The left really are all at sea on the BNP issue. In a cynical attempt to implicate the Tories, Labour spin doctors are still busy pushing the line that the fault lies with "the entire political establishment". Helpfully, Gary Younge - writing in The Nation on May 20th - clarifies the situation:

A party with historical roots in the working class that fails to advance the interests of that class will engender cynicism. New Labour's electoral project was based in no small measure on the calculation that the poor had nowhere else to go

These were not Tory voters peeling off to vote for fascists. Disaffected Tories opted for UKIP. These were Labour voters. And not just any Labour voters. We are talking about Labour's core consituencies in the Northern mill towns and industrial heartlands. Working class whites who traditionally look to the labour movement to safeguard their interests. Constituencies that stayed with Labour right the way through the 80s when the rest of the country was busy voting for Margaret Thatcher.

So when you hear Labour politicians tell you that the system is to blame, or that all the main parties have questions to answer, do not believe them for a minute. This is a crisis wholly of the left's making. The Tories have their own issues around race and immigration, to be sure, but Tories do not, as a rule, vote for fascists. Labour supporters do. And if there are any quesitons to be answered, they are primarily for Labour people.