No ice cream for Nazis on Merseyside

Liverpool turns out against the Nazi BNP (Pic: Tommy Ewing)

Tommy Ewing in Liverpool reports on how local people stood up to the BNP

The British National Party tried demonstrating last night (Thursday) outside Liverpool Arts Centre where this week's BBC Question Time was being recorded. The Nazis were upset that their leader Nick Griffin, who is an MEP for the North West region, had not been invited to participate in the programme. But they were heavily outnumbered by 150 anti-fascists who turned out to oppose them.

There was a real mixture of people on the anti-fascist demonstration—black and white, young and old. There were banners from Unite Against Fascism (UAF), Love Music Hate Racism, the PCS union and many others.

The police tried to keep the anti-fascists in their "designated area". But some of us had approached from a different direction and ended up right next to the Nazis (shudder). We started heckling the BNP, and soon the rest of the anti-fascist demo joined us. At one point anti-fascists even managed to stop the BNP from buying ice cream, chanting "No ice cream for Nazis!" at a nearby van. The BNP looked really depressed. Eventually they folded up their banners and sheepishly scuttled off.

An earlier incident involved BNP heavies trying to set up stall in a skateboard park. But the skateboarders turned on them and told them, "We don't want you Nazis here." The police had to escorted the BNP away.

It was noticeable throughout the demo that we spent most of our time laughing at the Nazis. The humour of local people heckling them was absolutely fantastic. I know the BNP are no joke—but it was uplifting to see them downbeat, demoralised and defeated.

Socialist Worker

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Liverpool BBC Question Time focus of rival BNP and SWP demos

Anti-BNP protestors at Liverpool yesterday

Right wing extremists from the British National Party staged a noisy demo and exchanged insults with counter-demonstrators in protest by the Socialist Worker's Party.

The scenes came outside an arts and leisure centre in Liverpool where an edition of BBC Question Time was recorded. Demonstrators were kept apart by ranks of police and contained in separate areas outside an art and leisure centre in the city.

Tory housing minister Grant Shapps joined the debate with fellow panelists Labour's former Europe minister Caroline Flint MP, Janet Street-Porter, Lib Dem Tim Farron and newspaper columnist Peter Oborne. The debate was held at the Contemporary Urban Centre, in Greenland Street, on the last day of the five-day Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

The BNP, who were mainly from Walkden and County Durham, staged the demo in protest at the decision not to invite its leader and North West MEP Nick Griffin to join the debate. Organiser Adam Walker, 42, from County Durham, used a loud speaker to make his feelings about the BBC known. He said: "A Freedom of Information request revealed to us the BBC is full of child rapists, paedophiles and murderers".

When challenged about who exactly he meant, he said "Leslie Dennis". It is thought Mr Walker meant former EastEnders actor Leslie Grantham who served 10 years in prison for killing a German taxi-driver.

Some BNP protesters were hostile to the press, swearing at journalists until they moved away to the other side of the anti-protesting side of the police barricade. During the slanging match between the two sides, one right-wing extremist told a black protester: "Africa is that way".

Children skating and riding their BMX's on the newly paved New Bird urban skate park looked on. One 14 year-old from Toxteth said: "It's disgusting what they're doing. They're racist."

Merseyside Police also became the target for one protester during the heated exchanges, who refused to give his name. He shouted: "Scum of the streets; racist just like the police," before being moved away from the demo which passed-off without any arrests.

Thomas Jenkins, 55, from Liverpool said: "I think the BNP are a spent force. Nick Griffin is trying to bolster his image in Liverpool but I don't know why. We certainly don't want them on the streets of Liverpool."

Click Liverpool

UK and France: far right’s opposing fortunes

France’s Front National is pushing to become part of the political mainstream, while the UK’s British National Party has returned to the fringes

British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin sought to take advantage of the disorder that broke out in England in August as fast as he could, saying: “We are on the verge of a very hot race war in this country.” On 11 August, when shops were boarded up and cells crowded, he said: “People like me have warned the political elite ... that their great multicultural experiment was doomed to failure” (1).

The first disturbance began on the Saturday after police shot Mark Duggan, 29, in Tottenham, north London. There followed two more days during which there was disorder in various parts of London and other cities. Those who knew the areas and watched the television footage recognised that the rioters were of every ethnicity, as were the police officers, the shopkeepers defending their property and those involved in the clean-up process. Yet Griffin insisted it was a racial problem: the black community was “desperately sick”; Muslims in the UK had a problem with drugs, he said, and groomed young white girls.

The BNP saw in the riots a chance to re-present itself to a sceptical British public at a time when support has dropped sharply and the party is preoccupied with factional infighting and high-level defections.

Two years ago it had seemed to make a political breakthrough: at the 2009 European elections, the party finally achieved a semblance of electoral respectability, returning its first two members to the European parliament and winning close to a million votes. Meanwhile in France, Griffin’s long-standing ally, the Front National (FN) leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, experienced a decline: the FN lost four of its seven MEPs and over half a million votes. Le Pen graciously congratulated his “friends in the BNP” and suggested a potential European nationalist alliance with the party. Griffin and Le Pen had been comrades for decades. They share experiences — physical attacks, accusations of Holocaust denial and convictions for race-hate crimes. Although the media, mainstream politicians and the majority of French and British people found their brand of aggressive nativism vulgar and dangerous, each managed to establish a solid support base and take votes from the traditional parties.
Enter Marine Le Pen

Since Le Pen was replaced by his daughter Marine earlier this year, the FN has increased its poll ratings, with Le Pen Jnr working hard to detoxify the party’s image. Given President Nicolas Sarkozy’s growing unpopularity, she considers herself a serious contender for France’s presidential elections next year.

The changing fortunes of these far-right populists is remarkable. Is it because of differences in leadership style, the presentation of their anti-establishment credentials or shifts in political discourse around immigration and identity?

