The British national party: questioning transformation of neo-fascist ideology in contemporary Britain

The article describes the emergence and the development of the far-right British National Party and its place among the extreme right-wing parties and movements. The British National Party was formed in 1982 as a result of the National Front’s split. According to the author, the history of the British National Party can be divided into two stages: the neo-fascist period from the foundation until Nick Griffin’s coming to power in 1999 and the far-right period from 1999 to the present day. The British National Party initially did not differ from the National Front a lot: racism and anti-Semitism were the cores of its ideology. Because of such radical program the party was not popular and its representatives could not even become municipal deputies. Since the beginning of the 1990s because of the growth of immigrants from South Eastern Asia the ideas of the British National Party received some support in the most problematic areas of London, but a review of ideology was still required. In 1999 Nick Griffin, the new leader, changed the party program and paid attention to the problem of Islamic extremism. Without anti-Semitism, but with the Holocaust denial and the idea of forced repatriation of non-Europeans, the British National Party actually stopped to be a neo-fascist party which helped it to gain the support of right-wing nationalists. 2009 became the most successful year for the party, when two party members got places in European Parliament, but the success was followed by deep internal crisis caused by the fight for the post of the party leader, and the BNP lost its positions. According to the author the transition of the British National Party’s ideology towards counter-jihad is a "classic" example of Western European far-right parties’ evolution.