Letters | 31 October 2009

Squeezing out democracy

Sir: Melanie Phillips did a first-rate job in pinning down the Islamofascist ‘elephant in the room’ (‘The clash of uncivilisations’, 24 October). There was, however, one area not touched on: how the Islamists and the BNP are really two sides of the same coin.

I live six miles from the BNP heartland of Burnley and stood as a Labour council candidate in a nearby borough last year. Trudging through council estates, I made it my business to ignore instructions from the party to knock only on the doors of former Labour voters. So the campaign gave me weeks of face-to-face contact with the so-called ‘white underclass’ who, like Phillips, could not understand why kid gloves are only donned for the violence-threatening Islamists; why we sit back while Islamists treat women like ‘s***’; and why we tolerate our military being abused by Islamist thugs. People were angry and that anger feeds the BNP.