IT was bound to happen - and now it has. The British National Party has stuck its oar into the row over the proposed new Arc Light Centre.

The party has horrified local residents by descending on homes in Shipton Street and Grosvenor Terrace, offering to help in their efforts to stop the former Shipton Street School being converted into a hostel for homeless people.

The BNP protests it is a "legal, lawful political party" which is entitled, in a democracy, to put itself forward in this manner.

The trouble is the BNP has form on such matters. It always waits until a contentious local issue has reached boiling point, and then it appears out of nowhere in an apparently honest attempt to sort matters out. The party's members try to show themselves as reasonable and willing to act where, they imply, other politicians have failed.

Yet as anyone with half an eye open knows, the BNP is a far-right party founded on race hate. As such it can have nothing to offer in the Arc Light debate and is merely making a crude attempt to raise its still-ugly profile.

The BNP inserted itself into the row over the Boroughbridge Road probation hostel in exactly the same way, waiting until the heat was up before making its own inflammatory contribution.

Not for the first time, the BNP is all too eager to exploit people's fear and unhappiness, while also helping to foment disaffection. It hopes to cash in on a difficult situation - but its display of grisly opportunism appears only to have annoyed local residents.

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, September 07, 2005