In Britain, the 2009 European election was Nick Griffin’s greatest success as BNP leader. Griffin was very evident in the broadcast studios during the campaign, appealing to the public to elect “a whistleblower” on the improper activities of the political class. With the slogan “Punish the Pigs”, the party’s election video combined Europhobic outrage and anti-immigrant rhetoric with a sentimental yearning for a time when the UK was a “decent, fair and happy society”. “What’s it coming to,” the voiceover asked, “when you’re made to feel like an unwelcome foreigner in your own country?” (2).

Anticipating a collapse in their traditional support base, the mainstream parties reacted to this audacious populism by stressing the threat from the BNP. Gordon Brown (then prime minister) was facing a leadership crisis and, after a scandal over MPs’ expenses, British public trust in politicians was at an all-time low. Endorsed by celebrities, sports stars and trade unionists, Brown lent his name to an anti-BNP campaign letter calling on the public to “join us in voting for a great Britain” (3). The Church of England directed the public not to vote for a party that encourages “division within communities, especially between people of different faiths or racial background” (4). This did not have the intended effect. Griffin was elected to represent North West England and proclaimed: “The waters of truth and justice and freedom are once again flowing over this country. It’s a great victory: we go on from here” (5).

The victory was short-lived. The BNP failed to win a single seat at last year’s general election and are losing council seats across the country. The media, politicians and grassroots activists have shifted their gaze to the Islamophobic street movement, the English Defence League (EDL). After a recent and bitter leadership challenge that threatened to split the BNP, Griffin was re-elected by less than 10 votes.

In Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Griffin told me he understood the BNP had a way to go if it was to have any meaningful influence in British political life. “The response on the doorstep is generally ‘Well everyone is voting for you’ And then most of them don’t. We’ve got an enormous amount of soft-popular sympathy but it only rarely translates solidly into votes.” Though some polls have indicated that a sanitised nationalist political party — non-violent, non-racist — may attract popular support, this does not seem to aid the BNP directly.
Sarkozy steals FN ground

In France, the situation is quite different. At FN headquarters in suburban Paris, Marine Le Pen told me her party were on their way to becoming more accepted. “Jean-Marie Le Pen and the Front National were demonised for many years. This demonisation led to a wall around them which prevented the French people from joining the FN. Thanks to changes at the head of the organisation these walls are beginning to crumble.”

She explained why her party had spent years as political outsiders. There was a high point in 2002, when the FN rode a wave of popular antipathy against the French establishment to displace the Parti Socialiste in the presidential run-off. But in the 2007 election the FN dropped: “Le Pen, la fin,” proclaimed Libération (7 June 2007). A further poor showing in the 2008 municipal elections suggested that far-right populism in France was on the wane. In 2009 Jean-Marie Le Pen blamed the poor performance in the European elections on a media boycott, which he claimed shielded the public from hearing voices outside the self-interested political class.

However the main reason may have been Sarkozy’s adoption of staple FN policies: the promotion of a French identity; national preference in work, welfare and public service access; hostility towards low-income immigration; special crime laws for foreign-born migrants. Voters sympathetic to the FN saw Sarkozy as a more viable vehicle for their politics. As Le Pen Jnr put it: “The only thing that weakened the Front National was Sarkozy’s strategy of presenting himself as a kind of double of the FN.” Sarkozy saw that “the French people were turning more and more towards the option of the Front National. He managed to harness the force of that river and divert it to his own advantage.” She laughed. “But now the river has returned to its own bed.”

She understands her father’s failure to capture the political mood. “The FN addressed subjects that were completely taboo”: hostility towards all forms of immigration, the negative aspects of globalisation, which she says are only now being widely understood. “Sometimes arriving at a conclusion too early is another way of being wrong.”
Personification of the past

In Britain, soon after becoming an MEP, the BNP leader attracted media attention after he was pelted with eggs by anti-fascist activists shouting “Nick Griffin, Nazi scum”. He believes the “liberal media elite” does not want him to improve his standing. Though building bridges with the media would be “very, very valuable”, this is unlikely to happen.

Griffin found it difficult to communicate the party’s message on television when, in October 2009, he was invited to make his first appearance on the BBC’s political panel show Question Time. His appearance pulled in over eight million viewers — the most watched episode in the programme’s 30-year history — and the event was tailored towards examining Griffin’s party. Front-bench politicians and audience members exchanged insults with the BNP chairman, castigating him for having a “fascist background” and “no moral compass”. People were horrified by his statements: he admitted links with former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, and described gay men kissing as “really creepy”. As he failed to deflect accusations of Holocaust denial, many viewed him as the personification of the party’s past (6).

Unlike Jean-Marie Le Pen, whose first major TV appearance on Antenne 2’s L’heure de Vérité in 1984 increased membership and cemented his place in French political life, Griffin’s poll ratings have declined and the media have stayed away: “Unless I strangle a kitten, I’m not going to get on television.” Griffin alleges that powerful forces in the media are denying his party the exposure it deserves. “This is not a conspiracy theory or anything anti-semitic, we’ve got Jewish councillors and Jewish members. The Zionist lobby has a lot of power in the media.” He added: “There is a very militant gay lobby within the media. They don’t like us. We just want to stop them teaching homosexuality to five-year-olds.”

Despite Griffin’s explanations of why his party is not doing better, it is likely that he has not developed a narrative to engage potential supporters. In recent years the BNP has appeared opportunistic, clinging to any passing issue not fully exploited by the mainstream parties. The party was against the war in Afghanistan; in favour of improved environmental policies but against the great global warming “hoax”; in favour of the nationalisation of telecom services and the creation of local currencies. Griffin may have found a number of political positions that the party could take to entice new sympathisers, but has yet to develop the arguments for people to make the commitment.
Isolationist escape route

Marine Le Pen believes that she has found the language to attract new support to the Front National. The party often depicted as a mixture of white separatists, older rightwing Catholics and Vichy apologists has started to gain followers from more diverse parts of the electorate. First-time voters, middle-income workers and some second- and third-generation immigrants have been welcomed as Le Pen presents her party as a radical alternative to the discredited politics of the past.

