The BNP and the C of E, and dog whistles.

For those who have not seen the British National Party poster in question, it's at the beginning of the video on the BBC news page here. The quote is interesting: John 15:20. It's worth looking at in context, and it's in the context of the Gospel reading for Pentecost, which is currently on my desk. However, I must give credit to my brother, himself no Christian, for pointing out some of what I am about to discuss.
The poster points out that C of E employees may not belong to the BNP and that it is pursued by both the press and the police: which it is. As the same happened to Jesus, which is the basic meaning of the quote, the BNP essentially claims that it is being treated as Jesus was, therefore the BNP is in the place of Jesus. Which makes the BNP Christian.
There's a lot we could say to that.
Firstly, the logic, as is obvious from the above, is quite tortuous.
Secondly, if the BNP wants to appeal to Christian voters, why this quote? They'd be better off ripping Acts 17:26 out of context, wouldn't they?
Thirdly, the C of E ban has its reasons throughout the Scriptures. The Bible takes no view on economic systems, assuming one of trade and slavery as that was the system at the time and modelling how it should operate in a just fashion, a model we need to apply with wisdom to whatever system we adopt. However, on questions of race the Bible is very clear, whether you start from creation (Gen 1:26-29) or redemption (Gal 3:28). The Church ought be careful about being party political, but some things are beyond the pale.
Fourthly, the press pursues the BNP because the press pursues everyone - that's it's job.
Fifthly, the police pursues the BNP because the BNP faces repeated allegations of incitement to hatred and the police has a legal duty to pursue allegations in order to see if charges are to be brought.
In other words, the BNP is persecuted not without cause, quite unlike Jesus (John 15:25).
But here's a thought: this quote is from the Farewell Discourse. The immediate persecutors of Jesus were the Jewish authorities, about to hand Him over to Rome; John's readers may well have experienced rejection by their local Jewish communities. Is this dog-whistle politics? Well done to my brother for suggesting it. I wonder if the BNP are smart enough, let alone their voters, but hey, if a BNP person turns up and says "we are smart enough", we know that the anti-Semitic whistle has been blown. Anti-Semitism has been documented as being on the rise, primarily as a result of rise of more combative forms of Islam in the UK, but to see the return of anti-Semitism into our political system would be, sadly, not as surprising as I thought when I started writing this sentence and remembered the activities of Le Pen and Mölleman and some of the things they said in our near neighbours.