Guest Writers
Pressure Groups
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Written by Gary Raikes
Britain First is foremost a political campaign group or pressure group if you like.
For the ordinary citizen, apart from voting, participation in pressure group activity is one of the most commonly experienced forms of political activity. In the British Political Participation Study, 14.6% of respondents had attended a protest meeting, 13.8% had engaged in formal group activity and 11.2% in an organized group. In contrast, 8.6% had attended a party meeting and only 3.5% had canvassed for a political party (Parry, Moyser and Day, 1992) there can be no doubt that that figure is now even lower.
There is a huge range of pressure groups whose membership dwarfs any obtained by nationalist parties. For example, The Consumers Association 781,000 members, National Federation of Women’s Institutes 296,000 members, Friends of the Earth 200,000, Ramblers Association 126,000, The Royal Society for Protection of Birds, a staggering 1,000,000 members.
There are various ways to use pressure to influence public policy from direct action to discussions with Ministers. Private Members Bills are one such route, and before the usual skeptics cry ‘pressure groups change nothing’ consider this, it was due to pressure groups lobbying Ministers that Capital punishment was abolished, abortion legalised, divorce liberalised and theatre censorship ended, all through private members legislation.
The recent complete failure of all nationalist parties, civic, ethno or whatever to make any impression at all in an election should have been a wake up call to all patriots, we have to use different methods for a different time. I would suggest those that can not grasp what Britain First is all about that they at least take the time to visit and read what we have to say on our web site. It seems to me that some people consider winning a council seat more important than winning our country back.
As this is a short article may I point you towards ‘Pressure groups and British politics’ by Wyn Grant 1995 for those who wish to fully understand this topic.
