The British National Party has won its 17th local council seat in England.

The party won 1607 votes in the Heckmondwike by-election for Kirklees council on Thursday night, beating the Liberal Democrat candidate into second place.

Labour came fourth behind Tim Crowther, who prompted the poll by resigning the party and his council seat to stand as an independent.

"We are disappointed with this result," said Labour chairman Ian McCartney.

"We ran a good campaign and had a strong candidate. Nasty, extremist and racist, the BNP got in narrowly on the back of empty promises and bogus respectability."

Leaving the count, the BNP's new councillor David Exley argued he was "talking common sense".

"Come and meet me, speak to me. I will make myself available to anyone," he added.

The Labour candidate, Florence Smith, said the far-right party had "made a lot of empty promises to the electorate".

"The BNP have nothing to offer local people and their councillor will ultimately let the people of Heckmondwike down," she claimed.

The Commission for Racial Equality called on all mainstream political parties to pay attention to "the threat of the BNP on the ground".

"As well as needing to address the real concerns of local people so that these fears are not exploited by the far right, they need to play a smarter game and not allow them easy wins," said a spokesman.

"Each seat gained by the BNP is a blow for good race relations and there is no room for party politics to get in the way of stopping them."