I hadn't realised the BNP had become proscribed, that it was illegal to be a member. Most of us are not fans of the party but the fact remains that they are a legitimate political party in this country. It's easy to take the line that "they're all Nazis so they deserve what they get" but you've got to ask what makes people join. Sure, many are rabid racists with an agenda of hate. But many others are just people who feel cut off from mainstream politics. They see a Conservative Party that could never represent them. They're unlikely to consider the LDs. And they see a Labour Party that seems to want to do absolutely anything for Scotland at the expense of England.

And the BNP does fulfil a purpose. It gives those who think along those lines somewhere to go and have a moan that is relatively open and where we can keep an eye on them. In effect, they help the rest of society contain and diffuse the problem. Better that they’re involved in a party that does want to be involved in the democratic process rather than drifting to Column 88, 18 or whatever it's called. A lot of people who gravitate to this sort of group think that they're only speaking the truth that 'they' (the powers that be, an international Zionist conspiracy, whatever) want to keep under wraps. And things like this leak just fuel their paranoia and convince them that they're 'right'.

Until England - and let's face it, the BNP is really about England - gets an equivalent to the SNP or Plaid Cymru, a party that people perceive as being more about pride in your own nationhood than hatred of others then the BNP will flourish.

In the meantime, as Voltaire apparently didn't say "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I do admit, though, that this all depends on the BNP being just a refuge for a minority. I'll look a right berk when they sweep to power and I'm standing in front of the bullet holes in the cemetery walls on Mockingbird Hill.