Why is the newswire being spammed all the time with these reports of the BNP gaining power ? They are probably weaker today than they have been for a generation, no BNP MP's, No MEP's a few local councillers with zero power in real terms.

I'm suspicious of those who are giving them so much publicity.

Far right groups are more or less a joke except in tiny pockets of all-white dissatisfaction. There aren't many totally homogenous white working class communities, and even within those there isn't blanket BNP support. Among the pissed off white working class, there aren't a vast number stupid enough to blame other people on the same economic level.

I just don't buy this whole "watch out, the fascists are coming" stuff. The fascists are already here. They're in Downing Street. All this march of the white supremacists coverage seems to be detracting from the genuinely powerful people we SHOULD be worrying about: Mr Blair & his sick cohorts.

like the 54 elected councillors- the 23% fascist vote in blackburn yesterday and the 17% vote in gateshead?

no growth in support?

...people are going after the BNP. I can think of plenty of actions against BNP activities and activists in the past couple of years. If you look at the BNP website or in any of their internal bulletins you will find that they advertise all their activities publicly, EXCEPT IN WEST YORKSHIRE. There is one reason and one reason only for that fact 6.3.5!

I'm stunned at the complacency of some people here. How does 'Left' arrive at the conclusion that the far-Right are weaker than ever in their history? The BNP's fifty-four councillors is approximately, er....fifty-four more than the fash have ever had before!

OK, they are a long way from the levers of power and I agree we must focus our energy on combatting those currently in power now. But the establishment's failure to address the problems of the working class will inevitably create a vacuum that will be filled by an increasing number from the far-Right. And why do I think it will be the fash that exploit this democratic deficit? Because from where I stand I simply don't see the Left united or organised enough to put up a strong enough front to counter the threat from the BNP.

A few leaflets denouncing them as racist thugs (well I never! I never knew that.) ain't going to be enough to convince a mightily pissed off working class that their interests lie in voting Tory, Labour or Lib-Dem to keep the BNP out. In fact it will have precisely the opposite effect.

"Granstanding on Indymedia seems to be the summit of the far left anti fascist agenda."

Er, no... some of us are getting on with the job in hand, and DON'T try to caricature anti-fascists as "far-left"... your enemies come from far more diverse backgrounds than you'd like to admit to...

"Why don't you start smashing up the freaks of the far right, rather than trying to humiliate them."

Why don't you lead by example then? Why don't YOU get off your r arse and drop a few of the bastards? Go on, let us know how you get on... a bit unlikely though isn't it, troll?

"The working class are pissed off with new labour and see the BNP as a protest vote."

I was brought up proud working class and I'm not being duped by the BNP. Neither are any of my friends or my family. To suggest that 'the working class' - as if it it is some homogeneous whole - are uniformly voting BNP because of Blair, stinks of wishful thinking to me. Tell you what, come round our (white working class) estate canvassing for the BNP and see how long you last before someone levels you. You're living in fantasy land pal.

"They've got the pigs on their side."

...and what are you? Troll or pig? I mean this post, which is hardly 'news' is such a ham-fisted attempt at provokation, you have to be a bad guy of some sort? Or just really fucking stupid....

'I'm stunned at the complacency of some people here. How does 'Left' arrive at the conclusion that the far-Right are weaker than ever in their history? The BNP's fifty-four councillors is approximately, er....fifty-four more than the fash have ever had before!'

Yeah, I wondered about that. Disregarding Derek Beackon, the BNP councillor from 1993 (and a wanker by anyone's standards) the BNP are doing well on their terms and are certainly stonger/more popular than they have been before.

'...the establishment's failure to address the problems of the working class will inevitably create a vacuum that will be filled by an increasing number from the far-Right.'

And THAT's the problem. The so-called working class has become such a part of the sub-culture that the likes of the Labour Party doesn't give a fuck about them. Part of the long-term problem is Thatcher's lie that everyone could be middle-class and the working class believing it.

'A few leaflets denouncing them as racist thugs (well I never! I never knew that.) ain't going to be enough to convince a mightily pissed off working class that their interests lie in voting Tory, Labour or Lib-Dem to keep the BNP out. In fact it will have precisely the opposite effect.'

No, it won't be enough on its own but then nobody else said it would be - but frankly, what else is anyone doing? I hear a lot of crap about UAF and how they're doing it wrong but no-one ever says what the right thing to do is or gets off their fat arses to do it themselves. Oh, and I don't think the leaflets pointing out what racist fucks the BNP and their mates are have 'precisely the opposite effect'. They inform people, and that has to be worth something.

You misunderstand. What is likely to piss off the much betrayed working class is, inorder to keep out the racists (of whom many in the working class unfortunately share a similiar sentiment), imploring them to vote for the very same politicians who have shit on them for so long. Not a great way to win friends.

Dear Yorkshire RASH

Maybe the BNP didn't gain about 21 councillors in Barking and Dagenham in the recent local elections.

You fucking idiot.

I'm sure that all the people who don't vote are secretly closet anarchists who want a revolution created by anarchist feminist freaks.

The lowest turnout in the general election was in one of the safest Labour seats in the country.

The vote would have been even lower if the SWP shower of shit had stood a respec candidate.

Anarchists are fucking morons, trying to be revolutionary.

A fucking waste of space