Does she care about building bridges with the mainstream and courting the media? “No, because it would be a step that was politically dishonest and completely opportunistic.” Even so she has found fame on television talk shows, and the French press publishes more features about her than any other opposition figure. She has successfully harnessed a negative populist narrative: she is against immigration, the EU and globalisation. She seems less willing than her father to demonise sections of the general public. She saves her ire for elite politicians and financiers, whom she feels are to blame for society’s woes — crime, unemployment and public service shortages.

Le Pen brazenly offers disgruntled voters an escape route from economic stagnation and national decline. She promotes an isolationist programme, arguing that her party can make France economically self-sufficient, through restricting the flow of labour and building up the industrial base. She wraps all this in a language that makes anxious “French” people feel prioritised. “We don’t have the means any more, nor the national community, to subsidise the needs of foreigners who come to France while there are so many unemployed people.”
Immigration, identity and Islam

In France, the UK and most of western Europe, there has been a recent re-evaluation of the benefits of immigration. Leading political figures, social democrat and conservative, have initiated public debates on national identity and spoken out against multiculturalism, calling on the continent’s minorities to adhere to “European values”.

In France, the government-led debate on “what it means to be French” and “what immigration contributes to our national identity” has pressured minorities to adapt to majority culture. On the orders of the president and his former immigration minister, Eric Besson, town hall meetings were held and plans discussed for immigrants to attain a strong command of French and all schools to fly the tricolour. “We must reaffirm the values of national identity and pride in being French,” Besson proclaimed, amid arguments that the ruling party were pandering to the far right (7).

Did the FN spark this whole debate? “Yes of course, entirely,” Le Pen says bluntly. “We are at the centre of political life in France. Everybody has their own position in relation to us.”

She has steered clear of making racially inflammatory remarks, unlike her father. Instead she invokes the republic when discussing the status of minority communities in France. “I think the state must remember that in France, it’s French laws and French principles and values which apply. Anyone who wants to live in contradiction to these laws, these principles, these values does not have a place in France.”

An alarmist narrative is developing around the rights of the country’s Muslim population, Europe’s largest. In March the president announced another national debate, on Islam’s place in French society. He followed this by praising the country’s “Christian heritage” and made clear his distaste for visible signs of Islam in secular France — halal food, outside prayer and minarets (8).

The change in legal status of the Islamic full-face veil (worn by only a few hundred women in France) dominated political discourse for months, supported by most parliamentarians. This added to Muslims’ beliefs that they were being singled out by the political establishment — marginalised by desperate politicians searching for votes.

Le Pen refuses to be drawn into a debate about Islam’s compatibility with French society because she says: “In France we don’t make judgments on religion. I prefer to talk of fundamentalism; that’s to say sharia law.” This focus on “extremists” deflects accusations that the FN (and the ruling party) are seeking to stigmatise France’s Muslims en masse. Yet the wellbeing of the country’s Muslim communities has been absent from high-level discussion, even though these communities have high rates of deprivation, suffer increased discrimination in work, the criminal justice system and public services, and witnessed a rise in physical attacks. Le Pen does not attempt to explain these issues, as if she is afraid of disappointing her support base.
British jobs for British workers

Britain has been reconsidering the success of its ethnically diverse society. Ten years after the former foreign secretary Robin Cook made his “chicken tikka masala” speech, in which he declared that his country could “celebrate the enormous contribution of the many communities in Britain to strengthening our economy, to supporting our public services, and to enriching our culture and cuisine” (9), front-bench politicians have refined their positions on the benefits of immigration.

This move has been influenced by the populist press binding any discussion of immigration to security issues and economic crises, despite their many and frequent anti-foreigner stories. Comments on immigrant crime levels and minority communities’ dependency on welfare payments have become intellectualised through a conservative backlash against political correctness.

Nick Griffin takes responsibility for this change in political debate. He claims that both the Conservative and Labour parties are speaking in a language which was considered extremist in the past, and made him a pariah for three decades. The slogan “British Jobs for British Workers”, first uttered by Gordon Brown, was emblazoned on BNP literature and the party warned of a tsunami of foreign-born migrants flooding the country to seek work. During the general election campaign, Griffin suggested that immigration had led to parts of his constituency looking like “something out of Africa” (10) and claimed that African immigrants were paid up to £50,000 by the government to move nearby and ensure “safe Labour majorities in the future” (11).

Griffin came a poor third and his personal percentage of the vote fell. The party failed even to get two-thirds of their supporters from the previous year’s EU election, and on a higher turnout. “There were crocodiles of African voters being led to each polling station with a Labour party activist or local election candidate standing inside the polling station, telling them how to vote,” he told me.

Griffin is preoccupied with race. While far-right parties across Europe had already begun to attract support from growing numbers of second and third generation non-European migrants, the BNP only allowed non-white people to become party members last year. This was precipitated by the UK’s Equality and Human Rights Commission taking the party to court for breaching non-discrimination law.

Why did they not change the policy earlier? Griffin offered a disturbing explanation. “If you were talking to a group of female victims of rape and gang sexual assault, and you said: ‘Why won’t you let men in? Do you hate men?’ The same is true of the party. It’s a refuge centre for people battered by the multi-racial experiment.”
Rise of Europe’s far right

Anti-immigrant and far-right populist parties have increased their influence across Europe: the Dutch and Austrian Freedom parties, the Danish and Swiss People’s parties, Italy’s Northern League, the Norwegian Progress Party and True Finns. All are in positions of influence, either as part of a governing coalition or as the most vocal opposition party in their national parliaments.

A number of them have distanced themselves from the FN, still tainted by the name “Le Pen”. Domestically and abroad, many understand that although the commander has changed, the lower ranks still retain the ethnic nationalists and unashamed xenophobes. Now Marine Le Pen wants to strengthen the party and build alliances with natural partners across the continent. She is confident that she will not make the same mistakes that ensured her father was quarantined for his entire career.

