Halikiopoulou, Daphne, and Sofia Vasilopoulou. "Towards a 'Civic' Narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party". The Political Quarterly, Vol.81, No.4 (2010): 583-592.

Halikiopoulou, Daphne, and Sofia Vasilopoulou. "Towards a 'Civic' Narrative: British national identity and the transformation of the British National Party". The Political Quarterly, Vol.81, No.4 (2010): 583-592.

• Since 1999, the British National Party has attempted to change its political rhetoric to appeal to more civic elements of British identity rather than White nationalism, making itself resemble UKIP, its mainstream counterpart (583, 586).
• Several theories have been advanced to explain the relative gains that the British National Party has made in local elections and the European Parliament since the turn of the 21st Century. The authors agree that an abandonment of neo-fascist ideology and discouraging violence by its membership have been important, but contend that a shift from ethnic nationalism to civic nationalism in its discourse has been more fundamental and more important (584).
• The nationalist discourse of politics in the 21st Century West is overwhelmingly concentrated on civic nationalism, which can cooexist with liberal values. Ethnic nationalism is no longer utilized by mainstream Western political parties, a distinction serving to alienate those far-right political parties which do subscribe to ethnic nationalism (585).
• Liberal values, including a necessity to respect freedom of speech and pluralism of society, are increasingly seen as core components of British national identity. Most citizens increasingly see a contradiction between illiberal values of British national identity, weakening the political influence of illiberal movements like the British National Party prior to the 21st Century (585-586).
• The nationalism espoused by the British National Party prior to 1999 was primarily racial, with additional stresses on economic protectionism and pride in the British Empire. Race is the primary lens through which politics are viewed, with immigrants causing economic, social, and cultural harm to ethnic Brits. The reverse side of this issue is an opposition to devolution or Irish independence, both of which are viewed as weakening the British race (587-588).
• Following 1999, the British National Party adopted a platform supporting and defending liberal principles as essentially British, a huge change for a party traditionally critical of liberalism as 'a sickness'. Although many supported policies as stem from racist principles, the party now justifies these policies through a non-racist civic nationalism opposed to immigration and free trade on primarily economic, not racialist, grounds (588).
• The post-1999 British National Party also radically changed its policies on devolution, not only supporting devolution but demanding the same policy be implemented for England. It strongly supports increased devolution, accounting for differences between the 'nations' of Britain (588-589).
• UKIP provides a mainstream equivalent to the British National Party, consistently stressing economic nationalism and constructing a British civic identity based on liberal values in contrast with the centralization of the EU. UKIP does not make any reference to race in its politics, and officially support anti-discrimination policies (589).
• The British National Party has stole many elements of this platform and rhetoric. Notably, the party has adopted the liberal value of 'freedom' as justification for its policies, as opposed to previous racialist arguments about the fundamental biological division of the world into distinct races (589).
• The British National Party has also adopted UKIP's emphasis on illegal immigrants as a subject of criticism, shifting from its previous stance attacking all forms of immigration as equally harmful to the UK; this has been part of a larger switch from racialist to economic issues with immigration (589-590).
• Whereas the EU was previously an issue solely of UKIP, since 2005 the British National Party has adopted a position on the EU almost identical to that of UKIP, including similar arguments on the basis of the EU being fundamentally contradictory to British governmental institutions and traditions, with no mention of the 'British race' (590-591).