David Cameron was right to highlight public anxiety about immigration, says a leading expert on the far right, but insists it’s not all about jobs and houses.

Dr Matt Goodwin, author of a new book – The New British Fascism: Rise of the BNP – says the PM’s unveiling of plans to manage the issue ignored one of the most powerful drivers of support for parties like the BNP: a perception that immigration and rising diversity is threatening British culture, values and ways of life

Cabinet colleague Vince Cable hit out at Cameron after his comments, saying the PM had risked inflaming extremism. This debate has taken place alongside the election of a BNP Mayor in Padiham, the arrest of a BNP candidate after burning a copy of the Koran, and as the party was preparing to stand over 200 candidates at the local elections.

“On the one hand Cameron’s right,” says Dr Goodwin. “Of course there are economic concerns about immigration, and that is an issue for far-right-wing voters. But there is a more substantial cornerstone for the extremists and the PM missed it; Britons who vote for far-right parties or join them are also driven strongly by a sense that their wider group and community is facing a serious threat. Unless the Government addresses that directly, it’s missing the point.”

Dr Goodwin’s book is the first of its kind to really get into the mindset of the far right and its most dedicated followers. Dr Goodwin had unprecedented access to the BNP leadership and its members.

“There are an abundance of studies on the far right, looking at its voters, individual political parties and comparative studies,” says Dr Goodwin. “Alongside that there’s been a very high-profile contentious public debate over why these parties are recruiting record levels of support and what threat, if any, they pose to western liberal democracy? What there hasn’t been, however, are studies that get inside these parties, talk to their most committed followers and understand what drives their political behaviour.”

The book looks at how supporters are driven by a ‘potent combination’ of deep hostility toward immigration, and profound dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties. It also reveals how many feel they are fighting not for votes, but for their racial survival.

The Rt Hon David Blunkett MP said: “It is easy to dismiss such extreme views as an irrelevance in British politics…it is all too easy for fringe views to emerge in the mainstream. That is why this in-depth study is worthy of examination.”

“What this book gives readers,” adds Dr Goodwin, “is a far more nuanced, rich story about how and why the BNP has risen at this moment in British politics, what types of supporters it attracts, how it has sought to sell itself to ordinary citizens, and how it is working to sustain this support over time.”

The New British Fascism: Rise of the BNP was published by Routledge Politics on 5 May.