Hands up anyone who's ever heard someone say "I'm not racist, but...". If you have, then you probably know that that's a good time to stop listening to what the person is saying as what follows will undoubtedly be nothing short of a steaming pile of hypocritical bullshit. My personal favourite, which I found this morning, is a perfect example.

listenin am no racist a just dunt like perverted pakis oreght !! [sic]

Which by simple deduction would imply that the person in question is perfectly happy to be around perverts of any other race or colour. Or it could mean that all "pakis" are perverted, in which case the first half of the sentence is made completely redundant as that's tantamount to saying all white people are child molestors, which I'm sure you'll agree is a pretty racist and pretty sweeping generalisation.

What possesses people to think they can say things like that, and not brand themselves a racist? The discussion I found that quotation in was centred around a group of 2 or 3 BNP-ites who were trying to defend themselves by saying they couldn't possibly be racist because they go to raves and there's "some black MCs there".

I suppose I should give a bit of background to this whole article. A few months ago, I came across a group on Facebook which was rather eloquently titled "I'm not racist I just want my fuckin country back". You can read a transcript of what was said in that group here. It's pretty lengthy so if you can't be bothered reading it all I don't blame you, but basically it's proof - should it even be needed - that the BNP's electorate is, mostly, empty-headed idiots who retort decent arguments with "fuck off paki", "go home", etc etc etc. You probably knew that already though.

Furthermore, following this "debate", I created this group, titled "I'm not racist but...", in the hope of attracting some like-minded people. This worked for a few days, before I checked it one day to find a few people had joined - and somehow not seen the picture of Hitler with a gun in his mouth and the words "follow your leader" written underneath - thinking it was a pro-BNP group for people to express their pathetic defences as to why they werent racist but everyone of a different race should leave the country.

You might have seen Nick Griffin on Question Time a few months ago. Sorry, you might have seen Nick Griffin squirming his way out of questions on Question Time a few months ago. When questioned over certain issues, he backtracked, claiming he'd never said this and had been misquoted on that - it's not the first time either, he's got quite a nack for it. Either he speaks in riddles and is continually misquoted by the press, or he's too embarrassed to actually admit in front of millions of people that he thinks the Holocaust was a myth.

This is something I've increasingly noticed - people are quite happy to go around telling people "go home", "get back to your own country", "stop taking our jobs" etc - some even go on marches for it - but as soon as you label them racist they jump on the defensive and claim that they're just "English and proud", or whatever. Obviously there's those in more extreme right-wing groups who'd probably happily admit to being neo-Nazis but the people I'm talking about here are the ones who support the BNP under the pretence that they're not a racist organisation.

And it has to be said, there's nothing wrong with having a sense of national identity, being proud of your country, or any of that. What I don't understand is why would you ever want to be proud of a country that locks it doors to people who want to come in and find work? Why would you want to be identified as part of a nation that seals itself off from the world around it and sits stagnant, culturally undeveloped and about as diverse as a peanut?

It also makes me laugh that there's a great deal of BNP (read: British National Party) that carry the slogan "English and proud!", which I'm assuming means they don't like anyone Welsh, Irish or Scottish. Quite ironic when the party they support carries a picture of the Union Jack embedded in its logo. In fact, thinking about it, Ms. O'Neill - who I suppose you could say was the ringleader in that argument I posted before, had a distinctly Irish second name and she didn't take too kindly to the idea when I pointed it out...

So, what's the point of this article then? Well, aside from highlighting a few home truths about exactly who Mr Griffin has voting for him (definitely not the kind of people you'd want to introduce to your parents), I guess more than anything it's a warning. At some point, there's going to be a general election, and everyone who doesnt go out and vote - whether it's Lib Dem, Labour, Conservative, Green, whatever - is giving these idiots more of a chance of getting into power. They've already got a seat in the European parliament, let's make sure they don't get into government.

Oh, and who's got the best "I'm not racist but..." line? Answers on a postcard please...