How it ended
4.30pm, 4 May 2007
With just a few key councils still to declare we can happily say that the BNP has not made its promised breakthrough in the 2007 local elections. Despite standing over 750 district and borough candidates the current net gain is just ONE.
The BNP has so far won nine new council seats, had one councillor re-elected and lost eight council wards.
BNP gains have taken place in Stoke-on-Trent (3), North West Leicestershire (2), Charnwood (1), Bradford (1), Broxtowe (1) and Staffordshire Moorlands.
However the BNP lost seats in Burnley (3), Bradford (1), Calderdale (1), Stoke-on-Trent (1), South Holland (1) and Broxbourne (1). The one BNP councillor who was re-elected was in Burnley.
Click here to view the BNP results, we will shortly be producing a more detailed summary of the election.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people that have worked with Searchlight over the last few months, and the unions who have supported us, and we can now happily say that all our hard work has paid off.
Taking on the BNP and working hard at a local level works.
BNP fail to advance but warning signals are there
With all the votes now counted the BNP performance can now be assessed fully – and it was a night of mixed fortunes. The BNP failed to make any significant breakthrough in its councillor base, and if anything slipped back in many key local authority areas, but its overall share of the vote confirms Searchlight’s fear that the BNP has the potential to be Britain’s fourth political party.
The BNP went into these elections confidently predicting that it would increase its councillor numbers from 49 to 100. However, it finished the election with a total of 50 councillors, a rise of just one. Within days the number was back down to 49 after it emerged that Mark Leat, elected in 2004 as a BNP councillor in Stoke-on-Trent, was now listed as an independent.
In the elections the BNP won nine new seats but lost eight of the nine it was defending. Its biggest gains were in Stoke-on-Trent and North West Leicestershire, where it gained three and two councillors respectively.
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However, it failed to make any breakthrough in Sandwell, Kirklees, Dudley, Thurrock and Leeds. In Bradford, it gained one councillor but lost another and in Burnley one BNP councillor was re-elected but the party lost three other seats. More importantly, the BNP share of the vote in many of these key areas has declined dramatically since last year.
In Sandwell, the BNP averaged 24.6% in the wards it contested this year compared to the 33% share it achieved in 2006. In Bradford the BNP vote fell from 25.9% to 19.2%, and this election confirmed the party’s demise in Oldham, where it was only able to put forward four candidates, who averaged just 16.6% of the vote.
In several key target wards the BNP vote dropped dramatically. In 2006 the BNP polled 45.1%, 43.5% and 37.0% in the Sandwell wards of Great Bridge, Princes End and Tividale – winning all three. This year Labour decisively beat the BNP candidates, with their vote dropping to 30.1%, 34.9% and 29.8% respectively. A similar decline occurred in the BNP’s key wards in Kirklees. In 2006 the BNP won Dewsbury East and Heckmondwike with votes of 15.4% and 13.2% more than Labour. This year Labour took back both seats, with the BNP candidate in Heckmondwike over 600 votes behind.
It was in precisely these wards where Searchlight focused most of its work. It was also where, to their credit, the local political parties confronted the BNP head on.
While the BNP's failure to win seats has certainly demoralised its activists there is absolutely no room for complacency. The media might now have decided that the BNP is on the wane but the statistics speak for themselves. The BNP averaged 14.7% of the vote in the 742 borough and district council wards it contested in England. In the Eastern region BNP candidates averaged 19.0%, closely followed by the East Midlands with 18.5%.
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The general pattern was that while the BNP vote was reduced in the key battleground authorities, the party did very well where they stood for the first time or were not taken on by the main political parties. This was certainly the case in the East Midlands, where the BNP averaged 24.1% across 5 wards in NW Leicestershire, 21.6% across 14 wards in Carnwood, 19.8% and 19.5% in Blaby and Ashfield and 14.8% in 10 wards in Broxtowe. Even in Leicester, which is often held up as a modern multicultural success, the BNP averaged 19.1% in the five wards it contested.
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The BNP also did surprisingly well in the Welsh Assembly elections, taking almost 5% of the Welsh vote and nearly twice that in certain North Wales local authority areas. But in Scotland the BNP was humiliated.
We scored an organisational victory over the BNP in these elections, as the results in the key wards illustrate clearly, and Searchlight would like to congratulate everyone involved in that effort. However, these results should be a warning to everyone. Unless we quickly find a way to address the underlying causes that give rise to BNP support the fascist party is on course for London Assembly and European election success over the next few years.
The BNP likes to boast that it is Britain’s fourth political party but it is not there yet. However, unless we find ways to reverse the current trend it may not be long before it is.
| Searchlight is already planning for the 2008 elections. We believe that we now have a proven track record of defeating the BNP at a local level. If your local political party or trade union wants to work with Searchlight towards next year’s elections we welcome contact as early as possible. Searchlight’s campaign team will be holding a series of events over the next few months around the country to promote good practice and discuss campaign plans. |
* A much more detailed analysis of the 2007 elections will appear in the June edition of Searchlight magazine. It will include reports from around the country, many more statistics and charts, and examples of good and bad campaigning practice. To obtain your copy of Searchlight, please send £2.50 to Searchlight, PO Box 1576, Ilford IG5 0NG.
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