ABSTRACT
Between 2001 and 2006, the British National Party (BNP), hitherto widely regarded as too extreme to pose a serious threat to the established political parties, registered a series of striking and well-publicized electoral gains in local elections across England. This chapter shows that the relationship between anti-immigrant attitudes and class, underplay the role of unconscious fantasies in sustaining support for the BNP. Prevented by the first-past-the-post system from winning seats in the House of Commons, the BNP began the new millennium by concentrating on establishing itself as a credible contender in local elections. In Contemporary British Fascism, N. Copsey attributed the BNP’s electoral successes to Nick Griffin’s management of “the message” that the BNP had become “a credible modernised and legitimate constitutional party” and to the crowding of the middle ground of British politics associated with “New” Labour’s movement towards the centre.
