Stoke-on-Trent is a Labour city or at least it should be. In the mid-1990s the Labour Party held all 60 seats on the council and the three local MPs had five-figure majorities.

Those days are long gone and today we face the appalling prospect of the British National Party seriously challenging for mayor in next year’s election.

In May’s local elections the Labour Party won just four of the 20 seats up for election, leaving it with only 16 city councillors plus the directly elected mayor. The City Independents have 15, the BNP and the Conservative and Independent Alliance have nine each, the Liberal Democrats five, the Potteries Alliance two and there are three non-aligned and one Libertarian.

The BNP beat Labour in eight of the ten seats they both contested. Labour averaged 25% across the city, while the BNP averaged 24% in the wards it fought.

There are now two wards where the BNP holds all three seats, though its performance overall was overshadowed by the strong vote for the City Independents, who gained six seats. However, in next year’s Mayoral contest there are likely to be several independent candidates, who will no doubt split the vote, leaving the BNP to battle it out with an increasingly unpopular Labour Party and the former independent mayor Mike Wolfe, who himself used to be in the Labour Party.

In the first mayoral election in 2002 the BNP took 18.7% of the vote, missing out on going through to the second round by only 1,500 votes [see table above]. In 2005 the BNP polled 19%, which was a remarkable achievement considering that the election was on the same day as the general election.

Since then support for the BNP has grown. Over the past three years it has averaged between 24% and 28% in the wards the party has contested and the BNP has now moved out of its previous Stoke-on-Trent South heartland into other parts of the city.

A vote in excess of 20% is likely to take the BNP into the second round in next year’s mayoral election, in which the second preferences of the defeated candidates are distributed. Given the strong anti-Labour feelings in the city a run-off between Labour and the BNP might well see the fascist party gain its most high-profile victory to date.

Economic decline

Labour’s fall from grace in Stoke-on Trent began at the beginning of this decade, was reversed a few years later, but has gathered pace in the past two years.

There is no single explanation for this but rather a multitude of inter-related issues that have discredited the party locally.

The city was once home to heavy industry, manufacturing and skilled work, but much of this has now gone. The coal mines and the steel works have disappeared and there is little left of the ceramics industry, which once employed tens of thousands of people.

New employment has come in but much of it is in the service sector and short-term. “Many of the old jobs were tough work but they were well paid, they were secure jobs and they were skilled jobs,” says Jane Heggie, who works for Stoke-on-Trent South MP Rob Flello.

“The new jobs that have come in are less skilled, temporary and are not as well paid.”

The change in employment has led to the city becoming poorer over the past ten years. According to government statistics the city has slipped from 34th most deprived borough in 2000 to 18th in 2004 and now to 16th in 2007.

Movement out of the city reflects this declining economic situation. In 1981 252,509 people lived in Stoke-on-Trent. By 2001 the population had fallen to 240,636, with most of the decline in the latter part of this period.

Between 1991 and 2001 the population of Stoke-on-Trent fell by 9,000. By comparison the population of England and Wales grew by 2.6% over the same period, while the West Midlands experienced a 0.7% increase. Most of those leaving appear to be the more educated and qualified who have been able to move on to better jobs.

But there are also more local factors that have contributed to the collapse of Labour and the rise of the BNP. The mayoral system, which has handed almost total power to the elected mayor and the council’s chief executive, has been a disaster for the Labour Party and increasingly unpopular with the electorate. Many local councillors resent their weakened role and some Labour councillors have openly campaigned for the mayor’s abolition. Others have left the party.

In an effort to widen the decision-making process the current Labour mayor introduced a Cabinet to involve local councillors and, given Labour’s weak position, has formed a coalition of the three main political parties.

While this might have helped break down some of the factional infighting it has enabled the BNP to contrast itself with the old political establishment. An example of this emerged over the contentious changes to secondary schooling in the city, in which several schools will be replaced by fewer new schools. This has proved deeply unpopular and while many people in the Labour Party are opposed to the plan, including all three local MPs, the BNP has grabbed some local media headlines through its opposition.

“The BNP can present themselves as the only alternative,” says Jason Hill, of the local anti-BNP group NorSCARF.

Other commentators list a raft of unpopular council decisions which the BNP has exploited. Last year the council announced the closure of several care homes for the elderly and more recently the axing of the splash pool leisure facility at Dimensions in Burslem.

Jane Heggie points to a simple explanation for Labour’s decline and the BNP’s rise. “We are not addressing the concerns of voters and we have not been active enough.

