UK Parties 2010 General Election

Political Compass - October 11, 2013

Firstly, a few words about popular political terms (in case you haven't read the rest of our website).
Once you accept that left and right are merely measures of economic position, the extreme right refers to extremely liberal economics that may be practised by social authoritarians or social libertarians.
Similarly, the extreme left identifies a strong degree of state economic control, which may also be accompanied by liberal or authoritarian social policies. It's muddled thinking to simply describe the likes of the British National Party as "extreme right". The truth is that on issues like health, transport, housing, protectionism and globalisation, their economics are left of Labour, let alone the Conservatives. It's in areas like police power, military power, school discipline, law and order, race and nationalism that the BNP's real extremism - as authoritarians - is clear. It's easy to see how the term national socialism came into being. The uncomfortable reality is that much of their support comes from former Labour voters.
This mirrors France's National Front. In running some local governments, they reinstated certain welfare measures which their Socialist predecessors had abandoned. Like similar authoritarian parties that have sprung up around Europe, they have come to be seen in some quarters as champions of the underdog, as long as the underdog isn't Black, Arab, gay or Jewish ! With mainstream Social Democratic parties adopting - reluctantly or enthusiastically - the new economic libertarian orthodoxy (neo-liberalism), much of their old economic baggage has been pinched by National Socialism. Election debates between mainstream parties are increasingly about managerial competence rather than any clash of vision and fundamental difference in economic direction.

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