The eccentric far right British National Party (BNP), which is hoping to win its first-ever parliamentary seat in the May 6 general election, has called for a ban on immigration from Muslim countries labelling them as a “deadly threat” to the British way of life.
The party's manifesto, launched by its controversial leader Nick Griffin on Friday, said “there should be absolutely no further immigration from any Muslim countries, as it presents one of the most deadly threats yet to the survival of our nation”. It also pledged to ban the burqa and construction of any more mosques in Britain.
“The BNP believes that the historical record shows that Islam is by its very nature incompatible with modern secular western democracy,” it said.
Mr. Griffin, who has been tried for inciting racial hatred, said his party would repeal the Race Relations Act and “all other far leftist social engineering projects, such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission aimed at enforcing multiculturalism”.
Declaring that Britain was “full”, he said: “It's time to shut the doors.”
The party was recently forced by courts to change its whites-only membership rules but its manifesto made clear that it continued to believe in white supremacy and vowed to protect Britain's “indigenous” population from being swamped by immigrants.
The party is contesting more than 300 seats, nearly three times more than in the 2005 elections — an indication, Mr. Griffin claimed, of how far it had come in the past five years.
Meanwhile, the race among the three main parties — Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats — tightened further after the second television debate on Thursday confirming the trend towards a “hung” Parliament.