“Of course the removal of the 10p tax rate had an impact, especially here where many people were affected, but there is a danger that we use the Government as an excuse. We really have to ask ourselves why is Labour collapsing here and not to the same extent in other areas which are doing even worse economically such as Sandwell or Manchester?”

Heggie cites recent results in Stoke-on-Trent South to support her case. Last year Labour won Fenton with a 400 majority over the BNP; this year Labour finished a poor third. “We had a candidate in his eighties who wasn’t able to campaign and simply had not done enough as a councillor,” she asserts.

In Longton North, by contrast, Labour has bucked the trend. It was once the city’s main BNP heartland, a ward the BNP had won three times in a row. Now it has three Labour councillors. “We have worked hard in the ward and people have responded positively.”

Certainly organisational factors and choice of candidates dramatically hampered the Labour Party’s chances in Mark Fisher’s Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. Last year the BNP walked into a second seat in Bentilee and Townsend ward after Labour reselected a councillor who was in his late eighties, housebound and had just lost his wife. It was hardly surprising that the BNP won the election with very little campaigning.

The Labour Party in the constituency does not have any modern voter software, such as the new Contact Creator, and carries out little canvassing or Voter ID work. Not only is Labour unable to identify and so turn out voters in an election, but the lack of face-to-face contact with voters reinforces the impression that the party does not care.

The BNP alternative

Of course it would be wrong to place the entire blame for the BNP’s rise on Labour. The absence of other mainstream political alternatives, a common theme in areas where the BNP has emerged as a force, has resulted in the BNP appearing as the only alternative. However, given the economic and social make-up of the city it should be a Labour stronghold and much of the reason why it is not must lie in Labour’s own decline.

The BNP meanwhile has grown steadily over the past few years and has earned itself a reputation as a normal political party. Its councillors sit on committees, it is regularly quoted in the local media in the same manner as any other party and a growing number of people, from the editor of the local newspaper to the former mayor, believe it should be involved in decision making.

The BNP acts as though it is just another political party. Its recent election leaflets hardly touched on race, preferring to focus on local issues around schools, the closure of care homes for the elderly and jobs. However, it is quick to whip up racism and racial lies when it suits the party.

Over the past three years the BNP has repeatedly stoked up racism by means of a leaflet targeting plans for a mosque in the city. Full of lies, exaggeration and racial and religious stereotypes, it was designed solely to inflame the issue and whip up racial tensions.

A national priority

The growing respectability of the BNP puts it within reach of winning the mayoral election next year. Let us not be under any illusion about the severity of the situation as any success here would have national repercussions.

The job of anti-fascists must be to challenge the culture on the ground, not an easy job when the BNP is so entrenched in local communities and is viewed as a normal political party by so many people.

The mainstream political parties must finally get their act together. The Labour Party, regionally or nationally, must take control of the party campaign locally. Some will oppose this but unfortunately many of these same people have shown an inability to lead themselves. Locally, Labour needs to find a way to unite the party before next summer, address some of the more contentious issues and develop a clear understanding of the role of the mayor and its relationship with other elected officials and the voters at large. The stakes are too high.

The unions must also devote attention and resources to Stoke-on-Trent. There are thousands of union members in the area and these must be the focus of proper work and education. Some of it might not be easy but we have to take on the BNP’s arguments and dispel its myths in the workplace and in the community. For too long the regional unions have largely ignored the city, favouring other parts of the West Midlands, but again the stakes are too high.

The usual sort of anti-fascist leaflets are not adequate for the task. Producing leaflets that say don’t vote BNP because they are racists and fascists will simply not work in the BNP’s strongholds. We must produce local material which at least tries to address some of the issues that are making people support the BNP. Anti-fascists are not necessarily party political but we must highlight the shortcomings of the BNP approach while obviously reminding voters of its true intentions.

More importantly, anti-fascists can help identify and turn out the anti-BNP vote. This will require a more sophisticated approach than we have adopted so far and to achieve success will need a national anti-fascist effort. With a low turnout expected in the mayoral election, we need to identify and build up a relationship with 30,000 people who will vote for a party other than the BNP. While we cannot tell people whom to support we must convince people to cast their second preference vote for a party that they think can beat the BNP.

Searchlight and NorSCARF is calling for support from anti-fascists across the country to make Stoke-on-Trent a national priority. In addition to national days of action we will ask people from specific regions to work the area throughout the year.

Not to do this work could hand the BNP its greatest political prize to date. The stakes are that high.