The Past Speaks

The BNP continues to attract a great deal of attention in the British media.  I’m inclined to think that much of this angst is unwarranted, as the BNP remains a very marginal force in UK politics. The parallels people have drawn between the so-called rise of the BNP in the wake of the credit crunch and the Nazi seizure of power in the Great Depression are lurid and unhelpful .

The Guardian,  the left-leaning London daily, asked a number of leading historians to comment on the BNP. None of these scholars thinks that the BNP poses a real threat to British democracy. I’m posting this link because the Guardian contacted some of the world’s leading historians, including Eric Hobsbawn, Michael Burleigh, and Richard Overy.