BNP Britain’s fourth party claim does not stand up

Sonia Gable | Sunday, 8 May 2005 Source: Searchlight

The British National Party has laid claim to being Britain's fourth largest party. Its reasoning is that it beat the UK Independence Party and the Greens in more seats than the number in which those parties came ahead of the BNP.

But if one looks at the figures more closely a different picture emerges. The BNP put up 119 candidates and took 192,746 votes (not the 194,685 claimed on the BNP website). The UKIP polled 611,423 votes with 495 candidates and the Green Party took 280,330 votes in 202 constituencies. Clearly the BNP achieved a higher average vote per candidate (1,623 votes compared with 1,235 for UKIP and 1,387 Green) but it also did not have the organisational resources or money to field as many candidates as the UKIP and Greens.

The BNP stood in those areas that offered the best prospects. If it had put up more candidates, it would inevitably have received a lower average vote. It is unlikely that the BNP could have won as many votes as the UKIP with the same number of candidates.

At a local level too the BNP's coverage was much more restricted. The BNP had a mere 45 candidates in the county council elections compared to the Greens' 604 local election candidates, which represented one quarter of all seats.

By these criteria, therefore, the UKIP and Greens are both larger than the BNP and this is also very much the case in terms of party membership.

In addition to its relatively small number of candidates, the BNP has hardly any presence in Scotland and Wales. In those regions the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru rank well ahead of the BNP.

The BNP's claim to be Britain's (not even England's) fourth party, like its predictions of winning some second and several third places in the polls and possibly even electing an MP in Barking and a mayor in Stoke-on-Trent, are wishful thinking and an attempt to prove to its members that all their hard work during the campaign was not in vain. True the results show growth compared to 2001. But a comparison with the 1970s is also interesting.

The National Front, the BNP's predecessor, stood in the general elections of 1970, February and October 1974 and 1979. In 1970 it had only 10 candidates and received a tiny vote. In February 1974, 54 candidates took 76,865 votes, which was 0.2% of the national poll and an average of 1,423 per candidate. In October that year, the NF fielded 90 candidates who polled 113,843 votes, 0.4% of the number of votes nationally, an average of 1,265 per candidate. In 1979 the NF scraped together all its resources and managed to put up 303 candidates who got 191,719 votes, a similar total to the BNP today, although it only represented 0.6% of those who voted, compared to the BNP's 0.74% in 2005.

By these figures the BNP is not much stronger than the NF was at the end of the 1970s, although admittedly the NF never managed to elect local councillors.

The 1979 election was the NF's peak. Soon afterwards the NF collapsed and far-right parties achieved very little electorally over the following 20 years. There were a number of reasons for that which are not present today and it will take sustained campaigning and work in communities to ensure the BNP does not advance in next year's local elections and beyond that. The BNP's presence in an area always results in increased racial violence and community tensions, a danger that must be fought vigorously. In addition, the BNP has pockets of strong support in several cities and towns in England and nearly 200,000 people voting racist is a matter for concern. But in the overall scheme of British politics, the election results show that a community-based fightback has so far succeeded in preventing the BNP from becoming a major electoral force.

A full analysis of the elections will appear in the June issue of Searchlight.