On Sunday night the fascist British National Party (BNP) got in — the next morning I rescued a hedgehog as it cowered at my door. Coincidence? I think not. We need to save the hedgehog of Democracy!
Now, there are a lot of ways that democracy is like a hedgehog but two immediately spring to mind. First, there are a lot of pricks involved, and second, its preferred method of defense when under threat is to curl up into a ball.
The BNP gained its first ever two seats in European parliament — Andrew Brons in the Yorkshire & the Humber, and BNP leader Nick Griffin in North West England. But this isn’t the end of democracy, it’s the proof of it.
People are quite rightly outraged at the prospect of being represented in Europe by political extremists. But the thing is — they were voted in. And it’s not because they had a larger following than in previous years (the number of people voting for the BNP has actually gone down); it’s just that so few people turned out to vot…
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