An extreme right-wing political party in the UK. It is in favour of racial apartheid, giving priority to native Britons in the job market, and repatriation of immigrants, eventually leading to an all-white Britain. They generally stand in seats where an opposing candidate belongs to an ethnic minority, or where there is racial tension.In the 2001 General Election, they polled 16% of the vote in Oldham (the scene of allegedly BNP-incited race riots earlier in the year), putting the Liberal Democrats into fourth place. It can only be hoped that those who voted for them were doing so out of dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties, rather than out of actual sympathy for the BNP. On Election day, the Oldham council were keen to prevent the BNP from promoting their views, but didn't want to be seen to censor any particular party. In the end, all candidates were banned from making their customary speech after the results were announced. In protest, the BNP candidate (Nick Griffin, the party's leader) wore a gag at the count.The government claims that outlawing the BNP would be bad for democracy, setting a precedent for the censorship of other political platforms. Maybe so: but is it not equally undemocratic to condone the promotion of anti-democratic views?

See also: The problem of democracy.

The BNP recently got a great deal of publicity (entirely out of proportion with the scale of their success) after winning two council seats in the British elections. What many people don't know about them is that alongside their more famous immigration policies they hold a number of other positions which are, in my humble opinion, just plain nuts. It may be worth pointing these out for posterity:

• corporal punishment for petty criminals
• withdrawal from EU and NATO!
• excluding foreign imports - any economist will tell you that's suicide
• cut fuel tax and 'say no pollution' - not sure how they intend to combine those two
• no international aid to third world
• end to ulster peace process
• anti-mixed race relationships
• ban on foreign ownership of british media
• return to national service
• ban on 'public promotion and shows of homosexuality'

They try to present themselves as reasonable people but the truth is, even when they get away from their racist agenda they are entirely lacking in coherent sensible policies. They are not only unelectable because they are bigoted: they are unelectable because they are stoopid.

The BNP thrive on disaffected voters and utter bollocks. As I said in my Young BNP writeup, they spread mistruths and plant fear where there was none previously, to make people think that the fairly docile Asian/non-white communities in Britain are in fact raving savages. Too bad the media (with the exception of The Independent, who take every opportunity possible to mock them; yet another bonus) seems to treat them as a legitimate political party.

Rather like a British Ku Klux Klan, the BNPs political success has been due to the above uninformed bollocks and their wholesome and morally defensible (from their viewpoint anyway) practise of beating people up. Their website proudly proclaims, next to some pictures of happy white people, that they are "striving for a better Britain for people like you", quietly ignoring that everybody is equal and that if Britain is for people like me, that includes Asians, blacks, the Chinese, the Japanese and every other sodding person that ever set foot on this fair and pleasant land.

A man was standing at the school gates today, handing out leaflets for the "Send 'Em Back Where They Came From Party". Their policies say that anyone who is not a pure bred flaxen haired Saxon should be immediately repatriated back to their homeland. My mother has calculated that if this were to happen, the population of the United Kingdom of Great Britain would be reduced to one. - Roughly transcribed from The Diary Of Adrian Mole by Sue Townsend

The party's FAQ page is very revealing. Apparently, most racist attacks are committed by black people against white people, a statistic not backed up by anyone in particular, aside from the townie scum that support the party, and who single handedly created the statistic by using their common phrase of "You startin'?" to provoke attacks. They are against mixed-race relationships because it apparently destroys white family lines, which is a fairly disturbing policy to have and a worrying way of justifying it. Reassuringly, they state that they are against violence, which is nice, coming from a party whose higher ranking members include convicted nailbombers.

Luckily, despite their tough policies on immigration, they are willing to take refugees from war zones; specifically, the many war zones and persecuting governments of Western Europe. Unluckily, considering their nasty racist policies (lets face it, they may as well just come right out and yell "Sieg Heil" at an ungodly volume, because that's blatantly what they want to do) they want to restore capital punishment. Which doesn't sound too good. They are also against the public display of homosexuality in the mass media (i.e nowhere) which again doesn't sit too easily with the capital punishment idea, nor their much vaunted drive for "freedom of speech". The same also goes for their policies of forced conscription, and pro-life stance.

Now, I've tried to write this in a pisstakey satirical style. But, it's hard. Frankly, the BNP scare me. I've seen far too many people proclaim the BNP the complete solution to immigration, and even had one ask me why racism is wrong. Its members range from the criminal to the downright Nazi: the leader of the party, Nick Griffin, wrote a holocaust denial pamphlet (and subsequently was charged with incitement of racial hatred). Senior ranking officials have tried to profit from murders of white people by black people, calling the attacks "racist" and a symptom of mixed society: even while the police and even the family of the killed person refute these allegations. What scares me even more is that they are gaining popularity and responsibility, and I fear that in a few decades they could actually get into power.

And that day, ladies and gentlemen, will be the day I leave for Canada.

Immigration is a problem, but the BNP is not the answer - Someone I know

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Sources: BNP website, bnp.org.uk; Anti Nazi League, anl.org.uk