The best bullwark against the BNP is a Labour party that reconnects with the Labour movement and the needs of the blue collar worker and a Tory party that is honest about the views of the rump of its supporters and doesn't pretend they are a blue shade of New Labour Lite.

It is also worth keeping in mind that the people with most to gain from a bump in BNP numbers are the far left. These are two sets of discredited parasites who feed off of eachother to the massive disinterest of the wider population. I take anything that the far left says about the far right and vice versa with a massive pinch of salt.

The analogy of the BNP being the same as the US republican party is very weak though. I may be out of touch but I don't think the Republican Party would say; that NY is no longer an American city nor that the only true Americans are those who can say their ancestors lived on US soil just after the last ice age, or that all immigrants should be sent home. Cos, well, in a US context it would be quite silly really. Yep,it's quite silly here too,but we're dealing with European Fascism, it's very different. I've never heard of an anti-jewish holocaust denying Republican.

I know you have those minutemen loonies down on the mexican border, I reckon they're about the closest to our BNP in political terms. Of course our BNP have all manner of additional unpleasant opinions,such as homophobia (very Republican true). It's also true what Ian said about the Tory rank and file having similar opinions to the BNP. However, it is much more likely that a Tory who feels disenfranchised in Camerons new (no, it isn't new tbh) Tory Party to vote for UKIP before they would vote BNP.

What I'm saying is painting all right-wing parties as being the same is really, really fucking dumb. You just end up validating, and legitimising a lot of policies and ideas that you really, really don't need to. Grufty is correct, this is about legitimising that which we cannot afford to, especially at this time where polarisation is creating traction for extremists. Mind you, if the BNP did enact their no immigration, send em all home, policy this country would be royally fucked into an unrecoverable situation economically.

The Tory party is already legitimising a few facist parties in Europe by working with them in the EU group they're part of. This, this is the problem here. The rise of fascist groups (as opposed to the normal right wing parties) is a european wide problem. It's also a problem in Russia too. The anti-islamic feeling even in Denmark has gone completely over the top, the violence there at the moment is horrifying and the state and the police are completely out of line.

Know thine enemy, move down south cos the racism there is overt and therefore visible. FFS. That is a terrifyingly stupid argument.

Anyhow, the Anti fascist groups here in the UK can be happily relied upon to beat the living crap out of BNP members and supporters when it comes to the point that it will be required. Same is true in a lot of other European countries , but not all of Europe unfortunately.

20 years ago, when I first moved to the UK and encountered them, they were more organised. Rallies, benefit gigs, proper membership scheme and visions of members standing for election. I can vividly recall the anti-fascist actions I went on as the 80s gave way to the 90s and watching as the racists started to don suits and pretend to be reasonable.

10 years ago they started winning the occasional seat in local elections. There was always a big media furore about it, and they inevitably lost the seat again. Nick Griffin was invited to the Oxford Union debate society and he slowly but surely (and with no little buffoonery) started to remove offensively racist language from the BNPs public pronouncements. He started talking about "the indigenous people of these islands" rather than "white people". Nonsense on so many levels, but it appears there are those who get taken in by it.

Because this year's elections saw the BNP secure two seats in the European Parliament and a seat on the London Assembly plus close to 80 council seats nationwide. On top of that, the Minister for Justice and senior opposition politicians are now willing to sit down and debate with them in front of a mass audience. And according to the first poll carried out after the broadcast of Question Time, it has increased support for the BNP. Or rather, it has helped increase the number of those who would now "consider voting BNP" to 22%.

So in answer to your question, "are they actually seeing a rise in support?" Yes they are. Very, very clearly.

What's worse is that the kind of racist scape-goating that the BNP peddle has historically flourished in times of economic hardship. And given that we are going to have to deal with Climate Change and resource depletion over the next 30 years, this is something that should concern us.

I want to reply to the rest of your post too but I've got to head out for a few hours. Later.