ABSTRACT
When Tony Blair first assumed office Richard Barnbrook was an unknown secondary school arts teacher. Little more than a decade later he has become the most successful extreme-right political candidate in British electoral history. He first stood for the British National Party (BNP) in the 2005 general election and secured nearly 17 per cent of the vote in the east London constituency of Barking, the strongest ever constituency performance by an extreme-right candidate. The following year, Barnbrook was elected to the Barking and Dagenham council as one of 12 victorious BNP candidates, making the BNP the second largest party represented on the council. Two years after this, Barnbrook became the first ever BNP member of the London Assembly after the party secured over 130,000 Assembly votes in the 2008 elections, over 5 per cent of the total cast. Nearly 70,000 Londoners also voted for him personally as their first choice for London mayor, another record for an extreme-right candidate.
