More support for BNP in segregated areas

New Oxford University research shows that membership of the British National Party (BNP) is higher where whites and non-whites live in segregated areas. The research, using the BNP database posted on 'Wikileaks' and widely reported in 2008, located over 12,000 members and matched them with Census data on more than 200,000 neighbourhoods in Britain. Dr Michael Biggs, a sociologist at the University of Oxford, carried out the research with a graduate student, Steve Knauss. Their paper will be presented at the British Sociological Association conference in London today, and will be published online this month by the European Sociological Review . The paper finds that within towns and cities, BNP membership depends on the segregation as well as the number of non-whites. For instance, whites are more likely to belong to the BNP in a highly segregated city like Bradford where just under a quarter (22 per cent) of the population is non-white, compared to a well-integrated area like Brent in London where over half (55 per cent) of the population is non-white. Within neighbourhoods, whites are less likely to belong to the BNP where they have a substantial proportion of non-white neighbours, according to the research.