Foes of Foreigners Grow Vocal In Britain

Richard Barnbrook, center, a British National Party candidate for local council, goes door to door in a working class area of London. (By Kevin Sullivan -- The Washington Post)

"The BNP have become the protest vote for people who don't like the government for any number of reasons," Bogdanor said.

Despite that "combustible" anger, Bogdanor said, mainstream voters still might not back the BNP, which has never won a seat in Parliament and holds only 21 local offices. Opinion polls published last weekend showed the party had only about 4 or 5 percent support nationally, but 30 percent or more in some urban areas.

Jon Cruddas, a Labor Party member of Parliament who represents the working-class east London borough where Mitchell's flower shop is located, said the BNP had made "a conscious strategy to work into areas of white working-class disillusionment," such as his district.

The party is fielding a record 357 candidates out of 4,000 total candidates nationally, including 13 in Cruddas's district of 180,000 people, where unemployment is rampant. The area, which was 85 percent white in the 2001 census, has some of the city's least-expensive housing and has been a magnet for immigrants, with the black African population growing by 3 to 4 percent a year, Cruddas said.

In recent interviews with people on the street and in shops in the neighborhood, nearly every person expressed agreement with the BNP's arguments about immigration, and several said they planned to vote for the party.

"The issue in this city is immigration," said Jackie Odger, who works in Toddy's Unisex Hair Salon. "People don't like it when people come here and claim benefits they're not entitled to."

Odger said she was concerned about the BNP's "racist side," but added that she feels she "might vote for them and not tell anyone."

The neighborhood has drawn attention recently because the government employment minister, Margaret Hodge, a Labor Party member of Parliament who represents the area, said publicly that 80 percent of the voters she met in the borough were considering voting for the BNP.

Richard Barnbrook, a BNP candidate for the local council, was so delighted, he said, that he sent Hodge 10 flowers, including eight white lilies pointedly representing BNP voters.

Barnbrook, 45, a special-needs teacher, ran against Hodge in the most recent election, finishing with about 4,950 votes to her 14,000. He said he's tired of "P.C., wishy-washy subjects" taught in schools -- world history instead of British history, for example. He said he favors chemical castration for pedophiles and serial rapists and wants more government support for the "indigenous peoples" of Britain.

Dressed in a tan suit, Barnbrook walked around the neighborhood, slipping copies of a BNP publication promoting the party as "the voice of the silent majority" through front-door mail slots. Featured on the cover is a photo taken in 1953 on the day of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, showing a large group of white women and girls attending a party. Below are two more-recent photos of the neighborhood, showing black men and Muslim women in head scarves and veils. Large bold letters ask, "Is this what you really want?"

Barnbrook said the flier simply shows the area's "traditional identity" and how it has changed over the years.

" 'Racist' is the right word to use," said Sunday Ogunyemi, 31, a Nigerian immigrant who has lived in the borough for six years. "Their views do not represent what most British people say. Britain is a country that welcomes people from other countries."

Special correspondent Alexandra Topping contributed to this report.