In terms of number of votes it was an unusual election. Labour down 1.3million votes, Tories down 200,000 votes, LibDems down 350,000 votes. Which suggests that there is still no real appetite for Cameron and his slick pr men.

BNP vote only went up 80,000 which is tiny really, especially given the amount of coverage they had beforehand and the claims they make about popularity. Others like socialist labour and no2eu would have picked up some old labour voters.

We're actually looking at about 1million Labour voters who simply didn't turn out. If they can convince them to do so at a general election and things could be very different.

Isn't that what they died for though? Our freedom? Freedom to choose who we want to vote for in a democratic election?

Before anyone says anything i didn't vote BNP!

Yep. Otherwise we would be living in a greater Germania — a fascist state.

However, let’s not kid ourselves in thinking that any of the folks who fought in or lived through WWII wouldn’t vote for an anti-EU party. Naturally, I suppose, some of them will be nationalist and/or xenophobic, and therefore would be more likely to vote for UKIP or the BNP.

They didn't die for people to have the 'freedom' to kick out of the country anyone who isn't white, though.

Hence my use of "Ironic". Yes people fought for the freedom to vote for whoever they see fit to. Thats perfectly correct and i wouldent want it any other way. Its just dissapointing that people have seen fit to vote for a party,all be it a legitimate one, that espouses such extreme views.

It's even more disappointing that such a large proportion of people didn't vote, which is what allowed the extremist party to win a high enough percentage of the votes cast to gain two seats.

Correct. The apathy of the majority of the population is a real concern. The threat of a fascist party gaining one seat should be enough to encourage more people to vote. Unfortunately nearly seven in ten of the adult population of the north west couldnt care less

I agree on this totally and no I also did not vote for them.
What people appear to be missing the point on here is that there are enough people in this country who are so fed up with whats going on that they would vote for a extremist party.

Nobody said they did. However anybody who isn't entitled to be in this country by law should not be whether they are white, brown, black, yellow, red, pink or blue and thats where your problem starts.

Surely people have the right to vote for who they like, I have heard various comments in the media saying that the party should be banned which then is exacting the type of restriction of free speach the people making the statements advocate.

My opinion is the BNP should be encouraged then we can see openly what the people who support that kind of tripe are up to and not have them go underground and untraceable.

The thing is the votes for extremist parties hasn't really changed dramatically, people are that fed up they just aren't voting

What's that got to do with the BNP? The BNP will kick out anyone who is entitled to be in this country purely because they're not white. That's the problem.

As I've said elsewhere, I can't see any evidence that we're flooded with illegal immigrants. Official census statistics show that those of 'ethnic minority' backgrounds here legally are far, far outnumbered by white British people. So what's the problem, exactly?

If people are so fed up with what's going on in this country that they vote for an openly racist party, then those people have some serious issues.