Much self-flagellation on the left today as Labour attempts to come to terms with its part in the rise of the BNP. Voices from across the left - including Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles in The Guardian - weigh in with varying degrees of insight and penetration. Of all of them, Denis Macshane’s 10 lessons for the left is the most lamentable effort, although Salma Yaqoob’s rote call for a rejection of neo-liberalism just about pips it for all-round incoherence and wrongheadedness. What none of them get close to acknowledging is that the BNP are an inevitable outgrowth of the kind of identity politics the left has devoted itself to. A politics that encourages minorities to self-identify as interest groups and then seek representation on that basis was always going to provoke a backlash from the majority population.

And so the problem is not simply at the level of policy, but a deeper philosophical one. It is their whole attitude and approach to politics that needs to change. The trouble is, this approach cuts to the very core of their philosophy. The foundation of their entire philosophy is the idea that certain groups are at a structural disadvantage in our system; that historical patterns of inclusion and exclusion have led to systemic injustice. Historically this meant the industrial working class, but now more typically immigrant populations. This is not at issue. What is at issue is the politics they have evolved to correct it. It is divisive. It encourages separatism and a zero sum mentality among competing interests groups. Instead of increasing community cohesion, it actively undermines it. It has encouraged the growth of a competitive grievance culture where the legitimising dimension of a cause, agenda or argument is not its own internal logic or coherence, but its capacity to generate liberal guilt. To submit to it is to centre our whole political culture and public policy process around a generalised, abstract sense of moral culpability. It encourages special pleading on behalf of all sorts of crackpots, loons and fringe elements and encourages communities to self-identify as victim groups, claim special status for themselves and declare criticism off limits.

The growth in faith schools, the increased radicalisation of muslim communities, and the general increase in tension and distrust across communities, these are just the outward signs of it. So if they really want to get to grips with the BNP, they will address some of these deeper philsophical issues, because unless and until they move beyond the failed identity politics at the root of this crisis, the BNP will continue to pick up votes in places like Yorkshire, the North West and the Midlands.

UPDATE: Graeme Archer offers a similar analysis on CentreRight