Cotswold leader Lynden Stowe forced to show ID to police after being mistaken for Nick Griffin

• Steven Morris
• guardian.co.uk, Monday 1 March 2010 13.02 GMT
• Article history

Conservative party councillor Lynden Stowe, right, says he is sometimes mistaken for the BNP leader Nick Griffin.

• Daniel Nasaw in Washington

• guardian.co.uk, Monday 4 January 2010 18.56 GMT

Barack Obama returns from his holiday break in Hawaii. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

The US secret service is investigating an apparent effigy of Barack Obama hung from a storefront in Georgia. Local television news showed what appeared to be a black doll at the end of a noose on the main road in Plains, home of Jimmy Carter, the former Democratic president, Georgia governor and Nobel peace prize winner.

Witnesses said the doll bore a sign with Obama's name. The effigy was quickly removed by the fire department after it was discovered on Saturday.

The election of Obama, the first African-American president, incensed US racists and his policies have provoked angry conservatives to compare him to Hitler and Stalin. But the number of threats to his life so far has been roughly similar to those against Bill Clinton and George Bush at a similar point in their presidencies, the US secret service director told a House of Representatives committee last month.

The tiny town of Plains, 120 miles south of Atlanta, is proud of its connection to Carter, president from 1977 to 1981, and residents said they hoped news of the effigy would not overshadow the link. Georgia was long a hotbed of racial animosity and when Carter was inaugurated governor in 1971 he declared: "The time for racial discrimination is over."

In October 2008 two students in Kentucky hung an effigy of Obama in what they called a Halloween prank. They were arrested, but charges were later dropped. During Bush's presidency crowds in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and across the Muslim world frequently burned him in effigy.

BNP leader who believes climate change activists are 'cranks' will be member of European parliament's delegation

• Toby Helm
• The Observer, Sunday 29 November 2009
• Article history

Nick Griffin amid an anti-BNP demonstration. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, is to represent the European parliament at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen, which opens next week.

Last night politicians and scientists reacted furiously to news that the far-right politician and climate change denier should be attending the summit on behalf of the EU.

Griffin, who was elected to the European parliament in June, confirmed last night that he would attend as the representative of the parliament's environmental committee. World leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, are hoping to forge a new global agreement to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.

Without such a deal, scientists warn that world temperatures will increase by more than 2C by the end of the century, triggering ice cap melting, sea-level rises, widespread flooding, the spread of deserts and devastating storms.

In a speech in the parliament last week, Griffin denounced those who warn of the consequences of climate change as "cranks". He said they had reached "an Orwellian consensus" that was "based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics".

"The anti-western intellectual cranks of the left suffered a collective breakdown when communism collapsed. Climate change is their new theology… But the heretics will have a voice in Copenhagen and the truth will out. Climate change is being used to impose an anti-human utopia as deadly as anything conceived by Stalin or Mao."

Griffin will be one of 15 representatives chosen to speak on behalf of the EU in Copenhagen. The shadow climate change secretary, Greg Clark, condemned the move last night. "It is utterly ridiculous that someone who doesn't even believe in climate change should be seeking to represent Europe in Copenhagen. The BNP does not command the support of the people of Britain, let alone of the rest of Europe," he said.

A spokesman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said: "Membership of the European parliament's delegation to Copenhagen is a matter for the European parliament. Its delegates do not represent the UK government or its views. Nick Griffin will not be part of the UK delegation."

Tim Yeo, chairman of the Commons environmental audit committee, said the decision to choose Griffin showed the "bizarre way" the parliament operated. He added: "If the future prosperity of the human race, in the face of climate change, depends on the contributions of people like Nick Griffin, there is little hope for any of us."

Professor Alan Thorpe, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, said Griffin's claim that thousands of scientists dispute the existence of man-made global warming was simply not true. "The intergovernmental panel on climate change draws on the views of most of the world's leading climate scientists and they have been quite clear that the evidence shows, with a high degree of certainty, that human activities are now having a substantial effect on the climate. It is simply not the case that there is a substantial number who do not accept a link."

Bob Ward, of Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said: "Griffin denies the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. This appears to be driven by a dogmatic strand of right-wing ideology that opposes any form of environmental regulation, usually hidden behind the dishonest claim that climate change is a left-wing conspiracy."

Chris Huhne, the Liberal Democrats' home affairs spokesman and a former MEP, said the European parliament always divided up positions on such delegations according to the parliament's political balance. "Griffin was bound to get something at some stage. It is just a shame they didn't send him to Iceland instead."

Critics say Griffin addresses environmental issues when he believes he can use them to advance anti-immigration policies. His party claims that it would improve Britain's transport infrastructure and reduce carbon dioxide levels by reducing the number of immigrants in Britain using roads, cars, trains and buses.

Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said Griffin once tried to win over environmentalists in the 1980s. "His core beliefs – that the white race is being threatened by an invading minority – are the so-called principles that have run through his nasty career."