Nick Griffin insists that the British National Party is “part of the same thing” — a new nationalism sweeping the continent. In reality, his organisation is not achieving anywhere near the same level of political leverage and the mainstream seems content to ignore it; most people find his paranoid style of politics and crude language impossible to connect with.

The future of the cross-Channel relationship is also in doubt. Marine Le Pen told me that she finds some of the BNP’s policies “repugnant” and prioritises her relationship with the “younger” United Kingdom Independence Party (the single-issue anti-EU party). Griffin believes the relationship between FN and his party “is pretty much as it’s always been. We admire what they do, they admire what we do.” When I tell him of Le Pen’s comments, he says: “Good luck to her. If it’s useful, convenient or sincere for her to say that she doesn’t like things that we do, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.”

The author of this article, K. Biswas, is a writer based in London; he is currently working on a book on the emergence of far-right populism across Europe and the US

(1) “Nick Griffin addresses the nation”, British National Party Online Television Channel, 11 August 2011.

(2) BNP European election broadcast, 4 June 2009.

(3) Letter to The Guardian, 2 June 2009.

(4) 2009 Archbishops’ Statement on the European Elections, Church of England website, 24 May 2009.

(5) Nick Griffin, speech at Manchester town hall, 8 June 2009.

(6) Question Time, BBC, 22 October 2009.

(7) Eric Besson, Le Monde, Paris, 25 October 2009.

(8) The Guardian, London, 3 March 2011.

(9) Speech at the Social Market Foundation, London, 19 April 2001.

(10) Barking and Dagenham election appeal, British National Party Online Television Channel, November 2009.

(11) BNP election leaflet, 2010.

Le Monde Diplomatique

Enter, stage right: Nick Griffin, the really creepy opera

Greer says sitting next to Nick Griffin (left) 'was
probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life'

Bonnie Greer inspired to write show after sitting next to the party leader on 'Question Time'

One was a pneumatic Playboy model; the other is the leader of the BNP. Now Nick Griffin is set to follow in Anna Nicole Smith's footsteps when he becomes the inspiration for an opera at Covent Garden.

Following the success of Anna Nicole Smith: The Opera earlier this year, the Royal Opera House is to stage the new commission in November. It has been written by the critic and playwright Bonnie Greer. The idea came about after Greer sat next to Griffin on Question Time in October 2009. She described the experience as "probably the weirdest and most creepy experience of my life".

The BNP leader spent much of the show defending his views against a barrage of criticism, leaving the Chicago-born playwright with a quiet moment in which to draw inspiration. It was then that the idea for Yes, an opera about the experience, entered her mind. Soon after, the ROH commissioned her to write the libretto, with music by Errollyn Wallen.

It is the first time that two black women have collaborated on a new work at Covent Garden. Yes lasts only one hour and will be performed at the ROH's Linbury Studios. The show centres on the two-week period running up to that episode of Question Time, the BBC panel show hosted by David Dimbleby.

Greer says she had "no idea" what she was signing up to when she agreed to appear next to Griffin, who had recently been elected to the European Parliament. The decision by the BBC to invite him on to the show provoked a fierce response, with protests staged outside Television Centre. The episode was watched by almost eight million people, the largest audience in its 32-year history.

Greer's stock rose after she managed to remain calm as she debated race issues while sitting next to a rather excitable Griffin, who did his best to play down his views on race and repatriation. In writing the opera, Greer said she has tried to articulate what the experience taught her. The show will have a new relevance following last month's massacre in Norway, which was racially motivated.

"I think the English Defence League is symptomatic of a crisis of identity of place, loss of power and influence and fear," says Greer. "Unless societies tackle this, it is going to be more dangerous. The people who want to talk about it are not in power."

Musical numbers in the opera include an Asian teacher in a hijab singing about the history of the UK from 1066, and the song of a white working-class man weary of hearing about diversity.

"This government has decided that multicultural is evil," says Greer. "This is where art and culture comes in. It can go where people are too afraid to go – it can pose questions without answers. That's what this opera does – it allows you to see states of being. People now want to hear what people are feeling and the depths of that visceral feeling. That is what I attempt to capture."

The BNP said last night that it had contacted Greer offering help with the opera: "But we haven't heard back from her. We are looking forward to it."

IoS

Griffin plans more wasted money

Undeterred by the huge sums of money the British National Party already owes in legal costs, Nick Griffin is considering applying for a judicial review of the BBC’s decision not to invite his party to take part in Question Time again.

Writing on his blog today, Simon Darby, the BNP’s press spokesman, complained that the party was “effectively banned” from appearing on the flagship political discussion programme. “Upon that matter we are now looking at a the concept of a judicial review as the BBC refuse to budge,” added Darby.

Judicial review is an expensive legal process by which an individual can apply to the Administrative Court, part of the High Court, for a review of a decision by a public authority such as a local council. A claim can only be brought if the High Court grants leave.

A barrister told Searchlight that the cost of bringing judicial review proceedings, which would need specialist legal representatives, was likely to amount to at least £50,000.

Why Griffin should want to appear on Question Time again after his dismal performance last time is unclear. Many people count his appearance on the programme in October 2009, when he defended the Ku Klux Klan and refused clearly to reject Holocaust denial, as one of the elements that prompted the criticism of his leadership that has grown steadily since then.

Searchlight / HOPE not hate by Sonia Gable

NUJ rejects application from BNP member

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has this week rejected a membership application because it came from a member of the British National Party.

The application had been refused because of the individual's work as a BNP organiser, the union confirmed to Journalism.co.uk. The individual's links with the party were clearly stated as part of the application.

"His actions aren't compatible with membership of the NUJ," a spokesman said, adding that other unions would adhere to similar rules. A BNP member entering the union would contradict with the NUJ's Code of Conduct, which all journalists joining the union must sign, the spokesman suggested. Section 10 of the code says : "A journalist (…) produces no material likely to lead to hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status, or sexual orientation."

