The British National Party has made a small but significant advance in recent local and London Assembly elections.

The BNP now have:

• a member on the 25 person Greater London Assembly;
• 10 new councillors across the country. Even though this is not as many as they claimed they would get, it is a third year of continuing increased BNP presence in the running of local government;
• new councillors in Stoke, Rotherham and many other urban areas;
• a firmer toe-hold in places like Barnsley where they came 2nd in 7 wards;

In many areas where they didn’t get elected there are reports of increased and sustained BNP activity. For example, in Derbyshire - particularly around the venue where they held their festival last summer - the BNP did frighteningly well. They took 2 of the 3 wards in the town of Heanor only failing to get the third by 1 vote!

The electoral campaign ‘Hope Not Hate’, backed by the influential anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and supported by many trade unions, ran a very populist campaign in alliance with the Daily Mirror. The purpose of the campaign? Just calling on people to vote: anything but BNP. Using celebrities such as Alan Sugar, contestants of the Apprentice, the casts of soap operas and a guest appearance from Gordon Brown, ‘Hope Not Hate’ hoped to generate a popular, all-embracing campaign to defeat the BNP.

In their post election statement [1] ‘Hope Not Hate’ strikes a re-assuring note. They claim the campaign was a success as the BNP failed to live up to their prediction of securing 40 more councillors. Elsewhere on the ‘Hope Not Hate’ blog Dave Landau takes Nick Lowles to task on the BNP’s ‘failure’ in London: "Call me old fashioned" says Dave "but I cannot be cheerful about them getting a seat on the London Assembly. Time was when we regarded it as alarming if they came second. If they get a seat on the LA it will be a real boost and all talk of getting 40 new seats will be forgotten in favour of this 'victory'."

Of course, the BNP hugely exaggerated their possibilities; as they always do. Last year they only made one net gain in the number of councilors, despite significantly increasing their vote and achieving a huge increase in the number of 2nd places. At the moment we haven’t had chance to calculate their total votes and how they compare with previous years but we expect the general trend has continued. But we are sceptical that ‘Hope Not Hate’ are presenting a full picture.

This year there are other factors. The Tories, more credible and better organised than they have been for a few years, pulled more votes. This will have affected both BNP and more significantly UKIP. The BNP exploitation of Tory disarray in leafy suburbia has therefore been made more difficult.

What is so depressing about this year's result is that they were achieved despite bitter internal feuding within the BNP over the last 6 months. For most of that time there has been near civil war in the BNP. In December Nick Griffin (BNP leader) expelled a number of their leading members. The BNP opposition (‘Voice of Change’) mobilised hundreds against the BNP leaders. Mutual accusations of 'Nazism' filled cyberspace between the two sides. Despite ongoing legal action the opposition now seems to be attempting to make peace and be accepted back in.

The likelihood and then the realisation of a BNP electoral success in fact has allowed Nick Griffin to see off his internal opposition. If there had been a serious campaign against the BNP that wouldn't have happened and the split that started in December could have possibly led to Griffin losing control and all sorts of centrifugal forces being set in motion.

If the BNP hadn't been stricken by a near civil war from November through to February, how much better might they have done?

Why are the BNP successful and how can we oppose it more effectively?

The reasons for the BNP's continuing successes are so obvious, they shouldn't really need explaining. Every minimally class conscious worker will have heard the argument again and again from those they work with and live near. "Labour are rubbish, they have done nothing for us British (English/white or whatever other false identity springs to mind) workers. We need to look after our own kind against these foreigners."

In the past such views would be easily marginalised. Trade union solidarity, a sense of common working class political interest, even when mediated through the distorting prism of Labour Party loyalty, were always more meaningful than such racist claptrap to the overwhelming majority of people.

But now? When so many trade union leaders do little or nothing to defend their members; but bend over backwards to defend the Labour Government which, again and again, humiliates, attacks and disenfranchises their union members. Is it really surprising that the BNP racists are not so easily silenced?

There is growing class militancy and increased strike activity this year. But strikes are localised in particular sectors. In many low paid areas of manufacturing, the service economy and local government, trade union confidence is probably as low as it have ever been.

Even worse there is absolutely no political force that can command any confidence or respect from workers. The Labour left has been humiliated by proving itself unable to mount a challenge to Brown.

To honestly face these facts may be difficult. But once they are faced then we can start to recognise what we must do. And the continuing consequences if we don't.

How to respond?

1. Stop telling lies that disguise the failures of our movement.
Our movement, in particular the trade union leadership, has failed to fight back adequately against the government which continues to privatise, pamper the rich and attack the poor worker, the immigrant and the socially disadvantaged.
Our union leaders, through the anti-fascist campaigns of UAF and Hope not Hate, shouldn't just call on people to vote, they should use their huge organisational resources to:

• champion the interests of working people and take the fight to Brown’s government
• ensure there are council and parliamentary candidates worth voting for!

2. Don’t make alliances that compromises what needs to be said and done.

The organised left despite having (perhaps) 'read the books' on why fascism was victorious in the 30's seems blind to the lessons learnt then. UAF and Hope not Hate promote popular front alliances with respectable religious leaders and political forces who are only pulled into an alliance on the expectation that nothing will be done that might question their political role.

Appeal from ‘Notts Stop the BNP’

If you consider yourself an opponent of the BNP we need your help!

• We are planning to stop a repeat of the BNP ‘Red White and Blue’ festival this summer. If the festival is not blocked by the council we are planning a mass demonstration. There will be a planning meeting on May 17th in Nottingham on this and a website has been set up to co-ordinate information and action http://nobnpfestival.wordpress.com [2]
• We will be holding a public meeting in Nottingham soon
• We will be planning, along with Derby UAF, a campaign in the areas of Derbyshire that are now under increasing threat of having political life terrorised by those around the BNP.

Please get back in touch with us at NottmStopBNP@yahoo.co.uk [3]if you are prepared to join us in building these activities. There is an urgent need for action against fascism.