The BNP are in, but should we be worried?
So Nick Griffin finally finds himself democratically elected to a position within democracy. The BNP leader has traipsed across the UK over recent years trying to gain a position of power and he now appears to think he's got it.
And while two MEPs from a party with its roots in the very far-right and which has a racist membership policy will never be good news, is the fact Griffin is joining the gravytrain to Europe really as bad as it looks?
I'd argue no. Nick Griffin has been elected into the North West on the back of some outpouring of outrage over immigration - he's got in thanks to a confusing version of proportional representation.
In none of the council areas did the BNP finish top - and from that I think we can establish that the BNP will be also-rans at the next general elections.
In fact, looking at the votes in each council area, and then split it across the dozens of council wards each authority has, and the numbers voting BNP don't appear to stack up to any future wins in council wards.
Griffin, in his latest letter to party members, claims that taking several county council seats is proof they can win seats in a general election, because county council wards are so large. Whether he believes that or not I don't know, but Lancashire County Council has some 80 councillors sitting in as many wards, but not even half the number of MPs. Once again, the numbers don't lie.
For a party which changed strategy at the last minute to try and be the party to vote for if you wish to hit the main parties hard for the expenses scandal, gaining fewer than five county council seats and grabbing the last seat in two MEP regions isn't the overwhelming success the BNP claim it is. For a party boasting record membership, and donations flooding in left, right and centre, I'd argue it's actually quite a poor show.
Looking at Yorkshire and Humbershire, it appears apathy let the BNP in. Their vote fell there, but not as much as Labour's. That's quite probably because, even without the expenses scandal, people don't really care about Europe.
So where do we go from here? The pitiful show of the BNP in Manchester - coming way behind the others - shows that the media tackling the BNP's lies head on works. The media has to continue doing that.
As for the main political parties, Andy Burnham got it spot on when he said the parties must work out why the BNP is attracting votes - and fight them head on.
The BNP may boast about being a mainstream party now, but the numbers show they are a million miles away from that. Any party which complains of being the victim of media lies but then can't identify what those lies are and is shy of open debate cannot really claim to be mainstream.
The BNP currently play the politics of the scapegoat - and we all know where that has led us in the past.
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David Higgerson - David Higgerson has covered local and national politics for much of his career as a journalist. This blog aims to look at Westminister from the outside in, at a time when it appears very few are looking out from the inside.
I think you're exactly right. As you and I both know well they do very little when they get into power.
I loved watching Krishnan Guru-Murthy asking Andrew Brons if it was a racist party on Channel 4 News last night.
Brons had to give a definition of racist before he could answer, says it all.
Maybe this is part of the big wake up call British politics needed and seems to be going through.