Magnus Marsdal’s article talks about the changing politics of Norway and finds comparisons with the rest of western Europe. It is a phenomenon that is also taking place in Britain, albeit a few years later than in some other countries.

The British National Party (BNP) was formed in 1982 out of an earlier split within the National Front and for many years it languished on the fringes of politics. In 1999 Nick Griffin became its leader and his more political and media savvy approach enabled the party to exploit rising racial tensions in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001. Since then, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, a growing eastern-European migrant workforce and New Labour’s fixation with Middle England, the party has risen steadily. It now has 55 councillors and last month secured a seat on the London Assembly.

And all this in a period of supposed economic success.

The BNP has long been dismissed as a cranky fascist party, made up of thugs, criminals and Nazis. While it is true that the leadership has its ideological roots in fascism, it is time we had a better explanation for the party’s rise and appeal.

Society in Britain, like much of the industrialised world, has become dislocated over the past few decades. Globalisation and the increasing dominance of international finance and corporations have shifted power far away from local communities. This, coupled with the loss of empire, Britain’s changing place in the world and even the possible break-up of the United Kingdom have all challenged the identity of many, particularly those towards the bottom of the economic ladder, who naturally are more concerned about change.

Politically, there has also been the growing divorce between the political parties and their electorates. The preoccupation with a small number of voters in a few key marginals has resulted in New Labour echoing the whims and prejudices of a mythical Middle England. Class has been removed as an economic and political category in Westminster discourse. Labour’s traditional voters feel ignored, taken for granted and even abandoned. At the same time, the Tories have for decades ceased to offer a real opposition in many traditional Labour areas, leaving a dangerous vacuum.

In 1968 US sociologist Don Warren described the emergence of the ‘middle American radical’ to explain the rise of right-wing presidential candidate George Wallace. He saw a radicalised group of voters, drawn largely from the skilled working class, who opposed the political and economic elites while simultaneously despising those who they regarded as undeserving poor. A white identity emerged that had no political articulation.

A similar phenomenon is occurring in today’s Britain. The Labour Party too often fails to articulate the concerns of large swathes of its traditional working class supporters. Over the past 20 years turnout has slumped in Labour heartlands. Suddenly, as the BNP has emerged as a political force, many are now turning out to vote for them. Towns like Stoke-on-Trent reflect this change. Only a few years ago Labour held every seat on the council. Today, it holds just 16 out of 60, with the BNP close behind with nine. The local ethnic minority population is comparatively small, suggesting that voters are flocking to the BNP for some far more fundamental reasons.

Nor is there much comfort for parties to the left of Labour. It is easy to blame New Labour for the rise of the BNP but few have questioned why the far-left parties fail to attract significant support from white working-class voters. If anything, the far-left vote has actually shrunk since 1997 and the occasional successes of Respect or the Greens have been based on specific ethnic minority communities or middle-class liberals.

Race is a prism through which many voters view their world but it is not the underlying issue. That is why immigration minister Liam Byrne’s attempts to quicken the introduction of the Australian points system will ultimately fail to deal with the political problem. He might hope to appease voters’ concerns over immigration but unfortunately he, like many others, is misunderstanding the rise of the BNP.

Britain might have been slower to see the emergence of a major far-right party than elsewhere but this could change very quickly. Next year’s European elections, contested under proportional representation, will give the BNP its greatest chance to break into the mainstream.

The rise of the BNP is not a passing phenomena. We must now debate new strategies for organisation and policy, counter- organise on the ground and deal with the material issues that lie behind its popular support. Nothing is more important for this movement.

Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham. Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine

He is especially right to say that it was only after my campaign had made the ballot (by securing the support of over 45 other MPs) that we managed to tap into the deep reserves of support for a new agenda. This raises concerns about both the threshold and strategies for the future in generating support within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). The fact that I managed to secure the largest vote in the first round was despite only just managing to avoid last place among MPs – almost all of my support came from grassroots members and trade unionists.

There are two lessons here.

First, the left in Parliament is weak. There’s no point pretending that’s not the case. But I think the very fact that I got onto the ballot – mainly through the strength and organisational capacity of leading Compass MPs alongside elements within the Campaign group and old Tribune group – is a positive sign for the future. How is that prospective coalition in the PLP to be constructed in the future?

Second, by using new technology and energetic open campaigning, we managed to reach out to huge numbers of new supporters – many of whom, if I am frank, had never even heard of me before the election started. Questions arise about how to tap into this latent desire for change amongst the membership and the role of new technology.

The larger question here is how we build an agenda that will appeal across the broadest range of the party, across both the centre and left. Moreover, how is this to be linked to broader movements outside of the party?

To my mind, as reflected in the analysis supplied by Alex Nunns, there are no ready-made answers. We need space to deliberate in terms of policy and organisation in a transparent, non-sectarian form within and outside of the federal architecture of the party. Recognising that ‘we are where we are’ and trying to develop ideas – and new techniques for campaigning around these ideas – is the challenge that confronts us.

That much is self evident. My experience over the last year is that the party is not irretrievable; that there still exists a radicalism, albeit latent. As such, it should not be beyond our political will or ability build a coalition to articulate it and organise to achieve it.

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There is a fundamental problem for New Labour’s preoccupation with a mythical middle England. Contrary to received opinion, there is no empirical evidence for the withering away of the working class. Manual workers still account for a close to 40 per cent of total employment. When you add in clerical and secretarial work the non-managerial, employed labour force stands at some 15 million – approaching two in three jobs. A small proportion of the growth areas in the economy have been accounted for by a rises in computer managers, software engineers and programmers. But the real growth has been in the service sector, which has witnessed a massive expansion in cleaning and support workers, and increased work among the caring occupations – for example, care assistants, welfare and community workers and nursery nurses.

Many of these traditional, often low paid jobs are carried out by women. It’s no coincidence that there has been a loss of female support for New Labour.

A decade ago, approximately 15 million people identified themselves with Labour in opinion polls and 14 million of those voted for New Labour in 1997. By 2005 fewer than ten million Labour identifiers voted for the party and another five million natural Labour supporters, people who said they were Labour, either stayed at home or voted for largely non-Tory political alternatives.The broad electoral coalition that swept Labour to power in 1997 has gradually shrunk and, by 2007, all but collapsed.

In the 2005 general election, those sectors of the electorate who had shown the greatest propensity to vote New Labour just eight years before were the ones most likely to abstain.

The only social grouping that stayed loyal to New Labour was the static professional, administrative and executive class. Every other social group recorded significant swings away from New Labour, including the manual working class in Labour heartland areas.

New Labour, as defined by the electoral coalition on which it is founded, is unlikely to win power again. An urgent change of direction is needed, based on a thorough understanding of Britain as it is now, to build a new basis and firmer foundation for broader electoral support. Central to this is a new policy agenda to deal with working people’s material concerns, based on an understanding of class and people’s insecurity in the workplace.

We can achieve this without sacrificing the support of crucial middle class votes.They are also concerned about their own job security and pensions, and worried about how their children will be able to afford to buy a house and pay off student debt.To those who have argued that the key to the next election is maintaining the support of the aspirational middle class, I would say that although it is true that their support is necessary, it is not a sufficient condition for victory. If we maintain their support but fail to motivate the rest of our core vote, then we will lose.

The objective now is to build a new Labour project grounded in the realities of the modern world and not some stylised construction of modernity – the new knowledge economy – that seeks to entrench class and income inequality. If we do this we can win again.

Jon Cruddas is candidate for deputy leadership of the Labour Party. For more information on his campaign, visit www.joncruddas.org.uk