At an event promoting the cross-media EXPOSE the BNP campaign, deputy general secretary of the union Michelle Stanistreet called on the British Media to exact more scrutiny of the BNP and its policies.

"Journalism comes with a responsibility. We have to face the reality of what happens when we don't do our job properly. We are encouraging our members to scrutinise people from across the political parties. But at the minute the BNP just isn't being scrutinised properly," she said.

"We need people to know the difference between what these people are saying on TV and what they actually stand for. This needs to be exposed through the media."

The NUJ criticised BBC's decision to put Nick Griffin on Question Time in October: "The union argues that the format of the show does not allow the BNP’s dishonest propaganda to be properly challenged." In February the union launched a guide to journalists reporting the BNP ahead of the general election.

A BNP spokesperson said the decision by the union was "hardly surprising". "The NUJ bosses wouldn't want anyone blowing the whistle on the extent of their doctoring of news reports concerning the British National Party," the spokesperson said.

journalism.co.uk

BNP to appear on Radio 4's 'Today'

The British National Party will reportedly be given an interview slot on BBC Radio 4's long-running Today programme following the corporation's televised election debate.

BBC director general Mark Thompson is keen for the corporation to maintain a true sense of political balance during the forthcoming general election campaign. In-line with the agreed format with ITV and Sky, the BBC will run a 90-minute debate programme on April 29 featuring the three main prime ministerial candidates.

To negate any suggestions of bias, the BBC's chief political advisor Ric Bailey believes that the BNP should be permitted to appear on the Today programme after the debate is aired.

"I think there will probably be an interview with the BNP on the Today programme the following morning," he told The Independent.

The right-wing party is also expected to receive a 20-second segment on BBC One's Ten O'clock News for an immediate response to the leader's discussion, which is being held in the Midlands with contributions from Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. However, Bailey said that the BNP would receive less airtime on the BBC than it did after winning seats at the European elections last year, which included a controversial appearance by party leader Nick Griffin on Question Time.

Griffin also appeared on the Today programme, which regularly attracts over six million listeners, after being elected to the European parliament.

"Question Time was being done in the context of the follow up to the European elections when the BNP had got 6% of the vote and for the first time had got representation at a national level," said Bailey. "If you look at the BNP in the context of a general election, the BNP got less than 1% of the vote at the 2005 election. If you can look at how much coverage different parties should get, clearly we don't ignore the European result but it was a different system, a different turnout, and it only gets so much weight."

However, Griffin's appearance on Question Time attracted major protests and it's likely that a further appearance on Radio 4 could prove likewise.

Bailey also pledged that the UK Independence Party (UKIP) will be given "meaty" coverage on the BBC ahead of the election due to its strong level of support.

"UKIP clearly is a party which got a lot of support in the European election, much more than the BNP. It's also clearly established itself as the fourth party in the general election last time, ahead of the Greens, and the Greens are ahead of the BNP," he said. "The BNP is quite a small party, so the level of coverage it will get in the context of the prime ministerial debate will be quite short. It will get some coverage but it won't be enormous. I would expect to see on the Ten O'clock News immediately following the debate you will see an interview with UKIP, they will get something quite meaty."

Digital Spy

British National Party goes upmarket to target white middle class

Legal defeat prompts far-right party to 'refocus its propaganda on a new front'

The British National Party is attempting to cloak its image as a party of violent, racist thugs by appealing to middle-class voters at the general election.

Nick Griffin, the BNP's leader, has signalled a radical change in strategy for the forthcoming campaign after his widely derided performance last October on BBC1's Question Time, which draws a large middle-class audience. It will attempt to capitalise on disillusionment with both Labour and the Conservatives over the expenses and lobbying scandals.

The BNP's legal officer, Lee Barnes, in an article sent to activists, claims the BNP has "won over" the white working class and that it is now time to use "propaganda" to reach out to a wider circle of voters. Yet the strategy remains targeted at white voters, with Mr Barnes telling activists they must appeal to the "white liberal middle class" and the "white Tory middle class".

The move is a sign that the court defeat inflicted by the Equality and Human Rights Commission over the BNP's ban on non-white members has forced the party to modify its election campaign strategy away from race to broader issues of class. Yet critics described the plan as a cosmetic move to cover up its racist beliefs and showed that the BNP had gone as far as it could in picking up working-class votes.

Last week Robert Grierson, a barrister, was selected to stand as a candidate for the BNP in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, where the Conservatives have a majority of more than 12,000. After his selection Mr Grierson was forced to resign from St Philips Chambers in Birmingham where he has worked as a tax barrister for 10 years. "I felt I had to stand up and take the flak I will no doubt get. This shows that the BNP is not a party of skinheads and knuckle-draggers," he said. But Sutton Coldfield's MP, the Tory frontbencher Andrew Mitchell, described his BNP opponent as "an extremist in a suit".

The BNP's top target seats remain the working-class constituencies of Stoke Central and Barking, and the strategy is unlikely to have a significant effect. Last year, however, a BNP candidate won a shock victory in a council seat in Sevenoaks, Kent, the heart of Middle England.

In his article, Mr Barnes dismissed the "smug, selfish, apathetic, politically correct parents" of middle-class voters, but said it was time to appeal to the next generation who are under 45. He claimed this group were suffering "racial discrimination" when applying for university places. He wrote: "As a result of the Equality Commission case we must now refocus our propaganda on a new front – that of the Nationalist Classless Society and the creation of a meritocracy as opposed to the racist multi-cultural system. Even though we have failed to market ourselves properly to the White Working Class we have won them over.

"But we must now also reach out [to] the children of the White Liberal Middle Class and White Tory Middle Class and explain to them how mass immigration, New Labour and Cameron's Tories and multiculturalism have betrayed them."

