Erm...well, I always said that I would never get into another debate on Mudcat (given the level to which it has seemed to sink recently), but I do feel that I have something to contribute here.

First off, I hate fascists like poison for a couple of reasons --first, and biggest, is their scapegoating of minorities, whether religious, ethnic or sexual. I'm sure we are all aware of what happens when they are allowed to get their way in this respect, so I don't need to expand on that. Secondly, and a tiny annoyance by comparison with the first, but rarely talked about, is the way they hijack what they view as the dominant culture and make it seem as though being of that culture implies agreement with their noxious views. It doesn't help that the left, of which I count myself a slightly beleagured member, falls for this in a big way. Thus in England anyone who expresses an interest in English culture or heritage (which, as pointed out by other catters, is a beautifully diverse thing) tends to get labelled racist by the left. This kind of thing can frustrate people over time. It also means that most of the stuff on English culture out there comes across as Conservative at best and Nazi at worst, since people who are on the left (and more diversity-minded) get scared off the subject. Then English culture gets perceived further as an exclusively "white" domain, intensifying the problem on both left and right. It's ironic that, by ignoring the contributions of non-white people to English culture, the left also ends up minimising what refugees and other immigrants have given us. Of course mentioning this would be an appeal to self-interest, and ignores the fact that our wider loyalty to other human beings should require compassion instead of whingeing, but I think it would help.

The argument that asylum seekers are responsible for English culture being derided and unrecognised is bollocks. We ourselves have done that. If we are stupid enough to buy into a homogenous pop culture that obscures our own cultures we are bound to end up wondering who we are. We could assert our own identities any day just by switching off the pop music stations and trash TV for a bit.

One other thing --people who say that "the English did x and y in the Empire and got a lot out of it, now they're getting theirs" are being a bit hateful too. When you come from the working-class, in which the options until recent times were very narrow (work in a factory for a starvation wage, become a soldier and be expendable, work down the mine, etc) you realise that the racist ethic that supported the exploitation of colonial peoples also supported the exploitation of the English working classes. This is what happens when you have an aristocracy based on notions of genetic superiority. The fact remains that most of the English are of working-class extraction originally, and most of the people whose families really benefitted from the Empire (members of the Establisment at the time) are well off enough that they don't have to worry about things like getting somewhere to live. Some of them are in the Tory party or worse, spouting polemic about asylum seekers making it harder to get accommodation...

The bottom line is that anyone who would vote for the BNP, especially after the horrifying BBC documentary "Inside the BNP", is either fundamentally racist or incredibly simple-minded.