More like this
Nick Griffin gloats after BBC Trust rejects ban
BNP leader thanks political class ‘for being so stupid’ - but fears being shot outside TV Centre
As anti-racism protestors and Holocaust survivors prepare to picket BBC Television Centre in London ahead of the taping of tonight's controversial Question Time programme, BNP leader Nick Griffin, the object of their ire, goes into the show gloating about the publicity the row has afforded his far-right party.
"I thank the political class and their allies for being so stupid," Griffin told the Times. "The huge furore that the political class has created around it clearly gives us a whole new level of public recognition."
The BBC Trust yesterday rejected an appeal by Cabinet minister Peter Hain to remove Griffin from the panel show line-up, saying it was a matter of editorial judgment and it had no reason to interfere. "Thank you, Auntie," said Griffin, who believes the BBC is "institutionally biased" against him, but had stood by its principles in allowing him to appear on the show.
Griffin told the Times that on Tuesday, after he compared four senior British generals to Nazi war criminals for supporting the war in Iraq, the BNP enjoyed its "best ever single day" with telephone donations.
The BNP leader used the interview to seek to paint a picture of a "new, improved BNP", saying he had banished the racist and neo-Nazi elements and hoped the party might win its first Westminster seat in the upcoming general election. "A whole crop of new, quite high-quality, serious political people" would sign up to the BNP after his appearance on Question Time, he predicted.
Peter Hain, the Cabinet minister who tried unsuccessfully to persuade the BBC Trust to step in and ban Griffin, said the broadcaster was culpable of a huge boost for racist and fascist politics, "which is totally obnoxious".
But writing in the Guardian this morning, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson defended his his programme executives's decision and said the case for banning Griffin was "a case for censorship".
It was, he said, Parliament's job to proscribe organisations deemed to be "beyond the pale". But this had not happened in the case of the BNP.
Thompson wrote: "Question Time is an opportunity for the British public to put questions to politicians of every ideological hue. Politicians from the UK's biggest parties appear most frequently, but from time to time representatives of parties with many fewer supporters... also take their seats on the stage.
"It is for that reason - not for some misguided desire to be controversial, but for that reason alone - that the invitation has been extended."
As for the expected protests outside TV Centre this evening, a BNP spokesman has announced that the party would use its own security to get Griffin safely inside the building and said there would be no counter-demonstration organised by the BNP.
Griffin told the Times his biggest concern about this evening's taping was "that I might get shot on the way in". ·
Comments are now closed on this article
Comments
It is precisely because he needs to drown in the publicity that the BBC have allowed him on. Do not forget that under the current rules any party with 2 members that have been elected to office as MP or MEPs get funding from the government.
They have achieved this by voter apathy, the same number of people voted BNP but less people turned out to vote for their usual parties thinking why bother, Well that is the reason they got in, If you have a vote for God's sake use it Dont waste it Two wars have been fought to keep those votes for us and I see people not bothering to vote and it sickens the life out of me
50% of the voters who could vote DONT and havent bothered in years . If they voted it could change the way politics is run
They are the silent majority and their silence costs freedom
If you don't like the BNP vote the party out. Your complacency has let them get in and become a valid political party under the current government rules.
But remember Nick Griffin is now an MEP for FIVE years You can vote him out at the end of it but woe betide you if you try and get him out before then because your lack of voting has let him in and you cannot reverse that in a democratic society until the period of his elected status comes to an end
I joined the British National Party because it is the only party prepared to reflect what the majority of British people believe in and want, which is to stop more immigration into our over crowded country, pull out of the finacially ruinous and dictatorially anti-democratic EU and pull our troops out of other peoples countries. Apparently this makes me a nazi, a racist and a fascist. All of these insulting words have been hijacked by the extreme left wing elements who control our establishment and elite and are falsely used as hate words to intimidate people from speaking out against EU and Westminster tyranny. We are on the verge of losing free speech altogether in Great Britain and the fascist left are gloating about this. It is they who are the racists and it is they who are prejudicial bigots.
We all want the little man - and woman's - voice to be heard, Mr Jolley. But why does that voice have to be violent and racist?
It's time the little man (us) had a voice.
LibLabCons have trampled over our human rights for far too long.
Where's our "English Parliament", by the way ?
Go Nick !
And is Griffin the only politician who 'gloats'? I don't recall your using this term for the unelected PM Gordon Brown's frequent gloating speeches both as Chancellor and PM. While Griffin may be cleaning up the BNP's totalitarian thug image, the 'anti-facist' mob attacking the BNP is hardly any better. Griffin is only getting a hearing because people, misguidedly or not, voted for the BNP at the recent EU elections. He sets out to represent the 'indigenous' people of Britain who in recent years have been 'stuffed' by the ruling elite - even to the extent of reneging on the promise of a vote on the EU Constitution. When our democracy is so traduced by those who benefit from it (very expensively as we now know) how can anyone be surprised that some of the voters turn to extremists? Restore democracy and honour in politics and then the BNP will never get a firm foothold.
Try the TV off switch.
Perhaps the argument against allowing him to appear is the BNP membership rules are illegal**. Otherwise it seems reasonable to allow him to present his case and offer rational arguments against. ---------------------------------------------------------
** I can't see why any organisation should not be allowed to set its own membership criteria (e.g. black/white--male/female only, if they wish). We can have laws restricting public behaviour and actions, but restricting membership criteria seems one step from an attempt at thought control).
The only way of opposing fascists is in debate. Hain and his fellow idiots in government want to censor what the people get to hear, and Griffin is absolutely right that by stupidly trying to silence him they have boosted his popularity. They appear unaware that they are so unpopular that anyone they put down is likely to gain support from the 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' attitude. And Straw is intellectually incapable of opposing Griffin, he's too slow witted. The only politician capable of exposing him is George Galloway, who can eat right wingers for lunch and still take on US Congress retards. The real problem, as Manny has pointed out, is that the political class is still wedded to immigration and multiculturalism, which is what is fueling the rise of the BNP, so no members of the political establishment appearing tonight are capable of answering Griffin's points on immigration, which gain him support daily. Hammy, I think the lighting must have been BNP as it appears Griffin is at a BNP even from the sign behind his head. Maybe he likes to play up the devil image just to wind up the woolly liberals? Can't blame First Post for that.
Yes, Mr Griffin may well be a deeply unpleasant man with appalling views, but can you please desist from using those "Whhooooh - Bogey-man !!" uplit photos of him ? It's just a bit puerile. Thanks.
The Office of National Statistics in the UK has just released a report stating that the population of the UK could soon reach more than seventy million!
UK immigration policy is an absolute shambles, and the BNP articulate the concerns of many when they state the further immigration is not a good thing for the UK.
The reaction of the media and the establishment to this position has become on of hysteria, rather than discuss or refute their reaction is to ban!