The BNP is fielding 300 candidates at the general election, expected on 6 May, and more than 1,000 in the local elections on the same day.

A spokesman for Searchlight, the anti-fascist organisation, said: "This is an indication of Nick Griffin's desperation as he is unable to break through to the extent he had hoped following the European elections and he is casting around for a new strategy. This will inevitably increase divisions within the BNP which have already been created by his disastrous Question Time performance and his defeat at the hands of the Equality and Human Rights Commission."

IoS

Official: it's fine for racists to teach

By refusing to bar BNP members from the classroom, the government is allowing these vile people to spread their hatred

The BNP's march into the mainstream moves forward. Fresh from their top-table seat on the BBC's Question Time (which marked International Women's Day with an all-female audience; it marked last year's Black History Month with an invite to Nick Griffin), party members have now been told that it's OK for them to teach our children.

In a review which will shock many members of the teaching profession, not to mention ethnic-minority parents, Maurice Smith, former chief inspector of schools, concludes: "I do not believe that barring teachers or other members of the wider school workforce from membership of legitimate [sic] organisations which may promote racism is necessary."

He reaches his decision because, in the last seven years, only four teachers, and two governors, have been found to be BNP members, and only nine incidents of teachers making racist remarks or holding racist materials have been uncovered. Banning BNP members would, he says, therefore be a "taking a very large sledgehammer to crack a minuscule nut".

Two things here are breathtaking: one is that a man who held such a senior position in the running of Britain's schools has such a one-dimensional and uninformed view of the issue of racism in our education system. Is he not aware of the underachievement statistics for many of Britain's racial minorities, widely believed to be party fuelled by low teacher expectations? Is he not aware of the massive rates of exclusions and disciplinary procedures against black boys?

Does he really believe that racism is all about making offensive remarks, rather than promoting, openly or covertly, a system of inequality and injustice? If that's the case, then, with people like him in charge, no wonder so little has been achieved in improving these statistics over the years.

He lists a number of bureaucratic "safeguards" to prevent racism in schools, but this is utterly unconvincing. Schools equal-opportunity policies are notoriously ineffective in making real differences, merely satisfying the box-ticking mentality which pervades the education system. And the "duty to promote social cohesion" is equality easy to subvert, the term often being used as a cover for anti-Muslim propaganda.

The second shocking development here is that his recommendations were immediately accepted in full by the schools secretary, Ed Balls. Actually, given that all three parties are crawling over each other to win the votes of the "white working class" – whom they now subconsciously equate with racism and bigotry – it shouldn't be a surprise.

Let's be clear: the BNP is a racist party. It is anti-migrant and defines those of non-white racial origin as permanent second-class citizens, regardless of whether they were born here. It has been forced against its will to admit ethnic-minority members, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly become a party of race equality. In fact, the handful of minority members the party may attract will be fellow Muslim-hating extremists.

So when Ed Balls, in his reply to Smith, begins, "There is no place for racism in schools", he shows himself to be a complete hypocrite by then going on to agree with BNP teachers.

If he's OK with the party in the classroom, then he should be honest at least and say: "Yes, there is a place for racism in schools." And, to black and Asian families in particular: "Yes, parents, when you leave your five-year-old at the school gates, we don't care if you're handing them over to someone who despises your race, despises your faith, and who wants to terrorise you and run you out of the country. As long as they don't say it so anyone can hear."

The complacency, as the BNP gains council seats and could possibly even gain its first MP this year, is staggering.

It is often said that for evil to flourish, all it takes is for good people to do nothing. As the BNP's message of hate moves onwards, it is time for good people to take a stand.

UTV

AM urges all parties not to share meetings with BNP

Counsel General John Griffiths has urged all parties in Wales to refuse to take part in election hustings at which BNP representatives will be on the platform

The Newport East Labour AM is a fierce critic of the BBC decision last year to have BNP leader Nick Griffin on the Question Time panel. He believes the party must not be presented as part of the political mainstream. He challenged rival parties and organisations hosting hustings to deny the BNP publicity.

Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said they would debate with the BNP with the aim of exposing it as a party of “thugs and fascists”. Mr Griffiths said: “I certainly call on them not to share a platform with the BNP because I think it does give the wrong message of the acceptability of the organisation.”

The BNP said in a written statement: “[This] just shows how frightened Labour is of voters hearing what the British National Party has to say.”

But Mr Griffiths insisted that the BNP should not be seen as a “bona fide political party”. He said: “They have had some success presenting themselves as a mainstream party, which they are not. They are getting more publicity through appearances like Question Time. I think it’s all very worrying, especially perhaps when we live in an age which is anti-politics and the mainstream parties are viewed with considerable suspicion because of issues like MPs’ expenses and sleaze and so on.”

The Conservatives are prepared to take part in hustings if all the other parties are represented. Tory Assembly leader Nick Bourne said: “We think their agenda is vicious and needs to be exposed. It isn’t what people in Britain have stood for – I’m absolutely clear on that. I think they are nasty, vicious thugs.”

Mr Bourne said views between mainstream politicians differed on how to tackle the BNP but the parties agreed “they need tackling”. He said: “I think there is a great danger in pretending they are not there. That’s probably what happened in Hitler’s Germany – people pretended they would go way and they didn’t.”

Mr Griffiths was not impressed by recent changes to the BNP constitution to admit people from ethnic minorities. He said: “I think it’s part of their attempts to mislead people, to change their image and make them think they are something they are not.”

Plaid Cymru does not want their candidates to take part in hustings with the BNP but will not stop them from doing so. A spokeswoman said: “Plaid Cymru believes that, wherever possible, the party's elected members and candidates should do all in their power to reach agreement with other mainstream parties not to share a platform with the BNP. Where this is not possible, and the choice is between sharing a platform and leaving an empty chair, elected members and candidates are free to challenge and defeat the racist lies peddled by the BNP by choosing to appear on a platform with their representatives. However, no candidate or elected member would be compelled to share a platform with the BNP.”

