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The latest report issued by the Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) highlights the growing threat from far right parties, despite the failure of the BNP to secure a parliamentary seat at the May 2010 General Election.

Whilst many of the media reports have concentrated on the failure of Nick Griffin, the BNP Party Chairman to oust sitting MP Margaret Hodge in Barking and Dagenham, the actual votes cast for the BNP were surprisingly strong in a number of constituencies.

The iCoCo report also points out that the BNP received over half a million votes (563,743) in the General Election. This compares to 192,746 votes in 2005 and just 47,000 votes in 2001. According to the BNP itself, 2010 represented the highest number of votes the party had ever received in any general election in its history. Had the number of votes the party received been translated directly into seats, the BNP would have won 12 parliamentary seats.

The report also highlights that, excluding the three major parties (Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats), the next most popular parties in the General Election were the UK Independent Party and the BNP, two parties with Right wing traits. UKIP and the BNP between them garnered 1,481,575 votes but won no seats.

Again if these votes were directly translated into seats the two parties between them would have received 32 seats approximately. Meanwhile, the Scottish National Party, for example, won 6 seats with just 491,386 votes. It appears that the nature of the UK electoral system helped to defeat the BNP (and UKIP) rather than a lack of voter support.

The iCoCo report shows that the Far Right, particularly in the form of the BNP, has been steadily building support in both local and general elections over a period of years. This support is below the level to translate into many seats and in fact they lost ground in 2010 in terms of elected representatives, but the trend is nevertheless upward.

Professor Ted Cantle CBE, Executive Chair of iCoCo and author of the report, said:

“There is a danger that the BNP and UKIP are regarded as a spent force but this is far from the truth. They lost ground because of campaigns to oppose them on the ground in places like Barking and Dagenham, but also all the minority parties were squeezed by the media focus on the three main parties, especially around the televised debates. That may not be the case next time.

”We have to recognise that they do tap into real concerns, as the ‘bigoted woman’ incident showed and we need more debate, not less, to answer these concerns. But we also need to recognise that whilst the BNP is part of the legitimate democratic framework they do stir up tensions in local communities and are often accompanied by more extreme Far Right groups who peddle hatred. These tensions then have to be dealt with by public agencies and community groups who have to try to calm things down and offer reassurance – this is costly in both social and monetary terms.”

The report is available to download at www.cohesioninstitute.org.uk

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For media enquiries contact Jennifer Tankard, Strategic Communications Advisor, iCoCo on 07971 510085 or Ali Bushnell, External Press and Media Relations Officer, Coventry University, on 024 7688 8245.

Note to editors:

The Institute of Community Cohesion (iCoCo) was established in 2005 to provide a new approach to race, diversity and multiculturalism. Its work focuses on building positive and harmonious community relations, using applied research to constantly develop practice and to build capacity of all the agencies and individuals involved.

iCoCo represents a unique partnership of academic, statutory and non-governmental bodies, combining the experience and expertise of universities, including Coventry - with practitioners from a range of diverse backgrounds and professions.