One thing that unsettles me, more than the potential of Ebola affecting us in the UK or people succumbing to falling for pyramid schemes, is the rise of groups such as EDL, Britain First, UKIP. These nasty pockets of politics are designed to stir up those that feel they’ve been wronged by the current system and that these groups or parties (often mainly single policy) can be the way they’ll get out of their situation.



Social media seems to be awash with posts from various organisations of this kind. Britain first ones seem innocent for example – like to show respect for fallen soldiers, share in respect for Princess Diana. Tugging at the heartstrings of the general public in order to build up a following. It’s quite a clever ploy, and let’s face it a lot of things these days are centred around the emotiveness of a situation and the cleverness of how to get attention. For instance I believe ISIS have western marketing professionals onside – why else would you dress your victim in an orange jumpsuit reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay inmates?

Britain First – the first thing to know is that this is a splinter group of the BNP, founded by Jim Dowson – known for homophobic views, anti women’s rights views and involvement with loyalist paramilitaries. As mentioned before, the use of emotive images and links to gain shares is a way to trick the unsuspecting of sharing their message, gaining likes and therefore boosting their reach. They fund themselves with these shock tactics too, by playing on images of animal cruelty and overseas funding. They are unwilling to allow people to speak out against them on their facebook, and tarnish the image of poppies and of deceased soldiers such as Lee Rigby.

UKIP – initially designed to take the UK out of the European Union, even it’s founder and former leader has said that the organisation he created is a far different beats to what it was meant to be. Their votes in the EU parliament have gone against improved cab design (to stop pedestrians and cyclist being hurt). Alongside this they have a lot of political allies in far right and xenophobic parties throughout Europe – this seems to be the kind of thing that works for membership and voter numbers – especially if there’s anything Islamist or xenophobic said. rather than a sensible debate about being in the EU they have one idea and that’s to get out. This is a dangerous party, if their MEPs are anything to go by, nothing would be achieved with them in power as they rarely attend meetings or votes.

EDL the English Defence league is a far right movement at street level protesting against the likes of Islam and Sharia law(because that’s clearly prevalent in British society?). there are thought to be around 30000 members of the movement and it is comprised of similar elements to football casuals. The organisation is brimming with fascists with Tommy Robinson a former BNP member. Demonstrations regularly turn violent. As with other groups they play on emotions to try and get a movement together on the streets to target those they have a dislike for.

In a forward thinking society, these groups are bad news. They target those who feel slighted, and as such they can play emotively to try and get popular opinion on their side. Defending the notion of England is seen as a right to many (see the reaction to the request to remove a flag on twitter/facebook) even though we always have been and always will be a multicultural society that has a lot of history in immigration. I’m not trying to come across as some kind of hippy, but tolerance and acceptance are the way forward, as well as collaborative efforts at improving the world around us.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m not an apologist for how the country is being run at present, I don’t particularly have time for the tories, yet they have started us on a road to recovery and I think that anyone who honestly believes that a party with a very limited set of goals could be a useful political force to deal with the economy, health and education. By all means protest vote, that’s a right, but voting for parties like this could lead to consequences. I’m sure we’ve seen it before where the BNP have talked a big game and never achieved, however these days it seems like there is an off chance that these people could gain some ground.

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