Daniel Foggo and Jon Ungoed-Thomas

NICK GRIFFIN is to be investigated by the privacy watchdog after the BNP leader was accused of paying for a database containing the names and addresses of thousands of members of a rival party.

The database, which belonged to the UK Independence party and contained the details of about 3,500 of its members from London and the southeast, was passed to the British National party by a disaffected member in return for about £500, sources say.

The BNP then canvassed many of the people on the UKIP list asking for funds to help fight its campaign in the run-up to June’s European elections. The BNP went on to claim two seats, including one for Griffin.

Last night the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which oversees data protection, said it would investigate. Under the terms of the Data Protection Act, anyone who sells data without authorisation from the designated “data controller” is guilty of an offence, as is the person who obtains it.

If prosecuted and found guilty, transgressors are liable to a fine of up to £5,000. The Ministry of Justice is consulting about whether to impose custodial sentences for future breaches.

Griffin said yesterday that he had never personally paid for a UKIP membership list, although he conceded that some UKIP details had been passed to his party by former members.

He added: “To the best of my knowledge, no one in the party has paid for such a list.

“Some UKIP members do join us and provide names and addresses of people who might be interested to hear from us. We have never had an entire UKIP membership list.”

Last week Griffin said the anonymous leaking on a website of his own party’s membership — the second time it has happened in the past 12 months — was part of a “concerted anti-BNP campaign”.

One of the names on the leaked UKIP database was Gerard Batten, an MEP for the party, who has previously complained to the ICO about the apparent data breach. Last night he said he was preparing a fresh complaint based on The Sunday Times’s evidence that the database had been bought and sold.

“We have long suspected the BNP had a [UKIP] membership list. Our members don’t want this stuff. The BNP do this based on the false belief they can take away some of our members,” he said.

Batten and others received unsolicited requests for donations from the BNP from 2008 until earlier this year. One sent in January appealed for funds for the BNP’s European election battle. It said: “If we can win one seat, the floodgates will open. One seat, just one, would put us on the world stage and would lead to an avalanche of popular support throughout this country.”

Last year Batten wrote to the ICO: “I suspect that my address and those of our UKIP London members were illegally accessed from a UKIP database.”

Now other sources, including from within the BNP, have confirmed that the database was obtained and exploited by the party. “Nick Griffin bought the database for surprisingly little, just a few hundred pounds,” said a source.

It is understood that the privacy watchdog wrote to the BNP warning it not to send Batten any more communications. But the source said the watchdog did not know the party also had the names and addresses of 3,500 other UKIP members.

An ICO spokesman said: “We are very concerned to hear that some UKIP members’ personal details have apparently been traded with the BNP. We will investigate this incident to establish the full facts.

“Buying or selling personal data is against the law, unless there is a public interest defence.”

Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight, said: “The BNP jump up and down when their own membership lists are leaked, but it now emerges they are procuring the details of members of another party in an underhand way.”

Hmm... remember this?

Today's tabloids express mock outrage at the appearance of N*ck Gr*ff*n on the BBC Question Time programme. But they have short memories.

Here's today's Star:

Hang on, though. Isn't that the same newspaper that did this?

and this?

The Express, meanwhile, is also clutching its pearl necklace, claiming that the party is going to get taxpayer-funded broadcasts at the next election. Not a big lead on Griffin, because there's apparently another twist in the Diana saga (and as ever the stock image of her wearing a seatbelt, which would have saved her life in the crash, nutjob neenaw whoop-whoop conspiracy or no conspiracy)

But it's got those because it's gained votes. I wonder why? I wonder which newspapers are read by BNP supporters? Maybe ones that say stuff like this

or this?

or even this?

And not forgetting the all-time classic:

Not some. Not five hundred. Not even a thousand. Not half. Not three-quarters. No. ALL. IN BIG RED FUCKING LETTERS SO YOU'RE MADE CLEARLY AWARE THAT IT'S ALL.

Hey, and please let's not forget this:

I almost didn't include this!

Which is almost the same as this!

But no. The Express doesn't like the BNP. They just happen to share entirely the same views on immigration, but Griffin is bad, because... well. I haven't quite worked out why he's bad. Maybe he doesn't hate Muslims enough for their tastes?

The Mail have also had a bash, but as ever they're more concerned with attacking their nemesis the BBC than they are about hand-wringing over Griffin:

Having said which, I still think

it's worth making the point

that the Mail doesn't always steer so far away

from using content

which the BNP and 'bigot' N*ck Gr*ff*n

might completely agree with

and it's not long

before you might start thinking to yourself

are they really protesting a bit too much? And what's the difference, really, between the BNP bigots and the supposedly mainstream newspaper which claims to distance itself from them so much?

And you have to start thinking: do these newspapers which select certain types of images of ethnic minorities and use them again and again

really have such different views or agendas from the likes of the BNP?

It's all very well people blaming Labour, or the BBC, or whoever, for the 'rise' of the BNP. But if there has been a significant increase in BNP support - and it hasn't translated into votes yet, despite a severe recession and growing unemployment - perhaps that might have more to do with the legitimisation and absorption of their extreme views by newspapers creating scare story after scare story concerning race and immigration, often baseless stories created simply to scare? It's one thing going to a BNP meeting but it's quite another to hear exactly the same thing over the breakfast table from a publication which purports to report the facts.

