The BNP Has Just Two Councillors Left In Britain

Nick Griffin is also likely to lose his seat as an MEP. Just 11 votes are saving the BNP from a district council wipeout.

The British National Party has shown no sign of making a comeback in this week's local elections and is down to just two elected district councillors.

Neil Hall / Reuters

Brian Parker, a district councillor in Lancashire, was on Friday narrowly re-elected to Pendle council with a majority of just six votes.

The result ensures the far-right party will have an elected presence for at least another four years, although results elsewhere suggest the party is almost spent as an electoral force.

Outside of Lancashire the BNP has just one other district councillor: Catherine Duffy in Charnwood near Leicester, who will be defending a majority of just 5 votes when she is next up for election.

Nick Griffin, the BNP's leader and its only remaining MEP, is expected to lose his North West England seat when European Parliament results are announced on Sunday evening as a result of the collapse in the party's poll ratings.

The far-right party attracted almost one million votes in the 2009 European Parliament elections, winning two MEPs as a result. This followed success in the 2000s, during which it built a substantial support base on local councils such as Stoke-on-Trent and Barking & Dagenham and appeared set for a genuine breakthrough.

But rather than build on this success the party has imploded over the last five years.

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Griffin was declared bankrupt earlier this year and membership has plummeted, leaving the party short of money and campaigning capability.

BNP London organiser Steve Squire recently told BuzzFeed that his party was losing votes to UKIP and attacked Nigel Farage's party for having a racist immigration policy: "We don't pick on white people from Europe: we don't care where you come from, black or Asian or white, we don't want you. We think that is a non-racist position."

Squire also admitted that the BNP's future may lie outside mainstream electoral politics.

Far-right splinter groups such as Britain First, founded by a former BNP official, provide a home for many former BNP supporters.