Nick Griffin and the BNP

On Thursday night, on a programme called question time was an odious man called Nick Griffin MEP, who is the leader of the British National Party. I explain this as I know that my blog has readers from across the planet and while everyone in Britain was aware of this, I don't know if this controversial has been reported around the globe.

It was controversial as the BNP is a racist far right fascist party. However as this party has two elected representatives in the European parliament with nearly a million voters having voted for them, then really the BBC had no real option.

Firstly I think it was brave of the BBC to bite the bullet and have Nick Griffin on as if they had not it would have been beaching its own policy for minority parties. Additionally had the tried to keep him or the BNP off television then they would have been guilty of censorship. Ultimately we can only defeat these racists by hearing what they have to say and challenging them. Also as we live in a free society we can not undermine our own values by oppressing his freedoms.

Many of his lies were challenged and while he tried to refute that he was a racist, his own words trapped him, ensnared him and tripped him up. There was one moment that brought a wry smile to my face as one of the other panellists was Bonny Greer, the American Playwright. At one point Griffin was trying to defend his involvement with David Duke the former leader of the Ku-Klux-Klan. Griffin said that David Duke was the leader of the non Violent KKK! This brought an angry response from Bonny Greer. However in my mind I started to hear the song “Strange Fruit” Also I wanted to ask if Griffin was talking about the KKK members that went around trying to stop lynchings?

It was not a pleasant programme to watch, and while I had been tempted to post on this before the event, I was glad that I waited until after seeing it. If the hostile, but well behaved, audience is a true reflection of the British People then we don't have to much to worry about.

There is an interesting foot note to this as a court recently (within the last week) has ruled that the parties constitution is unlawful as it excludes non white members. So perhaps if all the non whites then join the party they can vote to disband the party.