The Liberal Democrats were ready to engage the BNP in open debate. A spokesman said: “If the BNP is invited to an event, the Welsh Liberal Democrats should be there to take them on. The BNP has no interest in the important matters that people really care about – jobs, the NHS, good quality schools and reducing the tax burden for hard-working people. We should be there to show people that the BNP are a party of thugs and fascists with no answers to the important issues facing Wales today.”

Mr Griffiths said there were ways to attack the BNP other than taking part in the same hustings.

Wales Online

BNP row reignites over reply to party leaders' TV debates

The major broadcasters face anger after deciding to invite Nick Griffin, the British National Party leader, to reply to the televised Prime Ministerial debates during the general election campaign

The BBC, ITV and Sky this week reached agreement on the format of the three encounters between Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg. They have also agreed to give three other parties with substantial electoral support – the Green Party, the UK Independence Party and the BNP – the opportunity to respond.

The decision threatens a rerun of the protests faced by BBC after Mr Griffin appeared on BBC1’s Question Time last October.

Tonight the corporation confirmed it would give him a fresh platform immediately after the end of the BBC-hosted debate between the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem leaders. He will be invited, along with Caroline Lucas of the Greens and Nigel Farage of UKIP, to give interviews on BBC1’s News at Ten and BBC2’s Newsnight, as well as on Radio 4’s Today programme the following morning. ITV said it would also give a platform to the BNP leader, and Sky looks certain to follow suit.

A spokesman for BBC News said the decision was aimed at ensuring that “due impartiality is achieved in line with its election guidelines”. The BBC argues it is legally required to give airtime to the far-Right party because of the electoral support it attracted during the European elections, when it won two seats in the European Parliament.

ITV said: “We will be ensuring that we include an appropriately wide range of views throughout our election coverage.”

But a spokesman for Searchlight, the anti-fascist organisation, said: “The BNP are being allowed to hijack the election debates.”

The BNP will also be entitled to at least one party political broadcast on each channel because of the large number of candidates it is fielding. Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time attracted 7.9 million viewers, almost three times its usual audience. Police mounted a major security operation outside Television Centre while Mr Griffin was inside, but failed to prevent demonstrators briefly getting into the building.

Both UKIP and the Green Party said yesterday they were unhappy at not being invited to participate in the main debates between the leaders. Mr Farage said: “We think the way it has been set up is unfair. We came second across the UK in the European elections last year.”

A spokesman for the Green Party said: “We would have thought the broadcasters would recognise the Green Party has a strong claim to being part of the main debate.”

The BBC is to hold separate party leader election debates in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it has also confirmed. But in a joint statement the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cmyru yesterday denounced the “unfair treatment of Welsh and Scottish licence fee payers who are being denied the opportunity by the public broadcaster to hear from their respective national parties in these set-piece leaders’ debates.”

Independent

BNP's Nick Griffin Back On The Beeb

Griffin on Question Time last year

British National Party leader Nick Griffin is set to return to the BBC following his controversial appearance on Question Time last year. The politician will appear as part of the broadcaster's coverage of the general election this spring.

The corporation yesterday announced plans to follow the TV debate between major party leaders Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg with a 'minor parties debate'.

In a statement published on the BBC website, chief political advisor Ric Bailey said: "There will be arrangements in the programming around the BBC debate, a week before polling day, to ensure other parties which have demonstrated they have some electoral support - UKIP, the Green Party and the BNP - will have their say."

Though ITV and Sky will also air live debates, it has not yet been announced whether they will also make room in their schedules for a similar arrangement. Griffin's deputy Simon Darby also revealed the BBC's plan to feature the far right group in an edition of Panorama in the next few months.

But, while some see the move as a triumph, others are angry. A spokesman for anti-facist group Searchlight condemned the plan, saying: "These are supposed to be serious debates allowing people to make an informed choice. Nick Griffin has no place there."

Sky TV

The odd couple - The BNP and Hizb ut-Tahrir

The white far-right and the Islamist fringe fight for their survival

Born of a National Front splinter-group in 1982, the far-right British National Party has never had an easy relationship with anti-racism laws. Nick Griffin, the BNP’s Cambridge-educated leader, was temporarily banned from standing in local elections after a 1998 conviction for inciting racial hatred. (The offence doesn’t stop him from holding a seat in the European Parliament, however.) On February 14th the party suffered its latest legal indignity, when it reluctantly agreed to drop its longstanding whites-only membership policy, following a court order. If its new constitution is approved by the judges, blacks and Asians will at last be able to join a party that campaigns for their “voluntary repatriation”. A stampede is not expected.

In another shadowy corner of Britain’s political landscape, a different extremist group is preparing for battle with the law. Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international Islamist outfit that wants to establish a caliphate in what it calls the Muslim world, is facing calls from the opposition Conservatives for its proscription. The party, which is banned in much of the Middle East and restricted in Germany, was targeted in 2005 by the Labour government but managed to save its skin. The Tories are determined that it will not escape again.

The two parties are more alike than they might think. The surly young men who lurk at the back of their meetings are more or less identical but for the hairstyles. Both parties officially denounce violence and are occasionally let down on this front by their members. And both have won a higher profile of late, which now threatens to come back to hurt them.

The BNP’s electoral gains in the European Parliament and London Assembly last year won its leader a place on the BBC’s main current-affairs debate programme, “Question Time”. But they also caught the eye of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the official watchdog that brought the case against the BNP, which Mr Griffin says has cost the party over £100,000 ($157,200). Now the government is supposedly mulling a ban on BNP members working in schools. (They are already barred from the police and the prison service.)

The party also faces discontent in its ranks. Mr Griffin has already upset the hard core by dragging the party fractionally closer to the centre ground. Following the BNP’s retreat over its whites-only policy, he e-mailed members to reassure them that the party was not “going soft”, citing the roughing-up of a Times journalist by BNP security staff as evidence of the party’s commitment to its old values.

