Ken Livingstone: Do you expose them for what they are or ignore them? I’ve always been in favour of exposing them and taking them on. The far right do well when a Labour government is failing. It’s basically working class voters who would be inclined to be our supporters become disillusioned. They don’t want to vote Tory. If Brown gets a fourth term it will grow as a problem, unless Brown’s policies become more popular with the working class. There is a lot of anger out there. If Cameron wins, it will be just like when Thatcher got in. The BNP will rapidly fade away. It’s a problem for incumbent Labour governments. It’s never going to be a problem for a Tory one. But the BNP are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. We’ve got to do everything possible to stop them, but it was like this in the Callaghan government when the National Front rose to prominence. The BNP will continue eating into the Labour vote until the government realizes it needs to do something for working class people.
I'm not sure Livingstone is entirely right here. I realise local election figures differ, but here are the figures from the past 40 years.
*In 1970 Feb, the National Front fielded 10 candidates, and got an overall vote 11,449
*In 1974 Feb, the National Front fielded 54 candidates, and got an overall vote 76,865
*In 1974 October, the National Front fielded 90 candidates, and got an overall vote 113,843
In 1979 the National Front fielded 303 candidates, and got an overall vote of 191,719
*In 1983 the National Front fielded 40 candidates, and got an overall vote of 27,065
+The BNP fielded 54 candidates, and got an overall vote of 14,621
*In 1987 the BNP fielded 2 candidates, and got an overall vote of 553.
*In 1992 the National Front fielded 14 candidates, and got an overall vote of 4,816
+The BNP fielded 13 candidates, and got an overall vote of 7,361
*In 1997 the National Front fielded 2 candidates, and got an overall vote of 2,716
+The BNP fielded 57 candidates, and got an overall vote of 35,832
*In 2001 the National Front fielded 5 candidates, and got an overall vote of 2,484
+The BNP fielded 43 candidates, and got an overall vote of 47,129
*In 2005 the BNP fielded 119 candidates, and got an overall vote of 192,746
rule has always seen an upswing of Far Right votes. Heath's period of government for example was followed by a higher number of NF voters than Wilson's first term.
It's also true that the prime correspondent to NF/BNP votes is the number of seats contested.
That being said, there have been slight (total figures) increases of BNP/NF voters *per seat* contested under Labour, but in General Elections at least, such parties remain very marginal (i.e. less than 1% of the overall vote), and where any casual analysis of the statistics is mitigated by massive problems with standard deviations.
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