The Far Right: Rumours about Their Death Are Premature

Abstract

*The UK’s Far Right parties are relatively small in comparison to most of the rest of Europe and in 2010 they failed to live up to their own hype by not capturing the London parliamentary seat of Barking in the General Election. But the collective sigh of relief from all mainstream political parties and the cries of ‘crushing BNP defeat’ were somewhat premature and complacent. A number of new publications, however, do appear to recognise this and warn of the longer term threat that the Far Right pose. Matthew Goodwin’s (2011a) new book charts the rise of the British National Party (BNP) and by setting this in the context of other fascist parties over the last century, it is easy to see why this particular brand of fascism is now to be regarded as more dangerous than ever. The figures speak for themselves and despite the BNP’s failure to capture the Barking seat, they still gained nearly 15% of the vote and also gained more than 10% of the vote in no fewer than 52 local authority areas. Overall, they won around 560,000 votes and only a year earlier had received 1,000,000 as two BNP candidates were propelled into the European parliament. Goodwin (2011a) suggests that the BNP has become the most successful extreme right party in British history and points out that since 2001, its support in general elections has grown twelve-fold; support in local elections increased by a factor of 100 and membership by seven-fold. It is very clear that, despite some year on year ups and downs, their overall trajectory has been rapidly upward for the last 10 years or so and, as the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo), which monitors Far Right activities as part of an ongoing concern for tackling community tensions, found in its 2011 report, they have succeeded in broadening their appeal, even into rural and suburban areas (iCoCo, 2011).