UK Independence Party member Julian Conway argues that Symon Hill was wrong to liken UKIP's policies to those of the far-right British National Party in his article for The Samosa.

Originally published on IndependenceHome

Symon Hill, the co-director of a theological think thank known as ‘Ekklesia’ published an article this week entitled ‘The BNP and UKIP - what’s the difference?’ The article appeared on The Samosa, an online magazine promoting human rights and equality which was awarded £15,000 from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

Mr Hill who describes himself on his Twitter as a ‘Quaker Christian’, ‘socialist’ and ‘pacifist’, attempts to come to an objective conclusion about the extent to which the two parties are similar. However, his comparison either severely lacks research and context, or it has been written intentionally as a smear against UKIP.

First, Mr Hill addresses the issues of race and immigration together. This gives the impression that the two are somehow linked, however, for UKIP this has simply never been the case. Thus Mr Hill gives the impression UKIP is a party with a racial ideology. This could not be further from the truth and this is evident when you look at UKIP’s view of immigration and race separately.

On immigration, Mr Hill reduces UKIP policy - which is written in a document 52 pages long - to the facts that UKIP would impose a five-year ban on immigration and prevent any future immigration exceeding 50,000 per annum. He totally ignores the clearly written points that, under UKIP, you would still have students and economic migrants coming into the UK, they just wouldn’t be granted an automatic right to citizenship after a short period of time. Economic migrants or students would be granted visas/permits and when these expire the migrants could reapply. Furthermore, after five years, these migrants would be allowed to apply for citizenship.

Fortunately, Mr Hill does, in fact, summarise the BNP policy quite accurately as the fact they would ‘stop all new immigration except for exceptional cases’. Unlike UKIP, the BNP do not talk about letting students or economic migrants into the UK. Nor do the BNP, again in sharp contrast to UKIP, put a figure as to the number they would allow into the UK in the future.

Moving onto race, I think Mr Hill could not be more disingenuous. UKIP and the BNP have a fundamentally different outlook. The BNP is led by a former member of the National Front who has openly denied the Holocaust in the past, and has ties to the KKK. Up until a recent court verdict, the BNP did not allow non-whites to join their party. The BNP website is brimming with pictures of Muslims queuing up to enter the UK holding bombs.

UKIP, on the other hand, has many members who are from ethnic minority groups including myself. UKIP also has black and Asian candidates, and in stark contrast to the holocaust-denying BNP, UKIP has spoken out in defence of Israel on a number of occasions.

Mr Hill refers to the burka ban as a policy that makes UKIP ‘more extreme than the BNP’ when it comes to religion. However, the ban merely states that UKIP feels that in public buildings such as post offices, people should not be allowed to have their faces covered whether by a motor cycle helmet or a niqab. Given that no religion requires you to wear a niqab, cycle helmet or any other face covering for that matter, this policy is not against any religion.

Moving on to education, I would agree there are some similarities between the two parties, especially when it comes to teaching more about British history and opening new grammar schools. One must keep in mind though that the BNP write very little about education and thus it’s only a few small points that they have in common with UKIP.

Nevertheless, Mr Hill makes one of his strangest comments in writing: ‘UKIP describe themselves as “the first party to take a sceptical stance on man-made global warming claims”. This is odd because the BNP “firmly rejects the ‘climate change’” dogma.’

Actually, Mr Hill this isn’t odd because while the BNP might be sceptical, UKIP is saying that they were the ‘first party’ to take this stance, as in chronologically first, as in the BNP adopted this policy after UKIP.

There are also countless times when Mr Hill acts as though UKIP is the only party with whom the BNP shares policy. He says that both parties ‘would repeal the Human Rights Act’. But wait a minute, isn’t it the Tories that talk endlessly about repealing the Human Rights Act?

I also like some of the interesting terminology Mr Hill uses. He says that the BNP are on the ‘statist far-right’ while UKIP are on the ‘free market far right’. In both phrases appears ‘far right’ despite the fact UKIP have an economic libertarian stance and the BNP practically the same one as Mussolini! Mr Hill does a good job of branding them under the same banner on military and defence issues as they are both ‘militaristic’. This despite the fact the BNP have a totally different approach to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He mentions that the BNP would reintroduce national service with a civilian option, and ignores the fact that this was one of David Cameron’s big ideas!

To conclude, Mr Hill insists individuals like myself who ‘detest what the BNP stand for need to remember that far-right views are promoted… in UKIP’. Well the fact is Mr Hill it is precisely what I detest about the BNP which is not promoted in UKIP. Unlike the BNP UKIP is a libertarian, non-racist and mainstream political party and Mr Hill does a poor job trying to draw otherwise.