The United Kingdom Independence Party was thought of as primarily a single issue party - that issue being to come out of the European Union. However, it was always an anti-immigration party right from its inception. In the recent local authority elections in 2012 and the last ones in 2010 the immigration theme has become much more prominent heading up its demands in election material and featuring on its huge election hordings featuring an open door for migrants. They have a detailed anti-immigration programme (see end of this article)

Today the fascist parties, such as the BNP, are in disarray and have collapsed electorally (in this country). However, in their place cometh UKIP. Number one headline of their election campaign was to attack the 'open door' for migrants entering this country. They averaged about 12% were they stood. Despite their more respectable history compared to the BNP, who can trace their pedigree back to the British Union of Fascists, UKIP can show its ugly teeth. During the London Mayoral elections they burnt a picture of the Lib Dem Mayoral candidate, who is gay, in the middle of Soho.

You might think that parties such as the BNP and UKIP are not very important in relation to immigration controls. After all, it is the Government who design and impliment controls and they are Tory (or ConDem) or Labour. Who needs the fascists? In his essay "Standing on the Shoulders of Fascism" Steve Cohen showed that every significant addition to immigration controls followed from racist and fascist agitation. This might come from fascist groups or newspapers such as the Daily Mail. This was not to say that this agitation was the sole driver of controls. Capital has its functional/rational needs for immigration controls and the agitation could become a convenient excuse. But a large proportion of this has little to do with rationality, even capitalist rationality. The history of controls is a history of appeasement of these racist and fascist campaigns. Steve went further, to show that other developments in repressive legislation covering the population as a whole were built on attacks initially piloted on migrants, which in turn was a response to the demands of fascists. Thus the bourgeois democratic state stands on the shoulders of fascism.

Actually, in terms of local authority elections, UKIP have been nowhere near as successful as the BNP back in 2006 and the years immediately following that time. They certainly haven't remotely approached being the main opposition party in any council, although in 2010 they became the majority in Ramsey Town Council (Town Councils and Parish Councils are small geographical sub-councils within a local authority and often seats are not contested so small parties can slip in with little local support). They did not win a London Assembly seat. However, UKIP has not generally striven to build local bases like the BNP has in places like Burnley, Blackburn, Barking & Dagenham... They also have more of an orientation towards small businesess rather than the working class. But if they did try to build local grass roots bases the way the BNP did they might develop a party similar to continental parties such as that of Gert Wilders.

Some people have extrapolated on their recent success and their apparent ability to win over votes from dissident Tories, to claim that UKIP are threatening to beat the Tories in the next European Elections. I don't know if this calculation is valid, but it has provided the ultra-right of the Tories (what else can you call them, when the leadership is so right wing?) with ammunition and leverage to push the party further to the right, in conflict with their Lib-Dem partners.

So once again we see racist agitation - this time from UKIP and the Tory far-right - putting pressure on Government. No to Gay Marriage appears to be the immediate demand but we can be sure that immigration will loom large on this agenda. Will the Tory leaders yield? Will the Lib-Dems roll over? And Labour - will it oppose further controls and attacks on migrants or will it join in with those saying that the Government isn't being 'robust' enough in 'controlling our borders' like Yvette Cooper did a few months ago?

We will need to prepare for further resistance, arguing against the scapegoaters and fighting the resistance on the streets and the workplaces.