The BNP is a lot like Marmite, you either love it or... actually, scrap that – Marmite is nothing like the BNP.

Today, brand-owner Unilever is beginning legal action against the far-right party after the use without permission of a jar of the sticky savoury spread in one of its online campaign films.

It is not an association they want anyone to make.

A statement said:

It has been brought to our attention that the British National Party has included a Marmite jar in a political broadcast shown currently online. We want to make it absolutely clear that Marmite did not give the BNP permission to use a pack shot of our product in their broadcast. Neither Marmite nor any other Unilever brand are aligned to any political party.

We are currently initiating injunction proceedings against the BNP to remove the Marmite jar from the online broadcast and prevent them from using it in future.

So the campaign takes another surprising turn (and not the first involving Marmite: Gordon Brown today tweeted that while his wife likes it, he prefers marmalade.)

However it's not as if Marmite has been entirely above the election fray so far.

It has been running a viral marketing campaign based on a spoof news website called the Marmite News Network – which, incidentally, frequently reports on a fictional "Hate Party" which has a Cambridge-educated leader who campaigns on a platform of "Stop the spread".

Sound like anyone you know?

Update: RichardGrrr's "Love Marmite, hate racism" in the comments at 3.10pm has been taken up in at least one Facebook update I know of.