British National Party doubles its vote as it builds on support in inner cities

David Hencke:

The British National party last night built on its surprisingly good performance in the last general election by doubling its vote in some of the first results from the 112 seats they contested this year.

From the first declared result in Sunderland South, where the party increased its share of the vote from 1.9% to 3.8%, the BNP appeared to entrenching its support in run-down city areas.

Across the North-east the party polled between 3% and 4%, even when it was contesting a seat for the first time.

In Yorkshire the party did even better, polling over 5% in its "target" contests, including Rotherham and Barnsley.
With 100 seats declared nationally, the party had polled more than 55,000 votes, an increase of some 1% in its share of the vote on 2001.

The BNP appears to have benefited from the highlighting of the immigration issue by the Conservatives during the campaign, even in seats where the Tories won with a large majority, such as Broxbourne in Hertfordshire.

But it was in the Labour strongholds where most of the protest votes went to the BNP. In most northern seats the party was able to capitalise on the fear of immigration and dislike of the EU.

And the immigration issue seemed to help the Conservatives as well:

Michael Howard was the man proudly leading a Tory revival early today as the Conservatives made gains across the country, with swings of about 5 per cent from Labour in many seats. Despite going down to their third successive election defeat ­ the Conservatives' worst run of results since 1910 ­ their hopes were lifted by the swing, which relieved the pressure on Mr Howard to quit the leadership.

In addition to a boost from voters turning against Tony Blair, Conservative canvassers were reporting that the use of the immigration issue had increased support among former Labour working-class voters, despite the widespread criticism that the tactic drew during the campaign.

This shouldn't be that surprising when you realize the immigrants usually end up competing with native workers for jobs and consequently end up pushing down wages.