But no. It's all the BBC's fault. Let's blame them.

A great post.

• Alan Travis
• The Guardian, Friday 23 October 2009
• Article history

On fascism
"I am not a Nazi and never have been." Griffin was convicted in 1998 of inciting racial hatred for articles that denied the Holocaust and praised the Waffen-SS.

On immigration
"The indigenous people of Britain have been victims of a genocide in recent months". The BNP leader first publicly referred to a "bloodless genocide'' when commenting in April on the language in the party's "Language and Concepts Discipline" manual, which says that black and Asian Britons should be called "resident foreigners', saying recent mass immigration was denying the English their ownidentity, and that the children of migrants did not become British simply by being born in Britain: "In a very subtle way, it's a sort of bloodless genocide."

Analysis: The BNP claims that within 60 years the "indigenous British will become an ethnic minority in their own country". While it is true that 24% of births in 2008 were to non-UK mothers, foreign-born people make up no more than 11% of the UK's total population. Britain has just experienced the largest wave of immigration in recent history – mostly from Poland – but it is thought that half have already gone home.

On deportation
Griffin told a black member of the audience: "I am very happy for you to stay here. We have said it is time to shut the door because this country is over-crowded, that criminals, bogus asylum seekers and people who are not loyal to this country should be deported. Everyone else can stay."

Analysis: BNP policy says it would deport 2 million people it claims are in Britain illegally, and stop all immigration, bar exceptional cases. But it would also "encourage" voluntary repatriation of legal migrants and "those of foreign descent to return to their lands of ethnic origin". This would cover many millions of British citizens, including presumably Sir Trevor McDonald, whom Griffin professes to admire.

On Churchill and the use of a Spitfire and other wartime imagery
Griffin said: "If Churchill was alive he would belong to the BNP".

Analysis: Churchill's grandson, Nicholas Soames, said in May this year: "They have behaved in a disgusting manner. They should not take my grandfather's name in vain. He would have been appalled by their views and the way they claim to represent the wartime generation. It's nonsense. Were it possible to take action, we would. We find it offensive and disgusting." The BNP uses second world war imagery to propagate an "invasion" thesis: that Britain is being occupied by foreigners, as the Nazis threatened in 1940.

On Israel and Islam
Griffin said the BNP was the only party which, in the clashes between Israel and Gaza, "stood full square behind Israel's right to deal with Hamas terrorists."

Analysis: He has replaced antisemitic rhetoric with Islamophobia. Perhaps the most curious BNP policy is its "ironclad offer" to the Muslim world to give them a free hand in the Middle East if they will take back "all their people currently colonising this country".

On Holocaust denial
He said EU law stopped him from explaining his beliefs on Holocaust denial and that he would be prosecuted in the French and German courts.

Analysis Holocaust denial is not illegal in Britain. He told a court in 1998 that orthodox opinion was that 6 million Jews were gassed: "Orthodox opinion also once held that the Earth is flat".

September 29th, 2009 | by Jennifer Van Grove

In Bozeman, Montana misunderstanding social media may be a way of life, but in Calumet County, Wisconsin it’s proven to be the difference between a job in law enforcement and unemployment.

Last month Jennifer Bass, a Calumet County sheriff’s deputy, decided to literally burn off workplace steam in an unsettling way. She, along with friends, took to her backyard to burn a stuffed officer’s uniform, using sticky notes to identify fellow officers, in effigy.

She also filmed and photographed the burning in effigy, posting video and photos of the incident to her Facebook () profile (footage included below). Now that the video, which includes racial remarks regarding the KKK, has surfaced to an audience beyond just Facebook friends, she’s since resigned from her position.

County Sheriff, Jerry Page, is openly apologizing for the incident, which was brought to his attention by an undisclosed third-party source. Also feeling the heat is Wendy Schmitz, a Sherriff’s investigator that was seen in photos posted to Facebook from the incident. Even though she attributes the racist statements to her coworker, she has admitted to participating in the burning and has been demoted as a result.

It’s an unfortunate stain on the county’s reputation, which claims to use Facebook for assistance with their everyday investigations. More information on the incident, and actual footage, can be seen in this FOX 11 report.

.

who's afraid of the bnp?

analysis, bbc radio 4, 28 september 2009

CHRIS KEATES  What I object to is the BNP’s cynical use of the democratic process in this country to seek to provide a cloak of respectability for its vile agenda. I think the BNP should be banned.

PHILIPPE LEGRAIN  I think it shows a complete lack of trust in British people to suggest that suddenly if they’re exposed to racist views on television somehow they’re all going to be swayed by them; that they’re not going to think hang on a minute, these people are ridiculous, they’re stupid, they’re obnoxious, and they’re wrong. So whether it’s principle or
pragmatism, both argue in favour of engaging with the BNP.

