How the media structures the news...

British Fascists Have Always Been on the Left

[Jonah Goldberg]

Daniel Hannan's blistering indictment of Gordon Brown has already been discussed quite a bit around here. Vox Day interviewed the European Parliamentarian. The whole thing is interesting, but for reasons that should be obvious, I liked this bit:
VD:One thing that tends to confuse Americans is that the British National Party is not very popular despite holding what appear to be populist views on immigration and the European Union. Why do they enjoy so little support compared to the three major parties?DH:Because they are, contrary to the way they are described in the BBC, a party of the far left. They're in favor of nationalization, they're in favor of protectionism, they want workers' councils to run industry, they want a massive state program of rebuilding manufacture. Like Hayek said about the socialist roots of Nazism, they are a national socialist party and the socialist bit is very important to them. Plus, there is a line, a very important line in politics, between being anti-immigration and anti-immigrant. And they've crossed that line.VD: In a certain respect, they really are fascists, but in the Italian Fascist sense.DH: Yeah. I think most of these so-called “far right” parties are on the left by any normal definition. It's a brilliant media trick in Europe to always refer to them as “the far right”. The target of that is the mainstream right. Every time you read about the BNP in the press, it's always prefaced with “the far right BNP”, as though they were like us, but more so, which is the opposite of the case. When somebody reads that, it doesn't make them think any worse of the BNP, it makes them think worse of the right. Which, of course, is why they do it.