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This article centres upon the nature of xenophobia as it relates to electoral politics, addressing in particular how and why 'race politics' were employed in three large West European states at the end of the Cold War. Rather than looking only at extremist fringe groups, this article focuses on party competition as a driving force. Discussing developments since 1979, a strict comparison of party strategies employed in Britain, France and Germany is undertaken, describing the ups and downs of xenophobia as a public issue largely as a product of campaign strategies of the established conservative parties, who used the issue as a 'weapon of last resort'. The handling of the issue by actors in the three countries is compared; this resulted in the success of the Front National in France and the Republikaner in Germany, and diverging development in Britain. It is also stressed that the emergence of 'race' and migration as public issues are largely independent of the actual numbers of immigrants, which differed fundamentally between the three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]