On Saturday 10th October there was a story on Reuters UK which was not to be found in any major newspaper. This was a demonstration in which “around 2,000 rival protesters congregated in the Piccadilly Gardens area [of Manchester].” Skirmishes erupted between the English Defence League, a far right group, protesting against what they called "radical Islam" and campaigners from Unite Against Fascism. 48 people were arrested. This article will not deal with overt racists and would-be terrorists but rather the press and politicians who do take the headlines of the mass media and the people who absorb this information.

The election of two candidates from the racist British National Party to the European parliament last June has brought the issue of social integration to the very forefront of public debate and made it impossible to dismiss the party as a fringe organisation. Rather, multiculturalism must be approached in such a way as to rescue British nationalism from the fringes of the far right and use it to create a more homogeneous society.

It is not constructive, nor true, to state that everyone of the 950,000 people who voted BNP in the European election were inherently and irreversibly racist. Some undoubtedly are, and will always be disgusting bigots, but people also vote BNP out of a dissatisfaction with the existing system. They are worried, and do not believe that the established methods of political action (voting), or the representatives of that system (the major political parties), are addressing those concerns.

The predominant trend amongst politicians since that night in June has been to point the BNP out for what they are: racists. This is not, and cannot be, enough to defeat fascism. Hitler was dismissed as an outsider before 1933 - an oddball - before people starting aggregating around him and his policies. The answer that seems to drive at the core of the BBC's policy is that to give them airtime will make it obvious what narrow-minded views the BNP stand for. By giving them the platform they will tie their own political noose. It was on this basis that the BNP were invited onto Question Time. But can anyone truly say that the BNP's prejudice is a guarded secret? Irrespective of the fact that two party members went on to BBC Radio 1 and accused Ashley Cole of failing to be 'ethnically British', given enough disillusionment, people vote for the BNP regardless.

Mainstream politicians then must find the language with which to discuss people's genuine concerns over such issues as immigration and multiculturalism. It is through this that they will best undermine the BNP's support. By focusing on these key contenious topics the major political parties can not only better highlight the idiocy of the BNP but also begin to find a solution to the socio-economic issues affecting Britain. Whilst unemployment remains high and the recession bites, many people will find explanations not in complex financial failings, but in more obvious things: foreigners, colour, religion. Fear, uncertainty, unemployment and dissatisfaction - the hallmarks of recession - are key emotions that force people to look to extremes.

To defeat the BNP then, I would argue, we should take back the very tool which the BNP uses to capitalise on this instinctive reaction: the rhetoric and invocation of Nationalism. It can be made to represent and benefit that which Britain truly is – an ethnically and religiously diverse nation-state. This does not mean, as the BNP would have you believe, sacrificing our legal system to Sharia law, converting to Islam and putting groups of ethnically diverse people into positions of power on the basis that we must be 'representative'. It means that by acknowledging the historically developed waypoints of the British state - our political, judicial and educational systems - we as members of this state can have confidence in accepting cultural diversity as a central premise of our society. It is, no doubt, a two way process; the development of strong ethnic enclaves, such as those emerging in northern towns, cannot be allowed to become the cracks which break the skin of national identity. It is with this knowledge that the USA is correct with its strict visa exams and language tests for green cards. How else can you create the situation where each culture - Afro, Irish, Latin - can be suffixed with '–American'? Through common language and accepted behavioural standards the positive, bonding force of nationalism submerges and binds cultures into the status of a national identity. Who then has the better model for improving social integration within a multiculturalist state? An open and self-assured Britain, firm with the state expectations which all citizens should ascribe to, or the BNP? When I think of the British state and 'Britishness' I focus far more on the abolition movement, the Ghurkas in war, values of tolerance and our law courts - and of course Ashley Cole in the English football team - than the BNP's brand of crypto-fascism.

In literal terms for politicians and the press this demands a much greater responsibility in directly addressing the issues, such as illegal immigration and community policy, than is currently allowed, whilst not becoming mired in political battles and exaggerations about the actual depth of the problem. When politicians themselves speak they are immediately spun out of context, in search of the next big political or media gain. On an issue so significant as this, petty factionalism must come second or else petty factionalism will rule on the streets.

For this use of nationalism to have a positive effect, then, politicians and Britain as a whole must have a bold new confidence in allowing cultural and religious expression, not suppressing it. Rather than a national tolerance based on a frantic need to appear 'politically correct', over the issue of religious attire for example, we should have a confidence that it is an inherent British tradition to bind a very English culture with those from all over the world, just as we have done for over a century. It is by showing a sense of pride for what we already have and have done that people in public office can engage successfully with issues of religion, ethnicity and multiculturalism without raising ire from any side of a cultural divide; be they white or black, Christian, Islamic or Hindu. Avoiding these issues for fear of offending will not enable Britain to develop homogenously, for without open discussion each fragment of culture within the British state will remain resolutely focussed on protecting their own heritages, stuck in a perpetual cycle of insult and offence rather than accepting that all those who participate within this state can and should be considered British citizens.

The BNP will have you believe that cultural differences are incompatible. I disagree. But it is only by addressing genuine concerns over (relatively) new cultural influences within this country that understanding and tolerance between different traditions will emerge. By seizing the definition of British Nationalism from the far right one can create a higher plane on which these ideas can bind and create a more homogeneous society. Unfortunately there is an election coming and fresh with the memory of Michael Howard's disastrous attempt to engage with this issue in the 2005 election, no political party wants to be the first to deal with multiculturalism. They retreat then to the safety of pointing fingers and stating what we already know: that the BNP's answers to all things are racist. The problem is that this is not enough to conquer extremism. One must take out the root of their rise and kill it at the core. The longer British politics suffers from this paralysis of action, the easier the BNP will be able to exploit nationalism for their political gain, with undoubtedly disastrous consequences.

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