I recall some years ago that an expert in religious cults was asked on the radio whether all sections of society were equally at risk from cultist brainwashing, and he replied that only working class people were relatively immune to it. Perhaps this explains why working class Brits have developed such a strong resistance to the cult of New Labour, whose brainwashing in the religion of multi-culturalism is failing in traditional Labour areas.

This week, "Communities Secretary" John Denham was charged with the task of implementing a programme of socialist re-education to correct the "perceptions" of people in "white enclaves"; to counteract their baffling refusal to celebrate diversity and the further enrichment of their neighbourhoods by waves of third-worlders. The programme is called "Connecting Communities", but it might just as well be called, "Learning to Smile Whilst You're Being Colonized".

New Labour's dismissal – as mere "resentment" – of legitimate concerns about unemployment, crime, housing shortages and pressure on public services, offers a stark indicator of just how estranged they have become from their core support. But this estrangement helps to explain their hatred of the British National Party, a party that has put down deep roots in former Labour neighbourhoods up and down the country, and is very much in touch with popular concerns.

In a recent article on the Green Arrow site entitled “Born to Rule”, Aussie Bob described how mainstream politics has been largely taken over by the university educated, professional middle classes. It is a process that began a long time ago, and I was certainly aware of it back in the 1980s, when I joined the Labour party in an inner-city ward of Southampton.

Like a good trainee socialist, I attended most of the weekly meetings, but soon realized that the ward had been hijacked by leftist radicals (mostly graduates of Southampton University), such that ward meetings would be filled with debates about the plight of the Palestinians, unilateral nuclear disarmament, lesbian feminism, or whatever the latest trendy fad happened to be.

At the time, I was studying at nearby Portsmouth Polytechnic, but living in Southampton. I joined the local pub football team, whose players included builders and shipyard workers: solid Labour voters, I assumed, perhaps even some active party members among them. I learned that a couple of them had indeed been active, but had stopped going to meetings because (quote) "they're a bunch of winkers".

Two of the “winkers” in my ward went on to achieve notoriety. One of them was (the frighteningly intelligent) Matthew Taylor, former head of Tony Blair's Downing Street Policy Unit, and now Chief Executive of the Royal Society of Arts in London. The other was John Denham – I remember him well.

I belong to the class that sociologists call Lower Middle, which includes lower-paid white collar workers, middle managers and (I'm told) Mondeo drivers. Our class has not escaped the carnage of this government's economic and social policies. Consequently, I believe that the potential for nationalist recruitment of "Middle Englanders" is substantial, and that if the BNP can tap that potential it will be well on the way to becoming a major player in British politics.

My own conversion to nationalism has been gradual, an accumulation of small experiences. For example, I lived and worked in south London for many years, never giving much thought to racial matters until one night I found myself the only white person on a packed bus, the focus of much hostile attention. To me it was like a glimpse into Britain's future, or at least one possible, dystopian future.

The BNP's membership is substantially working class, because they are the people at the sharp end of bad policy, and because they no longer have a big party to look out for them. The party also has middle class members, including the two excellent MEPs and some of the other Euro candidates. There may even be some upper class members, I'm not sure. In any case, I think it is a healthy mixture.

However, the BNP must be careful not to replicate Labour's mistake of selecting parliamentary candidates mainly from the professional middle class. Representation should reflect the mix of party members and supporters: that way, elected politicians are much less likely to betray the people who got them elected. It will be the party's greatest strength that it reflects a great proportion of the indigenous British, not just some privileged minority.

George Bernard Shaw wrote in the preface to Pygmalion, his famous play about social class: "It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him". This may or may not be true of the British generally, but the more important thing is that in times of crisis the British put such differences aside and pull together to fight the common enemy. Our present enemy may be less easy to identify than the enemies of former times – he does not wear a single uniform, or spout a single ideology – but he is no less dangerous for that.