BRITAIN: Labour and Tory leaderships were warned yesterday by party dissidents that a predicted surge in support for the far-right British National Party ((BNP) in the local elections has been fuelled by the main parties' obsession with a small number of swing voters in middle England.
Left-wing activists in east London suggested Labour was calibrating its policies for middle England, based on its belief that the working class in traditional Labour heartlands either no longer exists, or is electorally irrelevant.
Parallel criticism for the Tory leadership came from former minister Ann Widdecombe, who said her party cannot afford to remain silent on abuses in the immigration system. "There is a genuine unease with what the major parties are doing."
The former Tory party leader Iain Duncan Smith said support for the BNP was based on a collapse in the quality of life.
The warnings follow claims at the weekend by east London MP Margaret Hodge that as many as eight in 10 of white working-class people in her constituency say they may vote BNP in the May 4th local elections.
The left believes that Tony Blair's core economic policies, supported by Ms Hodge as employment minister, have left many white working-class voters alienated and insecure.
Ms Hodge's remarks prompted broadcasters to give prominence to claims from academics working for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that one in four voters are thinking of voting for the BNP. But leaders of the main parties questioned this degree of BNP support.
Home Office minister Andy Burnham warned that the media were giving the BNP too much credibility: "There is a danger in giving undue prominence to the threat that they pose. They pose a very localised threat and I am worried that if we give them too much coverage, it can back up the notion that they are a potent protest vote."
Former Labour MP John Cryer argued that "an awful lot of working-class people feel they have lost control of their own destiny in a way that was not true 20 to 30 years ago.
"The three biggest parties are now calibrating their policies carefully around a percentage of constituencies - 40 or 50 marginal seats mainly in the south-east - so policy is grouped around a tiny number of people."
Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, has pointed out that the BNP averaged 35 per cent of the vote in five byelections in Barking and Dagenham council during the last 18 months.
He blames Labour's overriding belief in the service-based knowledge economy, and claims that manual workers still account for 10.5 million workers.