PR PERSPECTIVES : Poltical PR

March 16, 2010 1 note

Poltical PR - A BNP case study

“Political PR has undermined public trust in politicians and is the single biggest threat to our democratic health” – this was the motion of the debate in today’s class. I was quite surprised to discover that most of the class were opposed to the motion. I was in the minority today. I feel that trust in politicians has been undermined and PR has taken a significant role in doing so.

I say this, as over the past few years I have seen the growth of underdog parties such as the British National Party. This party has gone from strength to strength mainly due the role PR plays in promoting them. I wouldn’t be so concerned if the information their public relations team put out into the public was somewhat true. But it seems to me that this party is allowed to run its campaign by using public relations as tool to exploit fears, spread lies, and use spin to manipulate and distort the truth to covey its twisted message. You may suggest that all political parties can be accused of this, however the nature and extent of the BNP’s campaign is much more severe.

The slogan of the BNP is ‘Britain for the British’ the strap line of the party alone gives a pretty good idea of what the party stands for. The party has recently become a member of the European Parliament; this means that it has access up to £25,000 in public resources to continue its campaign.

The PR team behind the BNP are experts at exploiting fears of vulnerable communities. Their campaign is often based on fear mongering. One of the first statements on this political party’s website is, “On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years.” The website goes on to discuss how the “indigenous peoples of these islands” have become “second class citizens”.

By stating such ‘facts’ and using terms like “second class citizens” the BNP manages to evoke fear within white communities living in diverse ethnic societies. For example Richard Barnbrook, leader of BNP in Barking and Dagenham said “Can you believe it? Two of our schools are having Muslim days on 7/7. Its like chucking mud in people’s faces.” Remarks like this, which are probably drafted by one of their PR team insight fear, especially when emotions run high around this issue. The BNP regularly talks about the ‘islamification of Europe’ terms like this and statements of those of Barnbrook and alike are nonsense terms, they mean nothing, empty terms, yet they sound threatening and make people feel defensive. It encourages certain people within certain communities to place all the blame for the fears they and Britain face on all Muslims. Statements such as those discussed allow for all Muslims to be held responsible for the 7/7 and 9/11 atrocities. This is absurd but it works. The BNP are very inept in doing this. They manage through very clever communication to make people fear what they don’t understand and what doesn’t really exist. They promote intolerance.

Through its public relations efforts the BNP passes out deceptive information. They make claims that prey on people’s ignorance and lack of understanding, concentrating their efforts on the non-Asian and black communities living within and with ethnic minorities. An example of this is when leaflets were passed out in Blackburn stating that “Asians are likely to become the majority in Blackburn within in 10 year.” In fact the non-white population in the town stands at one-fifth. Therefore this is impossible. The BNP manage to make people believe that something is happening when it isn’t in order to gain momentum for their campaign via support and votes from worried communities. Their website makes sweeping generalisations such as “all asylum seekers are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries”. How is it that a political party in a democratic country such as ours (and I mean ours as a term inclusive of everyone) make such stereo typical remarks? Why is PR allowed to be used as a tool to produce this material?

Then we come onto the issue of spin. The BNP are certainly masters of this. To encourage more people to vote for them, the BNP recently claimed to rip up its racist constitution and voted to allow Black and Asian members into the party. Nick Griffin, leader of the BNP said “we are happy to accept anyone as a member providing they agree that this country should remain fundamentally British”. The BNP managed to position themselves so that it looks as if they are , re-thinking their policies and opening up, becoming more tolerant and changing their ways. When in truth this is a meaningless gesture, as the party were forced into a position where they had to do this as they were told that they could face legal action by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

After investigating how PR works in relation to the BNP and its political communications, it leaves much to be desired in our political system and politicians when such ‘information’ can be freely circulated with the aim to get a party elected to run this country. In this context, I would say that political PR has completely undermined public trust in politicians and it is the single biggest threat to our democratic health. PR has been used to insight fear, spread lies and use spin which has resulted in this formally unknown party gaining notoriety. If this is the trend for political communications, then we’re in for a bumpy ride!