Today, there are no BNP councillors in the east London borough of Barking and Dagenham. That will change. The BNP says that it expects to win 12 seats — almost one quarter of the total — on 4 May. This may be too optimistic, but even the local Labour MP Jon Cruddas says that the party could pick up six seats. That would be enough to make the BNP the second largest party on the council. The Tories and the Lib Dems are nowhere. It’s a straight BNP–Labour fight.

Labour voters are switching to the BNP in large numbers because they believe that only the BNP articulates what they are thinking. This is a story being repeated up and down Britain in local elections — Leeds, Burnley, Keighley, Dewsbury. Racist politics is on the march. Today’s BNP possesses the local campaigning skills and ability to make a personal connection with the voter that mainstream parties have forgotten. In a recent council election in Amber Valley, Derbyshire, literature was produced street by street. The BNP promised to remove the graffiti outside No. 23, shift the problem neighbours in No. 56, etc. The Barking and Dagenham Patriot, distributed by BNP workers, also plays brutally on local fears. ~The Spectator (registration required)

Via John Derbyshire