The rules of the BNP game are changing.

Some may have thought that forcing the BNP to open up its membership to ethnic minority members was a clever thing to do. It opens the Party up to infiltration and stops it discriminating against non-whites. Those are the good points.

However, the thing people forget about Nick Griffin is that he has been pouncing around pretending not to be a racist/Nazi for the past decade or so. Though he collapsed when under heavy scrutiny on Question Time, those who shout racist and fascist at him like the Unite Against Fascism socialist/commie mob are doing him a favour. Griffin has spent years articulating his argument on why he and the BNP are not racist. Now, to politically-minded folk who have spent time looking at the origins of the BNP and Griffin's politics, that argument has little credibility.

But to a lonely pensioner trapped in an East London ghetto, scared, afraid of what many parts of inner city Britain have become, both in terms of the lack of law and order and the huge influx of immigration that has transformed the area they grew up in, Griffin is being made out to be simply the outnumbered patriot who is being attacked because he simply is not "politically correct". Griffin is a victim, but a victim simply of a Britain that overwhelmingly rejects racism. The simple fact is though, in places like Barking where Griffin will be hoping to become an MP, thousands of people aren't necessarily voting for a racist (having no idea of the BNP's true core), they are voting for a Party they believe is victimised just as much as they feel they are. They can relate to the BNP's barrage from the mainstream.

The fact that the BNP are now going to have a few token non-white members is going to make the allegations of racism all the more easy for Griffin to run rings around. And the simple truth is, the greater credibility Griffin has to his "we're not racist" argument, the more votes his Party will receive.

UKIP has always been proud to want proper border controls, proud of displaying the British flag at meetings no matter how un-mainstream that has become, proud to speak out against the failed project of multiculturalism but most importantly of all, proud to stand up for and comprise of people of all colours and creeds. The trouble is now that the BNP are going to try and emulate many of the arguments UKIP have been making, that it is about space not race.

I have always said that it can be only UKIP that can ever destroy the BNP, as the other parties offer no solutions to the issues that cause people to vote BNP in the first place. Let us hope that that happens and that the BNP do never get accepted to be a non-racist Party, even with their mistaken new non-white members. The moment that they do is the moment that their electoral potential shoots through the roof. And that's a scary thought.

Is Turkish EU membership now dead in the water?

Despite the fact that Liberal Democrats Europe-wide have just backed Turkish EU membership officially - meaning that Labour, the LibDems and the Conservatives in Britain all now support that huge phase of enlargement - Van Rompuy's appointment as the first ever permanent President of the EU could be a signal that Turkey's entry into the EU is highly unlikely in the near future.

Here is what our new unelected EU President has to say on the subject of Turkish membership:

"Turkey is not a part of Europe and will never be part of Europe. An expansion of the EU to include Turkey cannot be considered as just another expansion as in the past".

"The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey."

Or maybe I'm just a pissed off eurosceptic clutching at straws?

The post-democratic era?

Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Ashton are now the President and High Representative. And who, exactly, voted for them to hold such roles? It was decided by our beloved leaders. In Britain's case, a man who has only ever been elected by the constituents of a small Scottish constituency and has not been elected by even his Party nor the public as Prime Minster.

Perhaps this is what was meant by Peter Mandelson when he said we may be approaching the post-democratic era, where power is taken away from the people and made on behalf of them on a scale so far remove that the people's feelings and thoughts don't even matter any more. It is only the men and women backed by the millions of their respective Party machine that get to make the decisions now.

Of course Baroness Ashton has achieved a first, becoming one of, if not the most powerful British politician in the world without having been elected to anything, ever.

How very clever as well for a British High Representative to have been selected. Ashton will now represent Britain and France on the UN Security Council when there is a common EU policy. To the naked eye then, Britain will still be represented by a Brit while the French push for EU integration on security and defence anyway. I suspect that is the main reason Ashton got selected.

The EU's Foreign Minister will speak from the UK's UN Securty Council seat

This is the type of thing that the Lisbon Treaty will get in through the back door. You know it must be bad if William Hague is calling it a " big step towards a united States of Europe".

Just what though will the Conservatives do about it? Well they said they would not let matters rest there and Hague is clearly not happy with such a coup by the EU, so surely the Tories won't let things like there?

Except, sadly, the Conservatives are going to be about as useful on the issue of the EU as a chocolate teapot. Unless an in or out referendum is threatened, those in Brussels will dismiss Cameron and Hague off-hand. And you better believe that the Conservative Party would rather except whatever the European Union has to throw at Britain in order to avoid more in-fighting. It's how we got into this mess in the first place.

Hat tip: Gawain Towler.

Should UKIP not stand against anti-EU MPs?

The Better Off Out pledge requires that sitting MPs who publicly endorse the fact that Britain would be better outside of the EU, require a free run from UKIP in their constituencies.

I have changed my stance on this, from being a firm supporter of the BOO pledge to more of a sceptic. After all, where were all of these MPs - largely Tory - in the media when Cameron turned tail on his referendum pledge? Only Bill Cash really spoke out, and he isn't even one of the BOO set. The argument is that UKIP shoudn't cost these people their seats so they can make the anti-EU argument in the Commons, but if they are going to be partisan to the point of not being critical, then it seems a bit of an empty pledge.

There is also the question as to whether we want UKIP to be seen as a one issue Party. An MP like Bob Spink may be anti-EU, but disagree with UKIP on a whole range of other policies. Is UKIP right as a Party to simply care about that MPs stance on that one issue if they are happy to vote for 42 days? I'm not convinced.

Is it any wonder..

That most normal young people aren't interested in politics? The Queen's Speech was totally devoid of any substantial policy, and was basically a chance of a bunch of politicians to ponce around.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Queen's Speech is worthwhile. But only if there's going to be any real meat, rather than just more "we're going to make the country better" rhetoric that everyone knows is bull.

An effective EU President will achieve ever closer union.

The utter nonsense of the Conservative position is that the Treaty of Rome quite clearly calls for "ever closer union". Therefore it is senseless to call those driving the EU at the top as undemocratic and all the rest of it if you are committed to EU membership as the Conservative Party is and has always been. The EU is moving in a very definite direction. Its pro-integration agenda cannot be stopped, only opted out of by leaving and instead trading freely with our European neighbours.

It is for that reason that it comes as no surprise to me that the new favourite to be our unelected EU President is a man who wrote the following for his Party's manifesto: “Apart from the euro, also other national symbols need to be replaced by European symbols (licence plates, identity cards, presence of more EU flags, one time EU sports events".

In the bubble of Brussels, that agenda makes him a very tantalising prospect indeed. So do we want this, or do we want to leave?