I didn't know political parties could restrict their members to whites only...how does the BNP

[zippitippitoes]

manage to do that and why are they able to get a foothold in mainstream politics?

They are arguing about allowing an "ethnic" candidate to run in the May elections

\link{http://politics.guardian.co.uk/farright/story/0,,1749555,00.html\Yesterday the BNP admitted it had received a number of calls from angry members and that a hardcore had refused to accept Mr Gawad's candidacy on race grounds "even when it was explained that he was not a Pakistani Muslim"}

any opinions on bnp repositioning themselves in mainstream ploitics?

bl**dy frightening. problem atm is that the major parties all IMHO have credibility issues, so that gives scope for the extremist parties to gain a foothold. not helped of course by the media hysteria about illegal immigrants of the last few years.

We've got local elections coming up in May and the BNP have been posting their leaflets in our doors (as well as the other parties). They are playing the immigration card as over population is a real concern here. We have housing popping up everywhere and schools/doctors/hospitals/ roads etc are all issues that are talked about regularly so the BNP are trying to blame immigration for it all when it's bad planning. We are a multi ethnic town and have been for at least 20 yrs but still they drum up the fear. I was expecting the leaflet poster to be beaten up as about 50% of the street is "ethnic" fgs with the rest of us with various ingredients . The BNP did get a foothold in the last local elections in the next Borough - Barking and Degenham and it caused a lot of trouble. This borough is probably the only London borough remaining with "affordable" housing and so has attracted "immigrants" who are buying there. The BNP have taken great pleasure in using this to generate fear and suspicion. On the whole people here live side by side peacefully but it only takes a suited BNP arsewipe to whip up a bit of frenzy and it could turn quite ugly sadly.

I'm in Barking and Dagenham, we got leafleted the leaflets were jokes....but they still got votes

'Sharif Abdel Gawad, whom the BNP describes as a "totally assimilated Greek-Armenian"'

This reminds me, when I was at secondary school, a friend said 'I hate effing pakis' then seeing me added 'but you're OK Fuzz'.....

Although there hasn't yet been a case confirming this, it is almost certainly actionable race discrimination to refuse to allow members of an ethnic group (or groups) to join a political party.

But the only way that anything would ever come of it would be if a 'non-white' (whatever that means) person was refused membership and chose to bring a claim.

That's fairly unlikely I guess - who would want to?