NICK GRIFFIN  There is an irony when these liberals start getting ultra fascist and trying to deny us freedom of speech, start trying to throw people out of jobs for their political beliefs.

KENAN MALIK  Teachers’ leader Chris Keates, the writer and economist Philippe Legrain, and Nick Griffin of the British National Party. Other European nations have long been used to the presence of far right politicians in parliament and even in government. Not so Britain. Here the far right has always been marginal. So the election in June of two British National Party MEPs - one of them Nick Griffin himself - has created fear, anxiety and much soul-searching about how a liberal, democratic society should respond. Does it mean that there are, as one newspaper leader put it, ‘a million racist voters’ in this country? Should mainstream politicians ostracise the BNP or engage with it? And if they should engage, how?

At the end of October, Nick Griffin will be given a seat at the BBC’s Question Time table. It’s proved a particularly controversial decision. Ric Bailey is the BBC’s chief political adviser.

RIC BAILEY  The BBC cannot discriminate between parties according to their policies. That would be a breach of impartiality. The BNP won two seats in the European Election, and that’s the first time that they have won representation at a national level in a national election. So clearly the calculation then about what due impartiality means is affected by that. And so if you look back in the past at other parties who’ve established themselves at a similar level - UK Independence Party obviously won a couple of seats some years ago, it now has more seats; the Green Party, that has representation at the European Parliament - they are parties who do get on Question Time. It’s not so much a question of making a decision. It’s about being consistent about your interpretation of impartiality.

KENAN MALIK  For some, however, the argument about ‘due impartiality’ cuts little ice. The Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, will apparently be debating Nick Griffin on Question Time. But many leading politicians, including the Home Secretary Alan Johnson, have said they’d refuse to share a platform with someone they regard a racist. Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, the largest teaching union, agrees with them.

CHRIS KEATES   The problem with the BBC arguing that the BNP is a political party and therefore should be given the same airtime as other political parties is that the BBC is falling into the trap of not recognising that this is a group that is actually cynically using the democratic processes to actually legitimise its agenda, and there is a real issue therefore of trying to equate the BNP with other political parties and I think it’s very easy for the BBC to make the distinction between the BNP and others. The BBC is the British Broadcasting Company. That’s about actually the whole of the population, a diverse population. The BNP stands on a ticket of only having membership of white heritage groups. They’re not speaking to the whole population. And, therefore, I think the BBC can quite legitimately make a clear distinction between the BNP and other political parties and not give them a platform to actually promote racial hatred, intolerance and violence.

KENAN MALIK  The idea that there should be ‘no platform for racists and fascists’ grew out of the often violent struggles against the National Front and other far right groups in the 1970s and 80s. The slogan became an important part of student and trade union activism. I myself cut my political teeth on Anti-Nazi League demos in the 1980s. But even back then, I was sceptical of the ‘no platform’ argument. The best way to tackle racist views was, it seemed to me, to challenge them openly, rather than censoring them. Today, many who are as opposed to the policies of the BNP as Chris Keates think the same. Philippe Legrain, author of Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them.

PHILIPPE LEGRAIN  Freedom of expression is not something that you only give to people who you agree with, but, just as importantly, to people who you don’t. Frankly, I think the BNP appearing on Question Time will be fantastic. Nick Griffin is going to get caught out. He’s going to sound stupid, he’s going to sound extremist. That kind of exposure is actually the best way to combat the BNP.

KENAN MALIK  Chris Keates, however, wants to extend the idea of ‘no platform’ to deny the BNP not just airtime but also access to much of the public sector.

CHRIS KEATES  We have been pursuing changes to the teachers’ contract, which would prohibit members of the BNP actually working as teachers. In fact, we would like to see contractual change right across public service to prevent the BNP working in public services.

KENAN MALIK  Suppose you have a teacher whose work is exemplary, who has taught white children, minority children without complaint. Then you find that he or she is a member of the BNP. Should they be sacked?

CHRIS KEATES  Racism can be covert and silent and teachers are in an extremely powerful position. So we might say that that teacher has done everything expected of them within a code of conduct expected of teachers; but that teacher as a member of the BNP, they could quite easily, in a way that’s extremely difficult to detect, find themselves privileging one group of pupils, giving more attention to particular groups, and it can be subtle and it can be subversive.

KENAN MALIK  What you’re really saying is that you want to ban them not for something they might have done, but for some things they might believe? In other words, it’s not their actions you want to ban them for, but their thoughts?

CHRIS KEATES  What the NASUWT wants to do is that people who are subscribing to the views of the BNP in our view are holding views and beliefs that are incompatible with public service.

KENAN MALIK   For the BNP’s Nick Griffin, arguments such as these only confirm his view that there exists a liberal conspiracy against his party.

NICK GRIFFIN  When people say we should be denied the right to speak, they’re not really denying us the right to speak. They’re denying the public the right to hear and to make up their own minds, and it’s a form of liberal fascism and it’s absolutely unacceptable. As regards jobs, we’re not a racist party, we don’t have racist policies, but the idea that anyone should be denied a job for their peacefully held and exercised political beliefs is a monstrous idea which has no place in the British tradition.

