We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,
we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight on the landing grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender

Britain doesn't have much of a problem with fascism. It's one of the best parts of being British, one of the proudest records this country has.

You don't have to look very far overseas to see just how proud we should be. The French National Front usually gets around 15 per cent of the vote in national elections. Holland's far-right Party for Freedom is expecting to get four of the 25 Dutch seats in tomorrow's European elections. And those are the more left-leaning countries.

The British are made of different stuff.

We fought fascism, and we destroyed it. It's no exaggeration to say Britain saved the world from fascism, with a little help - obviously - from our Russian and American friends.

It was the proudest moment in our island history. For one year, Britain stood alone against the mighty strength of the Nazi empire. It had no allies - none who would come to our aid anyway. It stood alone, and because of that strange, understated strength of British character which we so rarely talk about but all intrinsically understand, we did not fall.

That's the obvious example. But deep down in its heart, Britain has always been fighting fascism. It does it without even noticing it. It does it by virtue of its character.

The word fascism is derived from the Latin fasces, a bundle of sticks tied together, which came to symbolise strength in unity.

It doesn't mean unity in the fluffy 'can't we all just get along' Hallmark card sense. It's a totalitarian unity - very similar to way far-leftists use the word 'solidarity'. They don't mean unity. They mean: shut up.

Unity for extremists means purity; purity of thought, purity of behaviour. In the case of the BNP, they mean purity of race as well.

Nothing could be further from what Britain is. Britain is the opposite of purity.

Our history is one of mixture. From the Anglo-Saxons, to the Romans, to the Normans, we are a country of immigrants. You just have to go far enough back.

During the Victorian era, Britain welcomed the most radical thinkers in Europe, most of them barred from their own country. In this, the home of capitalism, Marx wrote Das Kapital, Lenin walks the streets of east London, and Bakunin and Kropotkin formulated the beginnings of anarchist theory.

That's why this country gave birth to capitalism, and communism, and - to a lesser extent - anarchism. The ideas which framed the 20th century were born here. In the present day, the names Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes have featured in newspapers across the world as people struggle to understand the financial crisis and how to fix it. Those are British names. That's not a coincidence. Those ideas were born here because we were open - open to people, open to argument. They were born here because we nurtured freedom of expression and debate.

Our constitutional framework represents this. A democracy with a monarchy was considered impossible when the Enlightenment was first undergoing its birth pangs. The British made it possible, by having an aversion to extremism and a comfort with mess and complexity. Instead of overthrowing everything, we changed a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and ended up, eventually, where we are now. It's not perfect, but it is quite wonderful. We have a head of state who is utterly non-political, allowing each and every Briton to hold whatever political opinion they choose without ever being branded anti-British. For a quick look at the alternative go to the US, where Americans bandy about the word anti-American as if it were going out of fashion. I have had some tough, heated debates in my time, but no-one has every questioned my Britishness, and I've never questioned anyone else's. Something else to be proud of.

Economically we are just the same, our mixed economy never being genuinely questioned by the public at large. The British are not socialists, they are further to the right - on a general level - than the continent. But God help anyone that t

The British National Party is building an alliance with radical anti-abortion activists in an attempt to reach out to Catholics and secure their votes in future elections.

Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, and one of his close deputies confirmed yesterday that they held private talks last week with the UK co-ordinator of Life League, an anti-abortion lobby group. Griffin and Mark Collet spent two days with James Dowson, an Ulster-based businessman and the main force behind Life League.

The meeting has outraged other anti-abortion campaigners. A number of them, who wanted to remain anonymous, contacted The Observer this weekend. One, who described himself as a 'mainstream anti-abortion and anti-racist', condemned the BNP.

Griffin claimed that amplifying the party's 'pro-life' policies would win it new votes among Catholics. 'There used to be a perception in Northern Ireland and Scotland that we were an Orange party. This is not so,' he said. The BNP, like Dowson, wanted to reach across the sectarian divide.

'If there is any plus for us in meeting Life League and highlighting our opposition to abortion, it is that it chimes with the feelings of many working-class Scottish Catholics,' the BNP leader said. His main candidate in Glasgow would be stressing the BNP's opposition to abortion in the forthcoming Scottish elections.

Dowson said the league had a 'moral duty to engage with anyone who will listen in order to promote our pro-life agenda'.

Matthew Collins of Searchlight, the anti-fascist magazine, said it was odd that the BNP 'welcomed Holocaust deniers' yet believed in the 'right to life of the unborn'.