The news that the British National Party won two seats in the European Parliament following last Thursday’s elections has been greeted with the usual soundbite-driven hysteria. Nick Clegg, David Cameron, Harriet Harman etc waded into the compulsory game of tough-talking politicians have to play on occasions such as this. The person who sounds most outraged and “sickened” wins; nobody sees it as helpful or relevant but they feel they’ve done their bit. However, it does nothing to counter the BNP’s political gain.

In fact it does quite the reverse. It fuels the fear that the public have of the BNP, and this is counter-productive to any attempts to democratically defeat them. The same is true of the approach taken by much of the media and the general public, if only by extension. That is to say, they are evil racist thugs, let’s denounce and ignore them until they go away. For my money it’s the wrong answer to the wrong problem. With tactics like that they are here to stay, and worse, it creates a persona of the underdog which they are already adept at exploiting. (Nick Griffin took this exact approach in his acceptance speech in Manchester last week.)

People’s votes swing to political extremes when they feel those in the centre are not representative of their views or capable/interested in addressing their problems. See Bolshevik Russia, Nazi Germany or Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic Republic of Iran for more details. Parties closer to the centre have been aware of this for some time but have done little to nothing about it. A classic tactic of parties like the BNP and rulers like Hitler, Khomeini etc, is to couch their appalling agenda - usually their raison d’être - in terms so general and/or agreeable that people overlook the truth and vote for them. As Fraser Nelson reported in the Spectator back in May, the BNP have been campaigning on local issues, presenting themselves as the ‘helpful party’, with no mention of their policies on immigration or citizenship.

So, solution number one: make sure these local issues are taken care of. Don’t give them the political space to make themselves useful, because nobody is going to complain about smooth roads, nice parks and clean local swimming pools, even if, as they see it, the guy who fixed them has some allegedly dodgy views (which he will have denied on the doorstep). This is up to the main parties, the incumbent in particular.

Solution number two is to tolerate them. In order for solution number three to work, this comes as a pre-condition. They must be heard and tolerated in accordance with freedom of speech and the rights accorded to any party that has gained democratic legitimacy. In the face of the BNP’s recent success, groups such as Unite Against Fascism are quick to consign several centuries of tradition to the dustbin of political expedience with phrases such as, “I believe in freedom of speech for everybody but fascists”. If this contradiction in terms was deliberate it would be clever. It is neither and it is ridiculous.

Egging Nick Griffin and denying his right to freedom of speech plays beautifully into the hands of the BNP. It elevates their underdog status, but more importantly denies ordinary people the chance to disagree with them on the basis of policy, and this is where they are to be beaten. If UAF wasn’t run by members of the Socialist Workers Party masquerading as normal people who have the collective political nouse of Robert Kilroy-Silk, they wouldn’t be charging around Westminster throwing raw vegetables in the street. Instead they would be pointing out the unworkable, economically insane and inherently racist policies the BNP advocate in the context of a debate, preferably on television, without shouting, placards or the back-door promotion of socialism.

Solution number three: let them drown in their own bullshit. This is child’s play. But don’t rely on the received opinion of others or assume the media always have it right; go onto their website, listen to their speeches, put aside your inherent dislike of them and actually focus on the detail of what they say. Beware: you will find that much of it is worryingly agreeable. For example, cracking down on crime, restoring public safety, healthier and more sustainable organic farming, higher pay for NHS workers, more beds, less red tape, increased investment in public transport, cuts in fuel tax and the abolition of hidden speed cameras are just some of their good ideas. Furthermore they say

Britain’s foreign relations should be determined by the protection of our own national interest and not by our like or dislike of other nations’ internal politics.

So, should you find yourself in a debate with someone who supports them, don’t talk about crime or Iraq, focus on the economy and immigration. Here they are at their most unpleasant, but more importantly, absurd. They swing wildly from right to left, from Mussolini to Mao, advocating the exclusion of foreign-made goods wherever possible, which will apparently equal full employment. Back to agriculture briefly, they call for “maximum self-sufficiency” for Britain. You don’t need to have read too many books to know all of this would lead to starvation. Full-scale nationalisation is also on the cards, with British jobs for British workers and worker shareholder and co-operative schemes, just like in Stalin’s USSR. On immigration they call for an immediate halt to prevent ‘British people’ becoming an ethnic minority in their own country, and the introduction of

voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin…

Clearly this is inherently racist, but think about it. They are geared up, ready and practised at answering that charge. Instead of shouting them down on that front, take the easy route. Ask them what they will do when nobody leaves (which they won’t, otherwise why would they have come here in the first place)? And when they force them to return, what do they think will happen to, for example, the London Underground? Other questions might be, what is ‘Britishness’? Who are the people to whom the country ‘belongs’ and what do they look like? You say they will be an ethnic minority, so what ethnie are they? If you really want to skewer them, query the fact that they advocate full-scale nationalisation while simultaneously devolving power down to the local level. These are their policies, which, racist or otherwise, make absolutely no sense.

If you have ever seen them asked these sorts of questions you will know what a man drowing in his own bullshit looks and sounds like. If you drown them out with eggs and heckles they’ll never get the chance to hoist themselves on their own petard. They are an idiotic shower, a pathetic party of extreme stupidity irrespective of their well-publicised views on race. Of course that element should be countered, challenged and exposed at every available opportunity, but so should their other anarchic and backward policies as well; crucially, in the right forum. The whole point of our democratic system is that anyone can have their say and that they open themselves up to criticism in the process. No other party is so easy to criticise. Open, democratic, publicised debate is how you beat the BNP; go forth and question.