What Does "Right Wing" Mean?

This is also something I first put on Smart Girl Politics.

You can't get out of school without learning that the term "Right Wing" is a synonym for a close minded, hateful Fascist. Politics, education and media have been so long dominated by the left, creating a situation in which alternate views could be distorted, since people rarely saw them in the flesh. The recent European elections provide a chance to see that views often grouped together as "far right", have little in common.

Labour and other left wing parties hoped to pose as the alternative to extreme parties like the British National Party.

The BNP, can rightly be called hateful and racist.

"According to its constitution, the BNP is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948."[15] The BNP also proposes "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home."[16]

It advocates the repeal of all anti-discrimination legislation, and restricts party membership to "indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’". The BNP also accepts white immigrants that are assimilated into one of those ethnicities.[15]"

Further on in the Wikipedia one can see a past linked to anti-semitism although right now they claim to hate muslims more.

"In 1988, The Sunday Times revealed that Holocaust News, a publication that claimed the holocaust was an "evil hoax", was being published by the BNP's then deputy leader, Richard Edmonds, on behalf of a BNP front organisation, the Centre for Historical Review, and distributed by members. John Tyndall, the party's leader, said he was not involved in the publication but that it had his full support.[39]

The 2002 Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud featured hidden-camera footage of the then BNP youth leader Mark Collett stating his admiration for Adolf Hitler, and stating "I'd never say this on camera, the Jews have been thrown out of every country including England. It's not just persecution. There's no smoke without fire." It also featured footage of visitors to the party's annual 'Red White and Blue' festival, some of whom wore the legend "88" (code for HH, "Heil Hitler").[40] Collett resigned from the party after the documentary's filming, but rejoined shortly afterwards, with Nick Griffin's approval, on the condition that Collett changed his views on the subject."

But even a mild look at the rest of the party platform has to make one wonder why it's described as being "right wing".

The BNP, endorses high protectionist tarrifs and policies like this.

"Central to the BNP's domestic policies are greater share ownership and the establishment of worker co-operatives. The party advocates the provision of extra resources for "especially gifted children" and the reversal of closures of special needs schools.[16] It has proposed that repossessed homes should become council houses, to prevent these being sold off cheaply to undercut private sellers, and to provide housing for those who need it.[95]

The party supports animal welfare (such as the banning of Halal and Kosher slaughtering and the phasing out of factory farming) and environmental policies, supporting Greenpeace in its fight against Japanese whaling ships and the RSPCA's campaign against the docking of dogs' tails. [96]"

Huh? Do restrictions on free trade and "workers co-operatives sound a bit Socialist to you? Well, they are! In fact, the whole concept of judging people by race or group identity is collectivist at it's core.

Really, there is no logical basis for linking the BNP with the Tories, The Independence Party or most other Conservative parties- except to create a smear.The BNP is a classic "Fascist Party", much like the National Socialist party of Germany and the party who gave us Apartheid in South Africa under the strange banner-- Workers of the World Unite For A White South Africa.