Leading article: Small band of bigots

Talk about underwhelming. Now that the dust has settled, the sensible conclusion to draw from the leaking of the British National Party's membership list this week is that the political threat from Britain's far right is actually pretty minor.

This is no mass movement, but rather a party struggling to expand its appeal beyond a few isolated centres of disaffection.

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We should not be complacent, of course. Politicised racism should never be treated lightly. But some of the rhetoric from our mainstream politicians in recent years invoking the imminent danger of UK voters collapsing in frustration into the embrace of Nick Griffin and his band of bigots certainly begins to look a bit overblown.

Perhaps we can now discuss issues of ethnicity, religion and immigration without such references. And perhaps the BNP will now get the amount of free publicity that a party of its size and influence actually merits.