Wouldn't disagree with a lot of that leefer - the main parties need to be more open in discussing a whole range of issues they've all ducked, not just immigration. There's a massive tidal wave of dissatisfaction none of them are addressing properly and they should.
But it's against that backdrop that a far-right protest party like the BNP with, supposedly, a bit of groundswell behind them should do well. They thought they would, that's why Griffin was telling anyone who'd listen that they'd take Barking and Stoke, and the councils there too. And instead they were smashed out of sight - once people see a genuine prospect of a BNP breakthrough in something important they come out in numbers and they get battered (at the polls).
It's like the late 70s again - rising tide of white working class discontent, hard times economically which the far right capitalise on with the scapegoating they always use. Then it was the NF and 79 was going to be their breakthrough election. They failed and fell apart in the next few years, to be replaced in large part by the BNP. Now the BNP have fucked up and fucked up royally on what should have been their big chance not, as in the 70s, because their thunder was stolen by a right-wing Tory campaign but more because people have seen them for what they are and they don't want it.
And so we'll start the cycle again - BNP will splinter in the recriminations over this election fiasco, the far right will fragment for a few years and then slowly start to rebuild either as a revamped Griffin-less BNP or under some new guise. The scum never fully goes away, and as you say, they thrive on the complacency and unwillingness to tackle issues of the mainstream politicos. But for now, I'm just enjoying watching them fuck up - it's like Pox's now annual post-Christmas implosion.
EDIT: Forgot to add - hats off to the activists at the Barking count singing "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Griffin?" to an increasingly close to tears GriffinFuhrer
