‘More in BNP’ in segregated areas

Oxford University academics used the BNP database posted on Wikileaks that contained 12,000 members’ details and then matched them with census data on more than 200,000 neighbourhoods in Britain to make the findings.

Whites are more likely to belong to the BNP in a highly-segregated city like Bradford where just under a quarter (22%) of the population is non-white, compared to a well-integrated area like Brent in London where over half (55%) of the population is non-white, they found.

The research discovered that whites are less likely to belong to the BNP where they had a substantial proportion of non-white neighbours.

BNP membership was found to be higher in areas with lower education levels and with more self-employed people and small business owners.

Dr Michael Biggs, a sociologist at the University of Oxford, who carried out the research, suggested that some white people felt threatened by segregated minority communities. Close contact among neighbours, however, broke down racial prejudice.

“The BNP thrives where the non-white, particularly South Asian or Muslim, population is large, but only if this population is also highly segregated,” Dr Biggs explained.

“Segregation means that white British people are less likely to have contact with non-whites beyond the immediate neighbourhood. It also creates a greater sense of cultural or even political threat.”

Within Britain, the BNP’s heartlands were the Pennines, Leicestershire and Essex, the data found.

The researchers’ paper, called Explaining Membership In The British National Party: A Multilevel Analysis Of Contact And Threat, will be presented at the British Sociological Association conference in London, and will be published online this month by the European Sociological Review.