"Formed in 1982, it (the BNP) was, in its early years, very similar to the NF in its ideas, policies and support. From the late 1990s onwards, however, the party embarked on a programme of "modernisation" under its new leader, Nick Griffin.

Learning from the successes of French Front National, the party tried to give up its skinhead image, swapping bovver boots for sober suits.

How genuine the conversion has been may be gauged by the party's constitution which is still, and I quote from it, "wholly opposed to any form of racial integration between British and non-European peoples" and believes in restoring "the overwhelmingly white make up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948".


While one might rightly be cynical about the rebranding of the BNP, what has indubitably changed is the nature of its support.

During June's Euro elections, the polling organisation YouGov conducted a survey of about 32,000 voters, including more than 1,100 BNP supporters.
About half the BNP voters, YouGov found, were out-and-out racists, many of whom would probably have supported the party in its pre-modernization days

But they've been joined by a swath of new supporters whose hostility towards immigrants is shaped less by old-fashioned racism than by a new-fangled sense of fear and insecurity. Many are traditional Labour supporters who now feel abandoned by the political mainstream, anxious about their future

Little will sway the views of the hard-line racists, YouGov's Peter Kellner believes. But those drawn to the BNP because they have become alienated from the mainstream political process should not simply be dismissed as bigots by the mainstream.
It is the failure to engage with them, and with their fears and concerns, that helped pave their way to the far right."

Kenan Malik - discussing the decision to include the BNP on the panel of Question Time
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