AFTER QUESTION TIME

NICK Griffin was left shaking like a leaf at the end of BBC’s Question Time tonight. After what some might have expected to be a big PR, publicity stunt for the BNP was almost completely the opposite. Auntie should be looking for her receipt, as Mr Griffin was probably not too happy with his Christmas present.

Griffin failed to dispel the notion that his party is racist. He even stated that he believed successive governments had committed genocide towards the ‘indigenous people of Britain’ through immigration policies. His constant flip flopping performance - trying to deny racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic and Islamic comments he had previously made – was plain embarrassing to watch.

So has his appearance on Question Time helped to raise the profile of the BNP? I don’t think it has, but we’ll have to wait and see. It might have helped to raise the issue of immigration in Britain as being a topic needing more debate. The appearance of Mr Griffin on QT reminds us once again of the price we pay for democracy. There can be a very fine line between free speech and censorship.

BNP ON TV

TONIGHT, Nick Griffin the leader of the British National Party (BNP) will appear on BBC One’s Question Time. It is the first time that a member of the far right ‘political party’ has been invited and allowed onto the panel.

The decision by the BBC to invite Griffin was a very controversial one. For a start the BNP are about as close to the Nazi party as you can get in British Politics. One of their objectives is to be “committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white make-up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948.” You can’t get more racist then that really.

The press and politicians have been trying to argue whether the BNP should be allowed to appear on national television. The right to free speech has been brought into consideration, alongside the want to suppress such controversial and hateful political views. It is a tough decision to make. Do we let such views get suppressed and grow underground? Do we let the views be heard and let them be rubbished and realised for what they are? Or do we risk the views being heard and supported further?

The BNP faces legal challenges about their membership policy and have been heavily criticised with using images of the army in their election campaigns. However illegal the BNP’s methods of selecting members are or however sickening their policies and campaign techniques might be. It might be more important to ask why nearly a million people voted for the BNP at the European elections and why there are now two BNP members in the European Parliament.

Surely this is the bigger and more urgent question to ask rather then whether the BNP should be allowed onto Question Time tonight?