After being inducted as an MEP, British National Party leader, Nick Griffin spoke with New Europe’s Andy Carling
How have you found Brussels so far?
Nick Griffin addresses a BNP victory rally
Well it’s a bit like being a new boy at school obviously, but everyone, all the staff were helpful and professional.
Well, European politics is sometimes seen as more civilised than national politics in Westminster, how are other politicians here reacting to you?
They are acting in a professional way, obviously we’re going to have major disagreements on key points but they’re looking for where do we have concensus or common ground. So it is less confrontational than the bear pit of Westminster politics.
Do you think this is an environment that you can work with, that you can achieve something?
I don’t know yet! In political terms here, realistically, there is very little that any one MEP can do and everyone knows that this place is a fig leaf in the end for a beaurocracy so there’s not that much that anyone can do. Neverthe less there are things that one can do. One has, potentially, more power and influence here than as an ordinary citizen. I think it’s an important place to be.
There were a range of eurosceptics standing, from left to right, do you stand by withdrawl or do you think it can be reformed to be more representative?
My party’s position, that I will stick to, is that we don’t want it at all. That’s why we were elected here to be the voice of the arch-eurosceptics from Britain. As nationalists we don’t accept the right of anyone to have any say in the governing of the United Kingdom than the citizens themselves. End of. That means that we’re inimically hostile to this place, however it reforms, however pleasant as individuals the people here are.
That begs the question “Why are you here?”
Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, the BNP MEP's in the European Parliament
That’s because the three old parties, even individuals who have been euro-realists, hostile to the EU, especially as it gathers pace, are minorities in their own parties so the representatives of those parties are here as collaboraters with the European federal superstate, or those pushing for it, means that they cannot stand up for the views of the British people, the majority of whom believe we shouldn’t be here at all.
What differentiates yourselves from other eurosceptics like UKIP, who are the villans of the piece over here?
Well, we’re even more demonised than UKIP, we offer a better quality of villan and I would say, you should wait before you judge us, but UKIP’s MEP’s have amongst the worst records for lack of transparancy with finance and so on. We’re going to be publishing our expenses online, like the Scottish Parliaments.
Europe is bringing people together but you as a nationalist have a different perspective. Where do you stand on the live and let live philosophy?
This institution is not about live and let live or shared European culture. This thing is driven by the giant corporations, by the banks, going back decades. This is about laying Europe’s throat bare for global capitalism to cut it. That’s the core reason for globalisation and this is part of globalisation.
But global capitalism just cut its own throat.
Indeed it did, with the banking mess. It was a self-inflicted near mortal wound but it doesn’t alter the fact that this institution comes from a big cortporate background and it’s being done in the interest of those corporations.
When it comes to global warming, a nation state is too small to make an impact and this is why larger groups are needed and if Britain becomes a little independent island, do we need to be part of something bigger to face the threats of today and tomorrow?
There’s only a couple of threats of any seriousness; the economic shambles that is a consequence of globalism, a fundamentally corrupt banking system and all the political elites think the answer is more of the same. A nationalist answer is far more likely to do something.
What do you mean be a nationalist solution?
In the modern world the people who have done it best were the Japanese, who rebuilt their economy from ground zero by attaching banks, subordinate to business, which in turn was subordinate to the Ministry of Finance which was a power in its own right. The modern systems are based on the interests of corporations and not nations and its all based on short term solutions and lot long term stability. We need more national control and the world needs to recognise that growth in a finite world has to be limited. We can’t make China and India like us, the world just cannot support it.
The second threat is mass immigration. People say we have to come together to solve it. Britain doesn’t have to. we’ve still got a moat, we can deal with the immigration problem by controling our own borders.
There have always been people being worried about immigration and imagining terrible effects, but this has has lasted so long, wouldn’t we have collapsed by now?
It doesn’t have a totally negative effect. There are some limited benefits. The experience of history, in Rwanda, Belfast etc, shows that when you have two peoples in one place there will be chaos and problems. in the case of Britain and England especially, it’s getting worse and worse. We have 100 diasporas in Britain, that’s individual nations, many of whose core values are utterly incompatible with ours. It’s trouble for the future, that’s for certain.
Like the Ghurkas (British army soldiers from Nepal who have just won the right to live in the UK)?
They’re the ones thay won’t let in! If we could swap our Somalis for them then every person in Nepal could come in as far as I was concerned. The only propaganda reason for action is global warming and we’re unashamedly global warming sceptics because the ice on the poles of Mars has melted but they’re no SUV’s on Mars, no fat people eating burgers. I think it’s self evident that it is a natural phenomenon that has been used to herd the taxpayers down a certain road of tax and control. There is a serious problem that we need to get to grips with and that’s peak oil. The world is running out of cheap energy and that is going to be catastrophic in five years time. This is a civilisational destroying crisis.
What goals do you have for this term?
The first goal is to work effectively for our constituents in a matter of weeks and the second it to work effectively in this place in a matter of months. That’s the key thing. I hope by a degree of example by publishing our expenses to shame the pig class into being more careful how they spend taxpayers money.
Are you getting a group together?
At present, not yet. The maths are wrong. It can’t be done without one larger additional block. We wil co-operate, to a limited degree as 200 votes a day is difficult for a small party.