KENAN MALIK  You don’t have racist policies, but you only allow white indigenous Britons into your party?

NICK GRIFFIN  It has nothing to do with white. We’re talking about indigenous. The fact that historically the indigenous British are white doesn’t mean it’s a colour issue.

KENAN MALIK  It’s just a matter of convenience and coincidence that indigenous Britons happen to be white?

NICK GRIFFIN  No, because I don’t give a damn about white. It really
doesn’t matter.

KENAN MALIK  That, I suspect, is a sentiment that wouldn’t go down particularly well at many BNP rallies. Nor does it correspond with the aims of the BNP’s constitution, which prohibits, and I quote, ‘racial integration between British and non-European peoples’ and wants to restore ‘the overwhelmingly white make up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948’.

So, the question this debate raises is this: is the BNP a party like any other? Or are its policies and aims so different - and so inimical to liberal democracy - that special rules should apply to it? Matt Goodwin is a Research Fellow in Politics at the University of Manchester and an expert on the history of the BNP.

MATT GOODWIN  The BNP is a continuation of a much longer political tradition in Britain. It is a successor to the 1970s National Front. Between 1982 and '99, the BNP was in effect an identical organisation to the National Front in terms of its ideas, in terms of its structure. But from '99 onwards, we’ve seen some pretty significant changes.

KENAN MALIK  And to what extent then was there a conscious decision taken by the leadership of the BNP to become, if you like, a more mainstream party?

MATT GOODWIN  This is a specific strategy that has been implemented by Griffin and a number of other activists to modernise the far right in Britain along similar lines to what we’ve seen on the European continent. It really goes back to the mid to late 1990s. Griffin and others were looking at Jean-Marie Le Pen’s organisation in France, they were looking at ways to increase their number of votes, looking at ways to spread the party’s influence. And in effect the BNP began copying what was being done on the continent and this process has gathered pace, particularly after the party began receiving more votes and began electing local councillors.

MARGARET HODGE   I’ve watched the BNP, you know campaigned against them in the '70s when the extreme right was making headway in Tower Hamlets, close to Barking and Dagenham. And that was very different.

KENAN MALIK  Margaret Hodge, Labour MP for Barking and Dagenham in East London.

MARGARET HODGE   The BNP in the 70s tended to be skinheads, thugs, tattooed, tended to engage in street fights. The BNP today, with very much the same ideology and values and purpose that they had in the '70s, today’s typical BNP member that I come across in Barking is well dressed in a suit and will engage in community politics: will make sure the graffiti gets removed if that’s causing irritation locally, will go to the local summer fair, will deal with the individual complaints that people have about housing, parking and so on.

KENAN MALIK   The BNP has certainly rebranded itself over the past decade. But has it really climbed out of the far right swamp from which it emerged? Nick Griffin.

NICK GRIFFIN  I’ve never worn bovver boots. Most of my colleagues never have done. The idea of the British Nationalist Movement as a skinhead phenomenon is something created mainly by hysterical media lies rather than the actual truth.

KENAN MALIK  So was it a different Nick Griffin that said in court about the Holocaust ten years ago that ‘it is a mixture of allied wartime
propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and, later, witch hysteria’?

NICK GRIFFIN  I never said that in court. That was in a leaflet. I haven’t got any kind of conviction for Holocaust denial. I’ve never denied the Holocaust. I used to say it was exaggerated by Gentile leftists to stop sensible discussion of immigration, but quite simply that's in the last century. Jews in Britain now are the victims and potentially the victims of Islam even more than the rest of us and it’s time for us to stand together.

KENAN MALIK  Well let me quote what you actually said. ‘I am well aware that the orthodox opinion is that six million Jews were gassed and cremated and turned into lampshades. Orthodox opinion also once held that the earth was flat. I have reached a conclusion that the extermination tale is a mixture of allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie, and, later, witch hysteria’.

NICK GRIFFIN   I’ve changed my mind on some of those points, but I cannot talk about these. I can’t tell you what I used to believe, why I’ve changed my mind on some things, and what I believe now. I’m not allowed to by European law.

KENAN MALIK  I’m not sure which European law prevents Nick Griffin from revealing his true views about the Holocaust, though it’s a highly convenient one for him. It’s perhaps symptomatic of the new BNP that not only should Nick Griffin be coy about his views, but that he should blame European law for his inability to come clean. Matt Goodwin of the University of Manchester.

MATT GOODWIN  We can gain some insight from looking at the activists who hold senior positions within the party. Nick Griffin, you can trace his involvement back to the National Front; Simon Darby, the deputy leader of the Party, you can trace his involvement back to the BNP’s predecessors; you look at the editor of the party magazine, John Bean, you can trace his involvement with the far right back to Oswald Mosley in the 1950s. So all of these individuals are heavily indebted to a particular ideological tradition in Britain and that, I think, has fuelled cynicism among commentators and other political parties about this shift.

