Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain's Far Right
The past decade saw the rise of the British National Party, the country’s most successful ever far-right political movement, and the emergence of the anti-Islamic English Defence League. Taking aim at asylum seekers, Muslims, “enforced multiculturalism” and benefit “scroungers”, these groups have been working overtime to shift the blame for the nation’s ills onto the shoulders of the vulnerable. What does this extremist resurgence say about the state of modern Britain?
Drawing on archival research and extensive interviews with key figures, such as BNP leader Nick Griffin, Daniel Trilling shows how previously marginal characters from a tiny neo-Nazi subculture successfully exploited tensions exacerbated by the fear of immigration, the War on Terror and steepening economic inequality.
Mainstream politicians have consistently underestimated the far right in Britain while pursuing policies that give it the space to grow. Bloody Nasty People calls time on this complacency in an account that provides us with fresh insights into the dynamics of political extremism.
Paperback, 240 pages
ISBN: 9781781680803
May 2013
$16.95 / £9.99 / $20.00CAN
Other Editions
Ebook
ISBN: 9781844679607
October 2012
$12.99
Hardback, 240 pages
ISBN: 9781844679591
October 2012
$26.95 / £14.99 / $28.50CAN
Reviews
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“Racism and the rise of the far-right in Britain are often discussed but rarely understood. Daniel Trilling is an exception … his voice must be heard.”
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“Daniel Trilling is a serious reporter who is not afraid to get close to a difficult subject and ask awkward questions.”
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“An instructive account of white extremism in Britain.”
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“Bloody Nasty People is pure pavement-pounding journalism.”
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“Trilling traces the rise of the radical right in the United Kingdom and condemns establishment figures for not taking it more seriously.”
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“Chronicling the rise of anti-immigrant, ultra-right-wing parties in the United Kingdom and the changing fortunes of the British National Party (BNP), Trilling's book offers a compelling analysis of the racist fringe… Trilling insightfully rebuts the most common claims made by far-right activists, offering neat refutations of such myths as the idea that white people are the victims of institutional racism in the U.K.”
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“Trilling does not let Labour off the hook … [he] takes on those who mask concessions to racism as concern for the "white working class".”
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“The BNP is in electoral decline thanks in the main to the activities of anti-fascist campaigners outside the main political party structures but the conditions on which it thrived are still there—poverty, poor housing, unemployment and racism in the Establishment media. For those reasons alone this is a very timely book.”
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“A passionate plea for us all to be vigilant.”
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“Trilling is an experienced journalist who knows his material, gets close to his sources, and writes in a readable and convincing style.”
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“A cracking book that respectfully weaves together testimonies and stories – of people and places – with national political formations, examining them alongside the deeper economic and cultural questions posed by globalisation.”
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“A compelling narrative ... Trilling challenges much conventional wisdom.”
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“Trilling provides fascinating interviews with key political figures, arguing that far-right extremism remains a dangerous force in British politics today.”
Blog
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Thatcher: the PM who brought racism in from the cold
In January 1978, Margaret Thatcher, then leader of the opposition, gave what became one of her most quoted television interviews. "People," she told ITV's World in Action, "are really rather afraid that this country might be swamped by people with a different culture." Those words gave birth to a tenet of modern British politics: that Margaret Thatcher stole the far right's thunder by addressing the tricky subject of immigration. But is it true?
The background to her interview was public hostility to immigrants from Britain's former colonies. This wasn't exactly new: racism had shadowed the arrival of Commonwealth citizens from the 1940s onwards, peaking violently on occasions such as the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. But from the late 1960s, that racism had begun to find a growing political expression, in the form of the National Front. -
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Bloody Nasty People reviewed by Jon Cruddas MP
Labour MP Jon Cruddas looks back on a very different Olympic year, 2000, in his review of Daniel Trillings Bloody Nasty People in this weeks New Statesman. Rather than the "positive national story" of this year's games, instead we saw the opening days of a decade of political and racial antagonism fostered by the far-right, unwittingly colluded in by both Conservative and Labour politicians who "swerved around the question of modern national identity and triangulated instead between the nationalist right and the liberal left".