I was not invited to speak at this meeting but went along as a member of the audience as I was curious to find out what our two MP’s who were speaking were going to do about the appearance of the BNP in Portsmouth and also what UAF had planned. It was well attended and we had to move to a bigger room to accommodate everyone. After hearing the speakers during which the Labour MP for Portsmouth North stated that we should not be sharing a platform with the BNP at the forthcoming debates, I was able to state that I thought that however distasteful the policies of the BNP are and ones which would bankrupt this country very quickly, we need to be able to expose them in the debates rather than running away from them.

Interestingly, the Labour MP stated that the last time that the BNP were in Portsmouth was in the 1970’s, which was when the last Labour government was in power. The person next to me in the audience stated that if the government had got the right policies in place particularly the economy, there would be no need for extremist parties in this country. When people are fearful of their jobs and future, they will look for scapegoats and protest votes. We have got the right policies to put the country back in its feet again and we need to articulate them so there will be no need to vote for fringe parties.