BRUSSELS -- There has been a step-change in the activity and success of the British National Party. It is now a serious element in electoral politics. Driven by new ways to attract voters, party members no longer cry "repatriation." Instead, their slogan "pensioners before asylum seekers" is aimed at latching on to the immoral panic engulfing white communities. To combat them, antifascist and antiracist groups must restructure their activities and widen their base.
The BNP victory Sept. 5 in Thurrock gave the party its 17th councilor. It should have had 18, but Councilor Luke Smith of Burnley, who was "outed" during the summer as a convicted football hooligan and banned for life from Burnley, decided at the BNP's third annual Red, White and Blue Festival in Swanley, Lancs, to "bottle" Martin Reynolds, the BNP Leeds organizer and part of the security team. Smith subsequently resigned from the council.
Despite incidents like these, young white males and ex-Conservative voters are still prepared in unprecedented numbers to go to the ballot box and vote BNP while former Labour Party voters stay home. Today almost any by-election in the penumbra of Britain's inner-city areas, or in the "white flight" suburbs around our cities, are fair game for BNP.