleased only her. As they had with Livingstone, Paddick, and Johnson, the “gutter press” had gossiped about him, the only difference being, he asserted, that everything they had written about him was “lies.” Really?
 
Next, Barnbrook bewailed “positive discrimination,” multiculturalism, and political correctness which, he stated, has meant the minority getting the majority of the benefit; and he promised to scrutinize the mayor’s budget, “second by second,” to expose any such bias. “[…] It is not for people to enter this land dictating what will and will not happen to the people who created and built it over generations,” he asserted forcefully.
 
His words were more conciliatory at times, though with his tone remaining aggressive, they sounded strange, if not outright frightening. He promised to treat people on an equal footing, stating, for example:

all Londoners, every single one that was, if you need aid from a voice I’ll speak for you, representing you clearly across this capital city, without prejudice, without concern of color or identity, my hands will be open[ed] up as wide as that of the indigenous population and the first generation that came here, to every single Londoner as long as you play part within the identity of this great city.

In this, Barnbrook appears to be a realist. He, like all of the other elected representatives on the London Assembly, will be required to represent everyone living in London, not just the 5.3% who voted for the BNP. But, can the party transform itself into one for whom principles trump ethnicity and race? Would a party that currently has voluntary repatriation as one of its policies, consider “British” to include the foreign born, law abiding British citizen? Barnbrook, at one point, spoke of “Londoners […] regardless of creed, color, or identity,” but, since then, he has stated that he will try to ban the wearing of the burka in public. His other stated aims are making St. George’s Day a national holiday, and flying the Union Jack (British) flag over City Hall.
 
A more sensible approach would probably be to concentrate on the mundane stuff of politics, such as public transport, the cleanliness of London streets, etc., or, perhaps, planting some of the fruit trees the BNP promised. The British people, after all, have had a government that has imposed a radical ideology on them for the last decade, and they are unlikely to embrace a party that is so ideological, even if it’s ideology is an opposing one. Moreover, while Barnbrook’s words betray someone who is able to think as a moderate, his style of delivery suggests someone who is anything but, and his speech must surely have confirmed the worst suspicions of those who were previously unsure of, or antagonistic to, the BNP.
 
The election results have thrown up a lot of interesting possibilities – and perhaps especially so for a country headed into recession. The BNP may have reached a point where it either moderates further, or remains a party on the margins. Certainly, it will be more visible and accountable. Labour is now the third most popular party, and the Liberal Democrats are, for once, the second most popular – a position to which they have long aspired. With this added legitimacy, they may soak up more of Labour’s traditional voters in the next couple of years. Presumably Brown will be replaced as leader of his party at some point before the next general election, and Labour will try to blame the Conservatives for every failure form now on – they will probably also try to blame it for the recession. If Cameron fails to show his stronger side, or if Johnson fails to make a mark, Labour may well claw its way back to the top. Though, Johnson, I think, will be a success...