the British National Party and the 2006 election results

I've just published on the main When we touched the sky website a piece relating the local election results to theme of the book. The article was originally published as 'We beat them once, we can do it again', Morning Star 17 May 2006. "The worst news in the local elections was the high vote gained by the British National Party. Some 33 BNP councilors were elected, bringing the BNP's total to 48. This story swamped the better news of gains for the Greens (20 new candidates, 91 in total), Respect (15 and 16), the Socialist Party (2 and 7) and other left votes elsewhere. Both the BBC and ITV both made the news of BNP gains in Barking their second lead story, after the Cabinet reshuffle. The media announced a BNP breakthrough, and that unfortunately is the message that most people will have heard." More.

Searchlight has now posted its analysis of the election results under the title of It was that media that won it. The following comments from Tyne and Wear Anti-Fascist Action are also interesting, and seem to confirm a general picture that outside Barking and Dagenham, the BNP's results were mixed: 'In Gateshead the total BNP vote (across wards where they have stood both years) is down from 2780 in 2004 to 1941 this year. The average vote per ward is also down by 50 votes. In Newcastle they will be pleased with Tyneside Secretary Ken Booth’s result in Elswick – nearly 20% in a ward not contested last time – but disappointed with the results in Walker, Westgate and Wingrove. In North Tyneside the BNP vote in Camperdown was down by nearly 100, whereas the in Battle Hill it remained almost steady. However, they contested only 2 wards compared to 4 in 2004. In South Tyneside, figures were down on the 2004 BNP result in Beacon & Bents, and on the 2004 NF result in Biddick & All Saints (where the NF candidate Charles Schmidt switched to the BNP this year). In Sunderland although the BNP share of the vote is approximately the same as in 2003, when they first stood a full slate, the overall BNP vote continues its downward trend from around 14,000 in 2003 and 12,400 in 2004. The average vote per ward is nearly 100 less than in 2004 and over 160 less than in 2003.'

Everyone is shocked by the BNP's results. But there have been times before when the far-right achieved breakthroughs.

In the 1930s, Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists had one elected councillor. In the 1970s, the National Party had two elected councillors and in 1976 and 1977 the National Front won levels of support in local elections in Leicester, Birmingham, Bournemouth and Ilford similar to the votes we have seen today.

In response to the rise of the National Front, an enormous protest coalition was launched. The movement took in workers in factories, women, artists, musicians, students, and people of all types united against a single enemy. There were great anti-racist Carnivals in London ,Manchester , Leeds and all over Britain. People organised against the threat, and on the terraces and in the estates they won an argument that racism was wrong and fascism should be stopped.

Having gained electoral momentum, the National Front then lost it, so that while in each of the preceding three elections, the NF vote rose: in 1979, it fell dramatically, and only in the last five years has the British National Party begun to recover from that reverse.

I wrote my book When we Touched the Sky to inspire people with the message that parties like the BNP have suffered reverses in the past: so long as you make it broad, dynamic and colourful, anti-fascism can work.

They've not been winning everywhere: down one in Bradford, no gain in Oldham. Council-by-council results here.

A friend Mark writes, 'The leadership of the Labour Party would rather see the BNP grow than Respect ... Since the beginning of February, event after event, has given the BNP credability, from Griffin getting off on the same day as Abu Hamza to all the nonsense about foreign prisoners.' He also criticised the media: 'The BBC has not mentioned Respect since 4.30am this morning. Nothing whatsoever about the fact Respect that done as well in Tower Hamlets as the BNP in Barking. I now know what the BNP logo looks like thanks to ITV News who had draped behind the newsreaders for 10 minutes today. The left could only ever dream of getting this type of publicity.' Another friend Keith suggests that Margaret Hodge was talking up the BNP vote in Barking deliberately, in the exact same fashion that Mitterand talked up the FN at the start of the 1980s: thinking that (at least in the short-term) the far-right could be used to break the Tory vote. If that interpretation is right, then in a twisted sense Hodge's words could even be said to have worked; the BNP vote went up, the Tories collapsed, and one immediate threat to her career was pushed away - in favour of a second, much more substantial threat - not just to Margaret Hodge but to us all.

The Guardian and Five Live are both saying that these have been good elections for the British National Party: at 8 in the morning, it's still too early to be sure. They've gained three seats in each of Epping Forest and Sandwell, where they already had councillors and one in Redditch and Pendle. There have also been the gains in Barking and Dagenham; where the BNP has won eleven, and possibly twelve of the thirteen seats it contested. Everyone has blamed Margaret Hodge for her stupid comments, but I wonder if it isn't a bigger factor that Barking council is the one London council workforce which has behaved most as if it had a jobs-for-whites policy. Some 12% of the borough population is black, but an extraordinary 96% of the council jobs are white: it is the only council in London which has anything like that extent of 'race penalty'. I'm hoping that the BNP may lose seats on other councils including Burnley, but of course they are likely to win seats in Bradford and in Yorkshire generally. An awkward thought for anti-fascists: the areas where the BNP has done best seem to be those where there has been the greatest insistence on localism, on electoral technique and on working with (but never criticising) the local Labour Party.

One last thought: Respect are claiming to have won 9 of the 28 seats declared so far in Tower Hamlets: assuming a similar vote in Newham - that could send a very different message to the BNP gains. More left-wing results here.