KENAN MALIK  Many people indeed remain sceptical about the transformation of the BNP. What has indubitably changed, however, is the nature of its support. Two decades ago, the stereotype of the neo-Nazi was also a fair description of a BNP supporter: young, male, skinhead, bigoted, violent. Today, says Peter Kellner of YouGov, the polling organisation, many of its supporters fit a very different profile. In June, during the Euro Elections, YouGov polled more than 30,000 people, including around 1,000 BNP voters.

PETER KELLNER  Our conclusion is that broadly speaking half the BNP votes can be described as racist and the other half is not so much racist as scared, alienated, worried, insecure. The fact is BNP voters exist on a spectrum from the out and out rabid, virtually psychotic racists through to the people who actually don’t care about race at all but are worried, alienated, insecure. What I’m really saying is you can roughly divide that spectrum in the middle, but there are a lot of racists who are insecure and a lot of insecure people who have anti-immigrant, mildly anti-black feelings. What I would say is that for those people race is not the prime driver. They don’t like the political process. People in the BNP do feel apart from society, but they’re at the extreme end of a much more widespread feeling which embraces many millions of people in Britain who somehow feel uncomfortable and insecure and not really understood by people in authority.

KENAN MALIK  Whatever may be the nature of the BNP as an organisation then, it’s clear that there’s no straightforward way to characterise its support. Sure, there remains a core of hardline racist bigots, but they’ve been joined by a swathe of new supporters whose hostility towards immigrants, minorities and Muslims is shaped less by old-fashioned racism than by a newfangled sense of fear and insecurity. Even more than the rest of the population, they seem dissatisfied with their lives, anxious about the future, distrustful of any figure of authority, incredulous of conspiracy theories. The BNP has become highly adept at presenting itself both as the voice of the voter abandoned by mainstream parties and as itself a victim of a malign liberal conspiracy. And it’s been able to do so because there’s a kernel of truth to the grievances felt by many of its supporters, particularly their sense of being betrayed by the mainstream parties. One of the areas in which the BNP has made major inroads in recent years is Barking and Dagenham in London. In 2006, 11 BNP councillors were elected. The BNP was so successful, suggests local MP Margaret Hodge, because the Labour party in the area was so inadequate.

MARGARET HODGE  Until really the BNP emerged, come elections you might deliver a few leaflets, you might have a presence at the polling station. Nobody really knocked on doors, nobody asked people what was the thing that mattered to them in their local community. Nobody really listened. And people were fed up with us not listening and they had this change in the community, they had all their concerns about the quality of the housing and the quality of the environment and access to jobs, and there we were, us politicians being voted in year on year on year and we were simply not listening and not responding to the very real concerns that people have.

KENAN MALIK  Challenging the BNP requires, then, not simply dismissing its supporters as racist, but taking their concerns seriously. But how should mainstream politicians engage with potential BNP voters? Margaret Hodge generated great controversy in 2006 when she suggested that the only way to stop the BNP was by accepting that indigenous Britons were indeed treated unfairly. New policies were therefore needed, which ensured that indigenous Britons received priority over migrants, especially in social housing. Does she still believe that?

MARGARET HODGE  I think migration is a feature of globalisation and I think policies that pretend that you can strictly control immigration are bound to fail. So if you accept that as a premise, that actually migration is difficult to control, you’ve then got to say, right, people have got to feel it’s fair. Stop saying that you can stop people coming in because people will come, but start saying you will have fairness in the allocation of public resources. Now that was the debate I was trying to raise, and I still think it’s a relevant debate today because that’s where the anger comes and that’s the anger that then leads to the racism, the division and the rise of the extreme right. If you come in as an economic migrant, you come in with the knowledge that you won’t immediately be able to access a resource that is always going to be in short supply, and you know that, then I think we would lance that boil of people feeling that they’re jumping the queue.

KENAN MALIK  You and I both agree that engaging with the BNP’s constituents or potential constituents, it’s important not dismissing them as racists. But there are two ways one can engage with them: one is to pander to existing prejudices; the other is to challenge those prejudices. Isn’t what you’ve done pandering to existing prejudices about what the problems are for white working class constituents?

MARGARET HODGE  If I’m concerned in building a community where there is harmony between people from very different backgrounds and races, I think you have to listen to the very, very strongly held views of people who’ve been in that community for a long time. And that view about are we fair in the allocation of limited public resources is a fantastically strongly held view, and I think you do have to pierce that dangerous boil if you’re going to build good multiracial communities in harmony.

KENAN MALIK  Margaret Hodge’s comments have drawn considerable criticism from her own colleagues who accuse her of using the ‘language of the BNP’ and of playing into its hands. The BNP itself sent her a bunch of flowers after its electoral success in the 2006 council elections saying it was ‘indebted’ to her for ‘having the gumption to tell the truth about housing’.

