It’s obviously a small sample, because most of the names on the list had no profession listed at all, but it’s usefully instructive. Some anecdotal experience (of the merseyside branch) is that this fits the breakdown of the active membership (as opposed to the near million passive voters).

The growth of the far right is dangerous for the reason Dan says, that it translates directly into violent attacks on non-white people, foreigners, Roma, Muslims and so on. And because their rise helps drive the agenda that makes the mainstream parties worse: the British Brothers League drove the agenda that led to the anti-aliens act of 1905, the NF in the 1970s led to Thatcher’s anti-immigrant policies, and the rise of the BNP since the 1990s has been followed by some of our most draconian anti-migrant legislation. (But Louis, as a history expert, presumably already knows that.)

It is true, as Tom notes, that some evidence, e.g. from YouGov http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/who+voted+bnp+and+why/3200557/ that BNP voters are Tory defectors not Labour defectors. But the same data identifies them as working class Tories, not middle class. The data is very limited of course. Looking at places like Barking and Burnley and in particular Stoke and Swanley, it is clear that there is a sizeable ex-Labour working class vote for the BNP. In places like Barking, Burnley, Stoke and Swanley, the BNP thrives by addressing working class issues.

This is why it is important to “engage” with the issues that drive working class voters. Not by playing to anti-immigrant sentiment (as Brown, Woolas et al do). But by showing why there aren’t enough homes and jobs, and fighting for transparent fairness in their allocation.

As a footnote, the BNP’s membership and especially its activist base is more like Louis says. I think the SWP published some analysis of the leaked membership list to show they remained from the sections of society fascism has classically drawn from: ex-military, self-employed, small businessmen, etc.

So excuse us for wanting to do something about them.

The BNP are thugs but amature one’s compared to those who every day pass ever more repressive laws..
……in the meantime those folks who made the gass for killing jews are still in business and are doing very well thank you and thanks to the ‘mainstream political parties’.

It is the middle class who vote for anti free speech laws . it’s the middle class who prosper on mass immigration . it’s the middle class who with one foot on the property ladder and with some immigrant to do the dirty work are the first to point to the great unwashed with an acusing finger. The danger does not come from the poorer neighbourhoods and never has…

Ironically , the more educated/ prosperous a man is the more likely he is to turn to the right to protect his position / status /class..The press and media are only too happy to point to the BNP in the hope that people will forget exactly who it was that actually made the gas ovens and prospered on slave labour and then went on to establish the Coal and Steel Community (EU)…..
If people spent quarter the time they spend railing against the BNP reading the immediate post war history of Europe they might realise that the real Fascist threat was not from the working class and (for very good reason ) never will come from the working class.