ABSTRACT

One story of the 2010 British general election was the possibility of a breakthrough by the extreme right-wing British National Party (BNP). 1 Over the previous decade, the BNP had made a series of advances in second-order local, devolved and European elections. While less successful than radical right parties elsewhere in Europe, the party surpassed the performance of any of its predecessors by gaining over fifty local councillors, one seat on the Greater London Assembly and two Members of the European Parliament. At the 2010 general election, the party sought to build on these gains by setting its sights on what had long eluded the extreme right in Britain: a breakthrough at a national election. The BNP was not the only extreme right party contesting the election, but it was easily the most prominent. 2 The goals behind the BNP campaign were threefold: to gain elected representation in Westminster (particularly in its two target seats of Barking and Stoke Central); to achieve several second-place finishes; and to emerge ahead of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) as the fourth-largest party in British politics. 3 To this end the BNP fielded 338 candidates: the largest number of candidates stood by an extreme right party in British electoral history.