The BNP claim in their typically understated manner that the announcement of Hill's candidacy “caused so much interest that within three days, the new group had been formed” in the town.

Exactly what this means in reality is unclear. According to the second leaked BNP membership list, the party had a not particularly impressive 19 members in the constituency in April last year. If this has now coalesced into a group it isn't exactly going to move mountains.

Hill gets around a bit. She is the Group Secretary of the Melton and Rutland group. In 2009 stood for election to Harborough Council (in Market Harborough West & Foxton). Searchlight claimed as recently as February last year that she lived in Oxfordshire. Now she’s turned up in Mansfield.

Intriguingly, fellow Melton BNPer James North has also decamped to Nottinghamshire for the election, standing in the neighbouring Sherwood constituency.

According to Searchlight, Hill was born in England, but brought up in South Africa after her parents emigrated there. Apparently a nationalist from an early age, she joined the BNP after leaving school in Pretoria and returning to the UK.

During her reign as secretary, Melton and Rutland BNP held its first ever paper sale in Metlon town centre in September 2008. Unfortunately, they were completely unopposed.

In Market Harborough, Hill received 9.4% of the vote in a 4 horse race, not a particularly impressive toll. Whether she will be any more successful in Mansfield remains to be seen.

Mansfield is a Labour heartland, but like so many working-class communities in Nottinghamshire has suffered considerably since the mines closed and received little support from New Labour.

A mosque in the town has been subjected to a string of racist attacks. Windows have been smashed, there have been break-ins, people have spit on the door and on 3 occasions, the letters “BNP” have been carved into the door.

No doubt the BNP would claim there is no evidence that their members were involved in these incidents, despite the recurrence of the party's name in graffiti. Nevertheless, the references to the party underline the links between racist violence and the anti-muslim nonsense they pass off as analysis.

While electoral victory is vanishingly unlikely, if the BNP become more prominent in the town, racist attacks can be expected to increase.

Anti-fascists need to keep a wary eye developments in Mansfield. We have failed to do so in Melton and may now be reaping the costs of that mistake.