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They are well-scrubbed and media-trained. They have learned to avoid quoting Hitler and giving Nazi salutes. Should we worry that they have won a seat on the London Assembly, winning more than 130,000 votes?
In fact the BNP's enemies can make a good case that we shouldn't. They point out that the supposed triumph of the London far-Right on Friday night was nothing of the sort.
Until the count, events seemed to be moving the BNP's way. The press was taking it seriously. Television helped heighten the anti-immigrant mood by devoting hours of airtime to documentaries on the 40th anniversary of Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech. The Labour vote was crumbling, while no one could deny London was struggling to cope with the strains and cultural tensions brought by the greatest wave of immigration in its history. For all that, the party increased its vote by a paltry 0.5 per cent, from 4.8 in 2004 to 5.3 last week. As electoral advances go, this was hardly a blitzkrieg.
The sole victorious candidate was Richard Barnbrook, an odd man even by the standards of the far Right, who will be keeping my colleagues at City Hall in work for years to come. Leaving everything else aside, a politician from Cameron's Conservatives or the more arty wing of New Labour could explain away directing a gay porn film when he was young. The task becomes harder when you are the leading representative of a homophobic bunch of semi-housetrained thugs.
Researchers at the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, who helped organise the campaign against the BNP, aren't happy about his victory but are pleased the far Right has been contained. If London's voters had returned two or more BNP assembly members, as Labour's private polling suggested they would, the party would have been entitled to a seat on the police committee, and the momentum would have been with it.
London is still a tolerant city, however, and we just have one strange politician to deal with. The mainstream parties should isolate him with ease. And elsewhere, even where the BNP have won more than one council seat, as in Burnley, their politicians have quickly discredited themselves through sheer ineptitude.
Yet for all that, Searchlight is not complacent - for reasons I share. Frank Dobson used to organise Labour's campaigns against the far-Right and warned that if the BNP made any progress, however modest, politicians had to understand why voters turned to it. Like Searchlight, I'm convinced the success of the far Right across Europe is the result of the multicultural Left ignoring the white working class, or pretending its troubles matter less than those of more favoured ethnic groups.
Ken Livingstone took this moral and political foolishness to extremes. Now he is gone, it would be healthy if the London Left returned to its old principles and treated people equally regardless of colour and creed - or else the BNP may do better next time.
Reader views (9)
The BNP has a seat and their second preference, of 'watermelon smile' fame, was also elected and is now in charge. Let us hope the London Assembly does not turn into the Reichstag.
- Alan, Islington
The BNP were democratically elected because normal hard-working people have had enough!
Any silly attempts to ignore Barnbrook will simply hand more power to the movement.
If Searchlight hate it so much, why didn't they get voted in?
- Paul Kelly, London
When the white working class are angry they do vote for the BNP and indeed it is their response to being ignored by Labour: the middle classes in a similar situation vote Lib Dem.
However I think too much is being made of this one member of the GLA; consider for example the massive political representation of the FN in France; this far right party controls local government in many areas. And Le Pen pushed Jospin into third place in a Presidential election.
- Dectora, London UK
Flippyfloppy - you say that the GLA is ignoring Barnbrook's mandate - can I remind you that the GLA has 25 members? In a democratic organisation such as the GLA, the remaining 24 members do not have to bow down and agree / implement all of Barnbrook's policies, nor should they. If the remaining 24 members choose to disagree, then they should not waste the assembly's time debating or discussing matters on which there is already a significant majority consensus.
I look forward to Barnbrook behind hauled before the Standards Board for breaching the Local Authorities Code of Conduct (namely regulations governing equality)
- Mark, Vauxhall
Why keep on relying on Searchlight? Is it the only organisation that provides the 'right' answers? Does the journalist have no other sources? The organisation is a hard core communist machine, totally biased and discredited by most rational people. Just one instance, back in 1984 it caused the BBC to have to make an out of court settlement of some £1million for claims based on research provided by Mr G Gable of Searchlight for a Panorama programme on supposed right wingers within the conservative party. I suggest that all journalists are made to declare their political bias along with their names when printing 'news'.
- Helen, Norwich
The BNP will enjoy taking GLA staff to court for breach of
contact if they indulge in the childish ostracism of a
democratically elected representative. Barnbrook has been given a mandate by the voters to speak out about multiculturalism. If some GLA staff with chips on their shoulders don't want to hear some home truths, then tough.
- Flippyfloppy, London
In a democratic country trying to force out a democratically elected BNP candidate, surely these people become the fascists.
- Dave, London
The lessons of the race riots in northern England in 2001 and the subsequent electoral successes of the far right have never been headed by anyone of any political significance. They are treated as if the whole thing was a bad dream. It wasn't, and the echoes of those devastating events are still reverberating around the country.
Nick Cohen is right, too much time is spent dismissing the concerns of BNP voters instead of investigating why they are turning to the far right.
- Danny Brierley, Sutton, UK
If Nick had bothered to add up all of the "right wing" block of 2nd votes (they all count) of was 315,798 a sizeable chunk of total votes. I define the right wing as having similar policies on immigration and Europe.
- Darren, London
