The Labour Vote in Burnley is in Meltdown!!

"I have never known anything like it in my 34 years in local politics", was how one Burnley BNP canvasser described the reaction on the doorstep this week.
"The Labour vote just isn't there any more, or otherwise people are just too embarrassed to say they are voting Labour.

Taking advantage of the best weather Burnley has seen this year, teams of BNP canvassers and leafletters were out in six of the 13 wards being contested.

As in previous weeks they received a positive response on the doorstep, with 37% of those questioned pledging support for the party on May 2nd, 51% saying they were thinking about it, and 12% indicating that they would support another party. It was this lack of support for Labour that was the real discovery this week.

"When we started canvassing at the end of February, there was still a hardcore of Labour voters", said canvasser Keith Park, "but this week they were just not there.
"We were making our second sweep of Fulledge, and the first time we were running 50/50 with Labour.
"It's not just the closure of the homes that's a bone on contention. People say it's Labour's whole attitude, their inference that Asians are always in the right, and the white population are either wrong or ignorant."

There has definitely been a collapse of the Labour vote in Burnley, but how much this will benefit the BNP remains to be seen.

The slate of Independent candidates will most certainly cash in on this, and BNP Burnley organiser, Steve Smith, believes there is more to this than meets the eye.

"A lot of the Independents are Labour supporters who know they won't get elected if they stood as Labour.
"Councillor Andrew Holder got elected in Brunshaw as an Independent and then declared himself Socialist Alliance. The political carpetbaggers in the local Labour Party will have taken notice of this.
"You wait and see, by November, some of those elected as Independents will be aligned with Labour in the Council Chamber."






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