There is in fact no evidence that migrants either jump the housing queue or are responsible for the shortage of council housing. A recent study for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission found that immigrants who had moved to the UK in the previous five years made up just 1.8 per cent of social tenants. Even migrants who had lived here for more than five years accounted for only 10 per cent of social housing. 88 per cent of council tenants are UK-born. The real reason for long waiting lists, Liam Smith, deputy leader of the Labour-run Barking and Dagenham council
insists, is a failure to build sufficient council housing.

Despite such figures, mainstream politicians seem increasingly to have bought into the BNP argument. Earlier this year, the government announced plans to allow town halls to prioritise local people for social housing, a move widely seen as an attempt to head off support for the far right. And this perhaps may be the biggest impact of the BNP’s electoral success: changing the argument and policies of the mainstream. Even the language has shifted. When, at the Labour Party conference two years ago, Gordon Brown talked of ‘British jobs for British workers’, he was echoing a slogan last heard on National Front demonstrations in the 1980s. Even Margaret Hodge is worried.

MARGARET HODGE  I don’t think I’d have chosen those words. And I think it’s just for that reason that I would love to have a discourse from our politicians about migration which sees it as a part of modern Britain, not as something that could be controlled in the way that is suggested through immigration controls or through you know who gets the jobs.

KENAN MALIK  But if you talk about priority for social housing, aren’t you really talking about 'British houses for British people'?

MARGARET HODGE  Well that’s how you choose to interpret it. I know that I was raising a contentious issue, but I think there is a legitimate debate to be had on how we allocate those scarce resources, those scare public resources which always will have to be rationed. I’d love to see that debate without that sort of viciousness of god you’re a racist to have raised it.

KENAN MALIK  It’s true that the ‘r’ word is used far too often as a way of making certain arguments appear illegitimate. You can’t get away from the fact though that many arguments put forward by politicians who are not racist nevertheless echo the claims of the far right, giving those claims greater legitimacy. And, according to Matt Goodwin of the University of Manchester, it’s not just in relation to immigration that BNP arguments are being validated by the mainstream.

MATT GOODWIN  A number of different studies now have shown that BNP support is positively related to areas where there are significant Muslim populations. Now the implication of that is that the BNP’s emphasis on Islam in its campaign literature, which has been increasing in recent years, is having an effect. But also it perhaps reflects the way in which mainstream commentators and even some politicians have spoken out quite stridently about Muslims and Islam, and that this in some way is legitimising the BNP’s campaign. And this is something again that we haven’t seen on the far right before that, for example in previous years when the far right espoused anti-Semitism, nobody in the media or political establishment endorsed that position. You know the National Front was way out and seen as being a completely abnormal organisation. But today you can pick up anti-Islam sentiments in parts of the media, parts of the political establishment, and voters I think are aware of that and so the BNP doesn’t look quite as out in the sticks as it once did.

KENAN MALIK  One reason that mainstream politicians have begun to talk about the rights of indigenous Britons and about the need to discriminate against migrants is fear: fear that the BNP is on the march and can only be stopped by taking seriously anxieties about immigration. Fear, ironically, is leading some both to demonise the BNP and to appropriate its policies. But is the BNP really as great a threat as many believe? Peter Kellner of YouGov.

PETER KELLNER  One’s got to take notice of the fact that the BNP gained their first seats in the European Parliament, winning two seats in the June election. Their vote was very little up in numerical terms. In percentage terms, it was up from 5 per cent to 6 per cent. That’s well below the 10 to 15 per cent you tend to get for right wing Nationalist parties on the European continent. Also if you look at it interms of the total electorate, roughly one third of the British electorate voted in the European elections, so as a percentage of the total electorate the BNP won just 2 per cent. So overall, 1 per cent of the electorate voted BNP for racist reasons and 1 per cent voted for reasons of alienation and insecurity.

KENAN MALIK  And yet the BNP’s electoral success still feels shocking because the far right has never before possessed the national presence in this country. So what lessons can we learn from other European nations where such electoral success is more routine? The writer and economist Philippe Legrain.

PHILIPPE LEGRAIN  You look at France, for example. The National Front in 2002 came second in the first round of the presidential elections. Jean-Marie Le Pen was in the run off against Jacques Chirac. At the time the French were deeply distressed about what it said about their society, but actually it gave the opportunity for 80 per cent of French people to vote decisively against the National Front in the second round of presidential elections. Socialists held their noses and voted for the right winger Jacques Chirac in preference to Jean-Marie Le Pen and actually that marked the high watermark of the National Front. So what until then seemed like simply a protest party, when they were actually at the doors of power people realised and wanted to clearly express the fact that they didn’t want the National Front in government.

KENAN MALIK  Even when far right politicians walk the corridors of power, Matt Goodwin suggests, the consequences have not been what one might expect.

MATT GOODWIN  If we look across Europe in recent years, what we can see is that when the far right has been let into the establishment, if you like, when it has participated in government coalitions or when it has had access to mainstream newspapers and programmes and so on, what we can see is that the far right generally has not done anything that’s particularly extreme, that is consistent with some of those fears. Rather the far right has tamed itself or has been tamed by the experience of government or the experience of exposure to voters. And in some cases, for example Austria in the first years of the 21st century, they found it very difficult to cope with this normalisation process and completely imploded from within. So if we’re letting the BNP into these programmes and into local council chambers, it’s never been done before but I don’t think that simply shunning them and confirming their outsider status is perhaps the most effective way forward.

