In the elections for the European Parliament this week, not only did Labour's vote completely collapse, but also the British National Party, the most far-right and openly racist party in the UK, gained two seats, their first ever. If the rest of the European Union didn't already think we in the UK are slightly bonkers, I've no idea what they must be thinking now. What does this say about people in Britain? Are we really a racist country?

The outcome of this election is, by most accounts, appalling, but the first thing to notice is that in both of the regions where the BNP won seats, their vote actually decreased since the last European election. In the North West of England it dropped from 134,959 in 2004 to 132,094 in 2009, and from 126,538 to 120,139 in Yorkshire and the Humber.

So how did they gain seats? Quite simply, because although the few BNP supporters came out and voted, as I'm sure they will no matter what, supporters of other parties, primarily Labour, did not. Indeed, in the North West of England, the total turnout fell between the two elections by almost a quarter, from an originally very low 40.9% to a shameful 31.7%. The story is the same across the country, with a drop from 42.6% to 32.3% in Yorkshire and the Humber, and the only reason the drop isn't so dramatic in my region of the West Midlands is because it was already pitifully low at 36% in 2004, dropping to 34.8% this week. Here in the West Midlands we managed to very narrowly avoid handing the BNP their third seat in the European Parliament, giving them 8.6% of the vote. This is actually bigger than the 8% they got in the North West, where Nick Griffin was elected, so it really just came down to the mathematics of the voting system, rather than any real will to keep these people from representing us.

And just to clear up what kind of people the BNP are, especially in light of their polite suited style in public, I think it only right to recount some facts. Nick Griffin, the newly elected MEP for the North West of England, who has previously been convicted for inciting racial hatred, also denies that the Holocaust took place, stating that "the ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch-hysteria", likening believing in it to believing the world is flat. Griffin has links to white supremicist and nazi organisations across the world, including the Ku Klux Klan, Blood & Honour and various other nazi parties across Europe. Griffin has also claimed that "without the White race nothing matters" and laments that "Adolf went a bit too far. His legacy is the biggest problem that the British nationalist movement has to deal with. It just creates a bad image".

Andrew Brons, the newly elected MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber is a former member of the National Socialist Movement, an organisation that was deliberately founded on Adolf Hitler’s birthday and whose members were responsible for arson attacks against synagogues in the 1960s. Along with Griffin, he has spoken at National Front rallies, and at one point was its Education Officer. When heard shouting “Death to Jews” and “White Power” he was approached by policeman John Raj. Brons then stated: “inferior beings like yourself probably do not understand the principle of free speech”.

I could go on, but I think that at this point, the message should be fairly clear. These people are now our elected representatives in the European Parliament, and this is despite the number of people voting for them in the areas where they won actually going down. The old adage goes that people have died for the right to vote, but given that the last time a far-right party came to power in Europe people died as a result, not exercising that right could have incredible consequences. Rights like this are better termed duties in my book. It is then, with no apology, that I say that if you are one of the 65% of voters who didn't bother this time, then a significant part of the blame for this result lies with you. Hopefully this will give you something to think about.