For someone who fell in love with folk music because it seemed (to me) to speak across time and place to some kind of universal human condition, it's more than a wee bit depressing and infuriating to find BNP leader and recently elected MEP for North West England, Nick Griffin, professing his love of the genre (he's a massive Kate Rusby fan).

The party's recent attempts to co-opt folk music as one of their chief soundtracks have enraged many of the musicians whose recordings have been licensed for compilations currently on sale via Excalibur, the merchandising wing of the party. English folk stalwarts Phil Beer of Show of Hands, one of the most ethically and politically astute bands on the southern scene, and Ashley Hutchings of The Albion Band, are both featured artists.

And if you're feeling a bit complacent from a Scottish vantage point, then consider the irony and incongruity of finding instrumental renditions of  "A Man's A Man" and "Auld Lang Syne", perhaps the most iconic of all Scots songs of friendship and internationalism, on sale for £8.95 as part of "The Bluebells of Scotland" compilation. Robert Burns would, surely, be turning in his grave.

It's one of the gaping ethical loopholes in current copyright protection systems that there's no easy mechanism via the national Mechanical Copyright Protection Society (MCPS), which governs licensing for all publicly available musical recordings in the UK, to prevent such commercial exploitation.

Of course, folk music fans and musicians cut across the political spectrum. It can be hard to remember this in Scotland, where mainstream public opinion is left of centre anyway, and that seems even more the case in folky circles, with their history of social radicalism and broadbased community activism.

But the BNP, with its twisted history of incitement to racial violence, even has a new found pacifist rhetoric to go with its fledgling interest in folk traditions. Nick Griffin cited Eric Bogle's "And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" during his inaugural speech to the European Parliament in July and is quoted on his own website as saying that young people should know more about folk song and its "overriding anti-war message". Oh dear. Hard to argue with but now who wants to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr Griffin on this point?

The British folk scene's response to the BNP's overt courting of "tradition" has spawned Folk Against Fascism, a deliberate attempt to connect current political developments with the legacy of 1930s musical heroes such as Woody Guthrie.

You can sign up HERE.

And for some eminently sensible, knowledgeable and articulate thoughts on wider issues of folk music, cultural identity and inclusiveness, and our own possibly unwitting complicity in cultivating a mono-ethnic music scene, ripe for co-option by the right wing, check out Sue Wilson in The Scotsman (11/9/09)