THE British National Party appears to regard its recent local election success as the "start of a new dawn in Burnley politics".

It's certainly true that the party now has three town councillors and collected 26 per cent of the vote in the municipal polls.

But the BNP evidently considers another thing has been legitimised by this result...the right to chant racist slogans at football matches.

Just as the BNP's three new councillors were set to make their entrance to the town hall, we had the party's co-ordinator in Burnley, Steven Smith, somewhat fresh from prison for falsifying nomination papers in last year's county council elections, describing as "outrageous" the lifetime bans by Burnley FC on two fans who sang racist songs at the ground last season.

To Mr Smith, this is a gag on the freedom of speech. "Chanting songs and slogans, whether they be racist or not, is a natural part of football culture and in itself is harmless," he said.

Mr Smith is, however, a fool if he thinks the BNP's cause is in any way aided by such a statement - unless, of course, he supposes that support for such outright racist behaviour adds to the party's appeal.

He is an even greater fool if he believes racist chants are acceptable, either as expressions of the assumed freedom of people to say what they like or as a 'natural' part of the loutish, foul-mouthed culture that too often mars football. And he is a stupendous fool if he considers that they are harmless - when they are plainly extremely offensive not just to the races who are the target of them, but to fair-minded people everywhere who can see no justification for anyone being abused simply for the sake of their ethnic origin.

But perhaps Mr Smith has done Burnley a favour.

While the lurch to the right may have delivered an alerting jolt to the mainstream parties, it seems it has made Mr Smith a mite too cocksure. If he believes the support for the BNP makes his excuses for racist behaviour popular or pardonable, he fails to realise that it shows up the BNP for what it is.

And that is a manifestly racist party - no matter how civilised and legitimate it seeks to appear.