- James Graham is the Campaigns and Communications Manager of Unlock Democracy The opinions expressed are his own. -

The rise of the far right in Britain is not a sign that people are flirting with fascism but a signal that disengagement has reached a crisis point.

The BNP’s rise has been slow but relentless over a 20-year period. The big turning point was actually the 2001 general election when Nick Griffin got 16 percent of the vote in the Oldham West constituency following a series of riots around the north of England. In 2003, they became the second largest party in Burnley, a trick they repeated in Barking and Dagenham in 2006 and Stoke on Trent in 2008. The election of Richard Barnbrook to the Greater London Assembly last year made it clear that they were in the running to make gains in the European Elections. If anything, the big surprise is that their gains were as limited as they were.

But there are a number of things to note about this. First of all, their success under Nick Griffin has been rooted in successfully presenting themselves as a non-racist and non-fascist party. Their deep fascist and Nazi links are apparent to anyone who does a bit of research but they have become adept at presenting themselves on the doorstep as something else.

In this respect they have been helped a lot by the relentless pace of 24-hour news. All the evidence suggests that an openly fascist party would continue to get nowhere in the UK. It may not seem much, but we should be consoled at least that the extremists will have to operate by stealth for the foreseeable future if they wish to continue to make progress.

Secondly, the party’s success is rooted in naked opportunism. Wherever there is a political vacuum, the BNP have rushed in. Burnley in 2003 is an excellent example of that, with both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats failing to field candidates in 6 out of 15 wards. Their campaigns are rooted in their ability to exploit local issues and incorporate a narrative about immigration, victimhood, fear and resentment. Often these are based on the most outrageous lies - Richard Barnbrook for example has recently been caught making up three murders in Barking and Dagenham. But of course, by the time they get found out the damage has already been done.

Thirdly, they have yet to gain a sustainable foothold of power. Burnley, seen by some as a pariah council in 2003, is now controlled by the Liberal Democrats with a rump BNP group in fourth place. The BNP saw both their total votes and share of the vote fall this year compared to the London Assembly election last year, despite a much reduced turnout which should have been helpful to them. Their record in local government is lamentable. It would seem that for whatever reason people are voting for the party, for a substantial number of them once is enough.

Proportional representation has been criticised for helping get the BNP elected to the European Parliament. This is ridiculous: all proportional systems do is better reflect public opinion. A mature democracy must confront extremism, not brush it under the carpet. Furthermore, their rise throughout the past decade has been helped by the iniquities of the first past the post (FPTP) system. In Barking and Dagenham for example, they got more councillors elected than the Conservatives despite receiving fewer votes. There is no question that the uncompetitive nature of FPTP has been useful to them.

It is shocking that the BNP now has two out of the 72 UK MEPs but they will remain marginalised in Brussels. The real scandal however is the very real power they have been seizing for years in local government by exploiting the often-undemocratic nature of the FPTP system. If mainstream politicians have now woken up to the threat of the far-right, this is what they need to be concentrating upon.

- Richard Whitaker is a lecturer in European politics at the University of Leicester, UK. The opinions expressed are his own. -

Europe rarely features highly in European election campaigns in Britain. In the 2004 campaign the word Euro more often than not referred to a football tournament rather than the single currency. And for at least two reasons, we shouldn’t expect European integration to be much discussed.

First, parties have little incentive to campaign on Europe because it features a long way down the list of issues British voters consider important, well behind Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s leadership, expenses, the economy, immigration and crime. Second, to the extent that parties are internally divided on the question of how far Europe should go, they are less likely to push the issue up the agenda.

In the current campaign we might have expected what little talk there was about Europe to cover the Lisbon Treaty on which the Conservatives, in contrast to the two other main parties, have called for a referendum, and the question of whether Britain should remain a member of the EU amid calls from Eurosceptic parties on the right and left, for us to withdraw from the organisation.

While Lisbon and EU membership have been mentioned, the reality is that discussion of Europe seems to have featured even less than the low level we might have predicted. Such is the domination of the campaign by the issue of MPs’ allowances that most of the main parties’ European Election Broadcasts – a place where they have the opportunity to talk specifically about European issues - made little or no mention of Europe.

Perhaps the paucity of talk about European integration would matter little if there was nothing at stake. But, like it or not, the European Parliament’s (EP) legislative powers have greatly increased over recent years such that it is now heavily involved in the regulation of the EU’s single market.

The balance of power in the EP matters between those favouring greater control of markets and those preferring deregulation. The outcome of the EP elections will also have an effect on the choice of European Commission President, who will have to be approved by the Parliament before taking office.

The polls suggest that the big parties are likely to suffer on June 4th with minor parties doing much better than they would in general elections. Small parties doing well at EP elections is nothing new. UKIP came third last time around winning 12 seats and 16 percent of the vote.

Governing parties normally do badly at European elections but if Labour were to drop below 22 percent they would beat their own record for the lowest score by a governing party in a European election in Britain. Many of the smaller parties take an anti-EU stance, especially those likely to win seats in the election (UKIP and possibly the BNP).

So if we look simply at the results this time around, the expected victory for the Conservatives and the votes for small parties may send a largely Eurosceptic message from the UK to Brussels.

This is fine, if that’s how the electorate feels, and we have plenty of polling evidence that the British electorate is comparatively Eurosceptic. But crucially, for many voters the decision will have been made not on issues of European integration and EU membership, but on the question of MPs’ expenses.