A message from our chairman Mr Nick Griffin

Dear Fellow Patriot,

I appreciate that everybody is feeling very tired after this bruising campaign and some disappointing headline results. In fact, as you will see later in this message, behind the media's sneers, there is real concern about the progress that we have made in this extraordinarily hard-fought contest.

With the result now in, Britain faces its first "hung parliament" since 1974 and the next Government - if there is to be one and not a new election in a few months' time - will be a coalition of two of the main parties.

Ironically, this provides the British National Party (which spectacularly almost tripled its vote from 2005, jumping from 192,746 to a healthy 563,743 in yesterday's contest) with its best window of opportunity yet.

The kingmaker in any coalition will be the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg. Their key demand for participation in a coalition is electoral reform, and in particular the abolition of the current "first-past-the-post" election system. The reason why the Liberal Democrats oppose the first-past-the-post system is that it clearly puts a smaller party (which is what the Liberal Democrats are) at a hugely unfair disadvantage.

The figures tell the story: yesterday the Liberal Democrats won around 23 percent of the vote, but will end up with only 7 percent of the seats in Parliament. The BNP, which polled close to a million votes in June 2009, and over half a million yesterday (despite only fighting half of all the available 650 seats), will end up with no seats at all.

In effect, the first-past-the-post system simply throws millions of votes onto the rubbish heap where they are ignored. As a result, the Liberal Democrats have argued for the introduction of proportional representation (PR) in Britain.

Under a PR system, if a party gets 10 percent of the votes, it gets 10 percent of the seats in Parliament. If it gets 32 percent of the vote, it gets 32 percent of the seats, and so on.

It is an obviously fairer way of allowing all votes cast in an election be reflected in Parliament. In fact, a slightly amended system of PR is used in European Parliamentary elections, which allowed the BNP to win its two seats in that body in June 2009.

If the Liberal Democrats are involved in a coalition with either Labour or Conservatives, it is inevitable that they will set the demand for a PR system as one of the preconditions for their cooperation.

In fact, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has already made this demand in public - and both Labour and Conservatives have announced their willingness to consider it or, at the very least, hold a referendum on the topic.

What does this mean for the BNP? The tripling of the BNP vote on 6 May has some important implications.

Firstly, where we went head-to-head with UKIP and the Greens, we thrashed them. We outvoted UKIP in 178 seats and they beat us in 123. We outvoted the Greens in 134 seats for the Greens 23. UKIP had a huge budget and their campaign was backed by 13 MEPs, in it must not be forgotten that both UKIP and the Greens enjoy favourable treatment at the hands of the controlled media.

Secondly, while all minority parties were pushed out to the edge by the 'big boys', our vote not only held up but proportionately increased when compared to our June 2009 Euro election results.

When put into perspective, yesterday's result becomes even more interesting:

- In 1983, the BNP fought 54 seats and polled 14,000 votes.

- In 1987, the BNP fought 2 seats and polled 563 votes.

- In 1992, the BNP fought 13 seats and polled 7,000 votes.

- In 1997, the BNP fought 54 seats and polled 35,000 votes.

- In 2001, the BNP fought 33 seats and polled 47,000 votes.

- In 2005, the BNP fought 117 seats and polled 192,746 votes.

- In 2010, the BNP fought 339 seats and polled 563,743 votes.

Based on yesterday's impressive vote totals, the BNP would win in excess of 60 seats in Westminster under a PR system.

Some of the more perceptive Conservative journalists, such as Norman Tebbit, have already realised this as a possibility and have written about it in national newspapers.

In addition, many political commentators have already remarked that, on a night which saw all the smaller parties squeezed - including the Lib-Dems, who lost five seats - the strong showing and turnout of the BNP vote was "a source of great concern."

They have seen how the public hostility towards us is fast disappearing. I felt it on the streets and I'm sure you did too.

Compare this with a few years ago when we endured frequent confrontations and 'screamers'. This election we enjoyed a very friendly response on the streets and no aggravation (apart from the exception of activists from Labour's far left thuggish allies).

I have heard reports from all over the country, and have experienced it for myself, that the 'screamers' who used to pop out of the woodwork in almost every street, have all but completely vanished.

The shift in the public's perception of us now is really very encouraging. Unfortunately in this much hyped General Election, people voted for a change in government and have (some with gritted teeth) reverted back to the old parties.

Our adversaries recognised this probably before us and have done everything to keep us as a small fringe party. Under PR we could easily fill a bus with BNP MPs.

As the coalition negotiations begin, let those who might feel disappointed at the BNP's failure to secure a parliamentary seat yesterday reflect on what might happen in a short while.

The introduction of PR to Britain will dramatically change the face of British politics and propel the BNP into the mainstream political debate once and for all.