Margaret Hodge, the British education secretary, in a recent interview with the Sunday Telegraph, claimed that 80% of her Barking constituents in East London were prepared to vote for the far right British National Party (BNP). ?When I knock on doors I say to people, ?are you tempted to vote BNP?? and many, many ? eight out of 10 of the white families ? say ?yes?. That?s something we have never seen before, in all my years. Even when people voted BNP, they used to be ashamed to vote BNP. Now they are not,? she told the newspaper.

In last year?s general elections, the BNP fielded 119 candidates and doubled its votes to 192,750 votes, ?the highest far right general election vote in British history,? according to United Against Fascism, a leading anti-racist campaign group. From 1992 to 2005, the racist party has consistently increased its tally at the polls. In the coming local elections, the BNP is expected to poll between 20% and 30% in certain constituencies. In fact, according to Searchlight, another prominent anti-fascist group, all that BNP needs is a 5% ?swing? to obtain 70 council seats, thus tripling its current holdings. This could pose a serious dilemma for Britain, and a good deal of soul searching. Or perhaps not.

<B>Institutional racism</B>

Institutional racism is said to be well and alive in British society. Earlier this year, Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, argued that the media are racist in their coverage of murder cases. He said that murders of Black and Asian people get muted coverage compared to those involving white people. London?s mayor Ken Livingstone backed his claim telling the Guardian: ?Sir Ian has rightly highlighted that the media is not immune from the problem of racism. He should be given credit for opening up the debate about the relationship between the media and London?s diverse communities.?

Another area of concern is the institution headed by Ian Blair himself: the police. Thirteen years after the racially motivated murder of Stephen Lawrence, and despite many reforms, racism still plagues the police. Their shocking treatment of the Lawrence family spurred the then Tory government to pass a rash of legislations. However, the impact has been minimal, as statistics continue to point to ethnic profiling in ?stop and search? operations. Furthermore, Home Office statistics released last month show that black people are six times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than white people. For an Asian person, the chance is twice as much.

<B>Blame it on foreigners</B>

In Ireland, the picture is not prettier. The country has been whipped into a wave of xenophobia and racism through the media and politicians. With a general election looming in a year?s time, the Labour party (even more to the right of New Labour in terms of social policy) saw an opportunity to make some anti-immigrant noise and endear themselves to a section of the electorate. And succeed it did. They started to call on restrictions on Eastern-European immigration which they said was driving wages and employment conditions down. In fact, those who were being abused were the same immigrants, as is the case in Mauritius. There were countless cases of ruthless companies employing agency workers from Eastern Europe on below minimum wage. In one case, one company retained almost all the meagre wages of its Turkish employees, in a situation that amounted to bonded labour.

A nasty piece of work by a company, which tried to impose a voluntary retirement scheme (part-funded by the state) on its employees to replace them with non-unionised union workers, produced a sour mood. An Irish Times poll, found that 78% of people wanted a work-permit regime for Eastern Europeans, while nearly 60% thought that there were enough or too many foreign workers already in Ireland.

Only a slight majority of 51% saw immigration as positive. However, the debate never veered from what Noam Chomsky has called the ?bounds of the expressible?. Here no one strayed from accepted thought to link the doctrinaire neo-liberalism and globalisation to the immigration debate. Television debates and radio phone-ins reflected the general xenophobic mood in the country.

<B>Fascism back in favour</B>

On the continent, the situation is even worse, where overtly racist parties are now in Parliament. Before the recent Italian elections, the leader of the neo-fascists was deputy prime minister, in coalition with a virulently racist party, Umberto Bossi?s Northern League. In Denmark, the fascists are in government, having obtained over 16% of the vote. In Belgium, another neo-Nazi group, the Vlaams Blok, which now goes by the name of Flemish Interest, regularly wins 20% of the vote. It calls for the forced deportation of all foreigners in Belgian society. It is particular strong in Antwerp, a city where Mauritian footballer, Willie Vincent, once plied his trade for the local football team.

Closer to the hearts of a large section of the Mauritian population, France is not impervious to racism. The last presidential elections produced a shock of seismic proportions when Jean Marie Le Pen defeated the Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, to make it into the run-off against Chirac. The country does not need the neo-Nazi caricature, the Front National ?swing? voters can now easily gravitate towards Sarkozy, who looks set to win the next election. The Interior minister promised to ?clean? the ?riff-raff? and ?scum? from the ?banlieues?, referring to French youths of Arab and African descent. The rise of the far right in East Germany and in many places in Eastern Europe also looks inexorable at the moment.

Indeed, these are very dangerous times. The charm of fascism that once enveloped Europe and dragged it into the bloodiest conflict of the 20th century, seems back in favour barely 50 years later. Its future direction will depend on how the governments deal with it. At the moment, many are showing more affection than revulsion towards its new forms.