Let's all laugh at the BNP

A lot of people are currently having a bit of a laugh at the BNP after it was revealed that they failed to register themselves in time as a political party. I don't know whether this means they wont be able to field candidates in the upcoming Welsh and Scottish elections and to be honest I'm not bothered enough to look, but if any readers know please feel free to answer this question.

The BNP (and those in small right wing parties like them) provide those on the left with a few services. Firstly they give them the ability to say how disgusted they are by comments or actions (which I know from experience is always good for a few retweets or shares),

Former BNP leader Nick Griffin is now a voters of the UKIPs.

Secondly, and most importantly, they dilute the right wing vote. Looking back on the 2014 EU election we should all be aware that the UKIPs received the second highest number of votes in Wales. They were just 4,389 votes behind Labour. The BNP attracted 7,655 votes, I'm not saying that if there was no BNP to vote for then all of their voters would have switched to the UKIPs. But if just over half of them (around 57.3%) had then the UKIPs would have received more votes than any other party in Wales. They could possibly have added Newport to the list of council areas where they 'won the popular vote', the others being Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Powys, Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexgam.

The European elections are not carried out on FPTP (first past the post) but the votes for MPs and the majority of AMs are and we just so happen to have Welsh elections coming up in May. In the 2015 general election there isn't a single seat that the UKIPs could have won as a result of knuckle draggers lending them their support. Welsh elections have a much lower voter turnout than the general elections, the difference between the last two was over 23% (65.6% v 42.2%). The turnout for the European elections was just 35.6% which is far closer to the sort of turnout that the Welsh election is likely to receive.

The UKIPs will win seats in Wales. Their worst case scenario would be to win one seat in each of the five regions. They could always win more than one seat in those regions. Their best case scenario will see them winning constituency seats but this does mean they are less likely to win a regional seat that the constituency is part of.

In summary, the UKIPs will win seats in May. Lower turn out will benefit the UKIPs and if the BNP are not a registered party then a lower turnout could mean that BNP voters who vote for the UKIPs could be the difference between UKIP winning seats or not.