KENAN MALIK  I’m not sure I’d be so sanguine about letting the BNP achieve real power. Nevertheless, Matt Goodwin’s point is well made that one should not overreact to the election of a few BNP representatives, especially if by doing so they can be turned into martyrs. For Philippe Legrain, the real problem is less the BNP than the lack of faith of mainstream politicians in their own values.

PHILIPPE LEGRAIN  There’s a large element of the liberal intelligentsia who’s convinced that a large section of white working class people are inherently racist and that they need to be protected against their kind of baser instincts. And frankly I think that’s patronising, I think it’s untrue. I would have more confidence in people, I would have more confidence in the power of your arguments. I’d have more confidence that when people really get to see close up what the BNP’s about, that they’re not going to like what they see. The biggest danger from the BNP is not the BNP itself, which is a small, marginal party. The biggest danger is the overreaction of those who really have power, whether it’s the government or the main opposition party; the overreaction of the media or other people who have real power in this country.

KENAN MALIK  Fear and insecurity is driving many towards the BNP. It is also shaping much of the response to the BNP. The result is an incoherent and illiberal reaction, with some demanding that BNP supporters be deprived of basic rights, while others pander to their prejudices. Jettisoning a commitment to the fundamental values of a liberal democracy is not the best way of weaning people away from the far right.

Matthew Single outside Nottingham magistrates court. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA

A former member of the British National party was fined £200 today after he admitted leaking the names and details of thousands of party members online.

Matthew Single, appearing before Nottingham magistrates, admitted revealing the names, addresses and occupations of around 12,000 members on a blog. Charges against his wife, Sadie Graham-Single, were dropped.

District judge John Stobart ordered 37-year-old Single to pay an additional £100 towards the costs of the prosecution.

"Anything that is posted on the internet has the effect of opening a Pandora's box," he said.

"What you put on the internet can never be taken from it, and while there may be some members in this organisation who do not deserve to be protected by the law, they should be able to expect that officers within the organisation will not abuse the information provided to them."

He said the law "exists to save people from such revenge attacks", adding: "It came as a surprise to me, as it will to many members of the party, that to do something as foolish and as criminally dangerous as you did will only incur a financial penalty.

"It comes as no surprise to me that somebody to do with an organisation that prides itself on Britishness is in fact living off the British people on jobseekers' allowance, and that is why the fine is so low as to be ridiculous."

Police officers, teachers, church figures and lawyers were among those revealed to be BNP members, with some complaining that the leaks had exposed them to the risk of dismissal from their jobs or disciplinary action.

More than 160 complaints were made to police after attacks on BNP members and their property, it was revealed in court. White powder, purported to be anthrax, was put through people's letterboxes, swastikas were daubed on doors and there was an arson attack on one member's vehicle, officers said.

John Walker, a BNP spokesman, said some party members were considering bringing civil cases against Single and his wife.

"It's an absolute disgrace. As far as I'm concerned, it should have been a custodial sentence," Walker said.

"There have been some real victims in this case. People had their homes attacked and some people have lost their jobs."

Speaking outside the court, Detective Sergeant Chris Reynolds said he was disappointed with the outcome of the investigation, believed to have cost about £50,000.

"It's taken a great deal of work to get the case to court," he said. "There was pretty serious stuff after what happened. People were fearful for their safety."

The list of names was leaked on the web in November 2008. Information disclosed included contact details such as mobile phone numbers and the names and ages of children in a family membership.

Some of those named complained that they had been mistakenly included on the list after having asked for information about the party. Others said they were no longer members.

The BNP called the leak "malevolent and spiteful" but said the list was out of date and included the names of members only up to 2007.

The party called police and obtained a high court injunction to stop the list being published, but was forced to admit it was relying on the Human Rights Act – which it opposes – to protect members' privacy.

Police charged Single, who was living in Nottingham at the time of the leak, under the Data The BNP leader, Nick Griffin, claimed at the time to know the identity of a person who had leaked the information, saying it was a hardline senior employee who disagreed with the direction of the party and had left it in 2007.

The leak revealed bitter party infighting. It emerged that Griffin and his deputy, Simon Darby, had taken court action against six disgruntled former members, including Single and his wife, a BNP councillor on Broxtowe Borough Council, in 2007. In December that year, an internal dispute led to the resignation or expulsion of 60 local and national BNP officials.

Single, who trained BNP members in security, was part of a group of rebels who had been calling for the expulsion of three other senior officials – John Walker, the national treasurer, his deputy, Dave Hannam, and Mark Collett, the director of publicity, whom the rebels accused of bringing the BNP into disrepute. When the rebel leaders were sacked by Griffin, a large number of party officials resigned in support or were expelled.

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