Last week marked the first time that the British National Party (BNP) has made significant gains in any nationwide UK election since its founding in 1982. This shows that, especially in a time of global recession, neo-fascism and neo-Nazism pose the greatest threat to democracy that there is right now.

What leads me to say this is that far-right parties not only enjoyed success in Britain in the European elections (under the leadership of Nick Griffith) but also in other countries such as Hungary, Sweden, Poland, Romania, France and especially the Netherlands. But the British result should be of concern to all people across the mainstream political divide as if the BNP gains a foothold in the UK, the home of Westminster democracy, then alarm bells should begin to ring.

The far right has been on the march now for well over a decade in its current form throughout Europe. Crucially, there have been a series of factors behind this including the fall of Marxist-Leninist socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union which has seen the emergence of free market capitalism and an associated rise in mass unemployment and poverty; the emergence of multiethnic societies in many European countries due to immigration as low paid migrant workers have been brought in to take up low paid roles not favoured by local populations; the surge of globalisation and unrestricted capitalism which has seen the export of jobs from Europe to Asia and other poorer regions of the world; and in the post 9/11 era, the hyping up of the terrorist threat posed by elements from within Islamic fundamentalist communities.

It must be pointed out that there are two strands of far rightism, namely, neo-fascism and neo-Nazism which are very similar in many aspects including in their preaching of xenophobia, racial intolerance and ultra-nationalism. However, Nazism (as practised in 1930s Germany) was violently racist in that it called for all non-Germans to be expelled from Germany and that in particular Jews and other ethnic minorities, disabled people, people with mental illness, gay, lesbian and transgendered people and socialist/communist political activists and those from other small spiritual groupings (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) were not welcome to participate in any aspect of German life. This mass exclusion was to have horrifying consequences with, firstly, the advent of the mass sterilisation and then compulsory euthanasia programme against disabled people and those with mental illness. Secondly, this led onto (during the Second World War) the mass extermination campaign now known as the Holocaust where an estimated six million Jews, Gypsies, and people from other ethnic minorities and other villified social groups met this same fate.

Fascism, as broadly defined, is centred around a powerful state which acts to suppress dissent from all non-fascist sources and promotes the idea that stronger nations should overtake the weak and dominate. It believes in the idea that revolution should be carried out on the basis of ethnicity, blood and race rather than class. Fascist movements take a xenophobic stance in that they believe in the banning or severe restriction of immigration mainly from non-white countries and that the sovereign state should exercise greater control over an otherwise still largely capitalist economy.

Therefore, the far right (as is much of the left) is inherently anti-globalisation driven in that it believes in fair trade and the exercise of state control over capital flows. Where the left does differ from the far right, though, is in its general analysis of capitalism is that the left believes (as I do) that capitalism exploits individuals and groups irrespective of racial and other factors and that the best way to counter this is through international solidarity formed on class and not racial or other individual social group identifier lines. It can be deduced from this that the far right believes in international solidarity based only on racial and national lines and that only certain types of capitalism, e.g. what is termed 'predatory capitalism' allegedly controlled by the Jews and other villified groups should only be combatted against. In other words, it's okay to be both capitalist and white but not a capitalist from any another racial or social grouping.

The BNP is a fusion of both traditions, having been founded in 1982 by John Tyndall, a former chairman of the National Front (the original party of British neo-fascism that still exists today but has been overshadowed by the rise of the BNP) and incorporating elements from that movement and Ray Hill's British Movement. The party's platform is focused around the call to return Britain to being a largely white, European nation "as it was in 1948." To this end, the BNP has an explicit policy calling for the "voluntary repatriation" of all non-white immigrants and to reinforce this message, all forms of anti-racism and other anti-discrimination legislation would be repealed and the bodies administering them would be disestablished. The party would strip all non-white Britons of their residency and citizenship and if they chose to stay in the BNP's horror show of a UK, their status would be reduced to being 'guests' whose rights would be severely restricted in any case.

Furthermore, they would effectively end media freedom, restrict the civil liberties of those UK citizens who had the right to remain in the country and terminate all independent trade union and other civil society activity. Besides, they would repeal all recent legislation pertaining to furthering the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people and start a campaign to effectively restrict the rights of disabled people and those people living with mental illness as one of their leaders Simon Darby used the Nazi euphemism that "some life is not worthy of life" when responding to news of the death of Conservative Party leader David Cameron's young son with disability, Ivan Cameron, earlier this year.

These unpalatable policies and statements have not put off 6.2% of British voters from voting BNP in the European elections, giving both Griffin and another candidate Andrew Brons, sufficient votes to be elected in their respective multi-member European constituency seats. This victory is the culmination of nearly a decade of increasing electoral success for the party which followed their first (albeit,short-lived) victory in a council by-election in the Tower Hamlets district of London in 1993. Since that time, the BNP have sought to channel grievances, both real and imagined, on the part of working class and lower middle-class white Britons into votes. Now with Britain and the world experiencing its worst recession in 70 years, the BNP (like the Nazis and Italian Fascists before them) have exploited the situation to their advantage and this also in the wake of the Labour Party's large-scale capitulation to the ideas of the free market under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

What should be done to stop the march of the BNP and its other sinister allied parties across Europe? Much is already being done in that newspapers (such as The Guardian) have been involved in clandestinely infiltrating reporters into the organisation to expose their outrageous statements and beliefs for what they are. Organisations, the most prominent among them being 'Searchlight' continue to vigorously track the activities of both the BNP and other far right groups. Unite Against Fascism (the UAF) is an impressive example of cross-community and cross-party (as well as cross-ideological) co-operation with this organisation encompassing representatives from all of the major British political parties, faith communities and social groupings.

However, this is not enough as pressure has to be exerted through both electoral and non-electoral means in order to stop the BNP and reverse its climb. The Left in Britain (both mainstream and militant groupings) will have to work and even collaborate closely together and put aside their schismatic differences, specifically in areas where the BNP is strongest and field an agreed left-wing ticket based around social justice policies in order to defeat them. Furthermore, protests and a further strengthening of hate speech legislation needs to be undertaken so that the party is further deprived of the oxygen of publicity on which it breathes, especially where it relates to the publication or broadcast of inflammatory statements against traditionally marginalised social groupings.

Overall, what must be remembered is that the party is still polling on average at under five percent of the total vote or less. European elections and council elections, where turnouts have been historically low anyway, are occasions where the BNP have done best but in general elections they have performed badly. Furthermore, when compared with other political groupings across the political spectrum, far right parties have a tendency to rupture when the spotlight is thrust upon them and historically the BNP has seen some significant splits emerge in the recent past and there is every expectation that this might happen again.

One only has to hope that the far right will disappear as a political and ideological force as democracy, not just that which exists in Britain and elsewhere, will disappear into a long, dark night if it doesn't.