Intellectual ancestors

The local elections once again confirmed the growing local presence of the British National Party. Having spent the past year interviewing BNP activists, local and regional organisers, and national leadership as part of my PhD research, these gains came as no great surprise.

Rather than interpret the party's success as the result of any recent disillusionment on the part of the electorate, we must also take into the consideration the growing "professionalism" of the party itself, which has invested much effort in local concentrated campaigns from the early 1990s onwards.

Steve Fuller is right to note ("Marx and Darwin's legacy to the BNP", May 5) how the party plays on an intellectual tradition that is hard to ignore considering the current state of welfare provision. This piece reminded me of a recent observation by Lord Tebbit, the ex-Tory chairman, that the BNP had scored success more due to its "old Labour" credentials than the media's "extreme right" portrayal would suggest.

But comparisons with the Nazi Party's use of Darwinist themes detracts from making the important point that the BNP (particularly its leadership) also draws heavily from British-based intellectual traditions, not least the distributist ideas of Hillaire Belloc and the influence of G. K.

Chesterton.

Similarly, activists join the party not due to complaints about the welfare distribution at a national level but because they are more concerned with the perceived unfair distribution of regeneration funds and resources at the local level.

Matthew Goodwin Bath University