The BNP are going to be "a very serious force in British politics" and mainstream parties should tackle them head-on, Tory chairman Eric Pickles said today.
He said Labour, Tory and Liberal Democrat politicians should "work harder than we have ever worked before" in areas where the party he labelled "fascist" and "Nazi" had gained ground.
Mr Pickles said it might concentrate MPs' minds when they bumped into BNP leader and newly-elected MEP Nick Griffin in the corridors of the House of Commons - to which his European parliament status gives him unfettered access.
The Conservative chairman also accused Labour MPs of being ashamed of some of the areas they represented, living in a "posh house" while not engaging with residents of inner city estates in their constituencies.
Mr Pickles, speaking at a Westminster Press Gallery lunch, said of the BNP: "They are going to be a very serious force in British politics and the mainstream political parties have got to get their act together and start confronting them.
"We have got to start working in those areas where they have got contact, harder than we have ever worked before.
"That's the way you are going to defeat the BNP - you have got to take the BNP on.
"They have filled that vacuum which Labour retreated from so long ago."
The Tory chairman said there was "an enormous disconnect between politicians and the electorate" and he had grown up on estates where that disconnect typically occurred.
"It is on those Labour estates where this kind of disconnect occurs," he said, adding that Labour MPs sometimes "didn't feel part of it" but lived instead in a "posh house" on the other side of town.
"If you feel ashamed of these communities, you shouldn't represent them," he said.
Mr Pickles, a former Bradford councillor, said he was "not in favour of holding hands together and marching against the BNP".
He said they were "lousy councillors and lousy attenders" and had to be tackled on that basis.
"To remove them is not going to be about rhetoric, it's about re- engaging with people to let them know that politics actually matters," he went on.
On Mr Griffin, who will receive a pass to the Commons like all MEPs, Mr Pickles said: "The guy is now elected and we have to come to terms with that.
"If the idea of Nick Griffin walking along the corridor or drinking in the (MPs' bar) Pugin Room - if that's what it takes to wake up politicians to (voters) having elected a Nazi and a fascist, then it's no good pretending he's not here."
Only the BNP is in it for Britain.