Hizb ut-Tahrir faces a similar balancing act between its party faithful and the real world. Britain’s laws against glorifying terrorism force it to watch its language: suicide bombers may no longer be described as “martyrs”, for instance, to the dismay of some hotter-headed members. And not everyone has approved of the party’s strategy of engagement, which once saw it providing advice to the government and inviting the media to public debates.

Those tactics now seem to be changing. Since the noisy departure of some of its more moderate members and the ramping up of the Tory campaign against it, Hizb ut-Tahrir has gone on the offensive. Maajid Nawaz, a former senior member who cut his ties with the party in 2007 and is now co-director of the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think-tank, says hardliners within the party have been able to argue that the softer approach didn’t work. The rhetoric has certainly heated up: Hizb ut-Tahrir’s rare press conferences are now cross little affairs in which its enemies are robotically condemned as “neocons”.

The party may yet survive the Conservatives’ plans, just as the BNP seems to have got the courts off its back for the time being. But both parties have learned that a higher profile has its drawbacks.

Economist

French journalists' union calls for Le Pen debate to be scrapped

Union leaders demand cancellation of television debate featuring Marine Le Pen saying it would worsen social tension

French journalists' union leaders have demanded the cancellation of a live television debate featuring Marine Le Pen, the vice-president of the Front National, claiming it would be "a disgrace" for a public broadcaster to provide a platform for the far-right.

In echoes of the controversy over the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin on the BBC's Question Time in the autumn, the journalists' branch of the CGT union has said the proposed discussion – scheduled for tonight – should be taken off air. It says the clash, which will pit Le Pen against the immigration minister, Eric Besson, on the theme of "national identity", risked exacerbating existing social tensions which had already been aggravated by Nicolas Sarkozy's "big debate" on the same thorny subject.

"[This debate] between the representative of the extreme right and the figure who makes its ideas commonplace can only end badly," said union leader Jean-François Téaldi. A statement from the CGT said Sarkozy's national debate had "nationalistic, islamophobic and demagogic undertones".

However, France Télévisions, the public broadcaster, insisted the event would go ahead as planned. "It is the public service's function to organise debates. We are the only ones who do it," said Nathalie Saint-Cricq, editor-in-chief of the France 2 programme A vous de juger. Another executive insisted the programme would "not be a red carpet rolled out at the feet of Marine Le Pen".

But their assurances cut little ice with journalists. Téaldi said the appearance of the daughter and heir apparent of FN leader Jean-Marie Le Pen was irresponsible so close to regional elections in March.

"The national identity debate is getting out of control on the internet and in towns and is serving merely to boost votes for the Front National," he said. "A vous de juger will, with this debate, be airing arguments which will aggravate the social divide."

A poll commissioned by Le Monde and France 2 today indicated that, while over three-quarters of those surveyed said they "completely disagreed" with the ideas of the FN, the number of people saying they believed the far-right party to be a "danger" had decreased since 2006. Critics of Sarkozy's national identity debate say he has moved the debate on immigration to the right and made the ideas of Le Pen and his daughter more mainstream than they were before.

Guardian

Dishonest BNP spins article by George Carey and deliberately misquotes him

The BNP likes to present itself as a party that tells the truth, unlike mainstream political parties that rely on lies, misrepresentation and spin, but have yet again demonstrated that this is far from the case.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, recently wrote an article for the Times on immigration and the rise of the BNP. Carey was immediately denounced by the BNP Legal Director as an ‘idiot’ working for ‘Zionists’, but the BNP’s official statement on the article has wisely avoided following Barnes’s line (as it usually does). The BNP website’s take on Carey’s article (‘Lord Carey predicts BNP victory in Dagenham’) puts a typically dishonest spin on what he actually said. From the BNP’s commentary, you’d think Carey was on the verge of joining the party and it appears that he has endorsed them.

BNP website:

Writing in The Times this morning Lord Carey warns:

“The fact is that a rise in the UK population by ten million in two decades will put our nation’s resources under considerable strain, stretching almost to breaking point the enormous reserves of tolerance and generosity of the British people. Failure to take that action could be seriously damaging to the future harmony of our society.”

He also acknowledges that the million people who voted for the British National Party at the European Elections had genuine concerns about both overpopulation and the ability of this nation to integrate new communities whose values are sometimes very different, even antithetical, to our own.

What Carey said:

The fact is that a rise in the UK population by ten million in two decades will put our nation’s resources under considerable strain, stretching almost to breaking point the enormous reserves of tolerance and generosity of the British people.

The declaration by no means spells out a halt to immigration. In fact we welcome the contribution of both economic migrants and asylum seekers to our lively cosmopolitan culture. But we urge a return to the levels of the early 1990s, about 40,000, compared with 163,000 in 2008. Failure to take that action could be seriously damaging to the future harmony of our society.

Last year nearly a million votes were cast for the British National Party. We cannot ignore the fact that such far-right groups exploit genuine concerns about both overpopulation and the ability of this nation to integrate new communities whose values are sometimes very different, even antithetical, to our own.

BNP website:

He then went even further, and predicted that the British National Party could win the parliamentary seat of Dagenham at the General Election.

He told the readers of Britain’s premier newspaper:

“In Dagenham, where I was brought up, the white working-class electorate, alienated by far-reaching social change and largely ignored by the mainstream parties, could vote for a BNP Member of Parliament.”

He said that people were supporting the BNP because it was the only political party echoing the sense of unfairness that many people felt about immigrants, economic migrants and bogus asylum seekers coming to Britain and availing themselves of our social services and our jobs.

What Carey said:

In Dagenham, where I was brought up, there is a very real danger that a white working-class electorate, alienated by far-reaching social change and largely ignored by the mainstream parties, could vote for a BNP Member of Parliament. This would be a tragedy in our long history of parliamentary democracy. Yet we play into the hands of the far Right if we do not seriously address the concerns that have led to some otherwise decent people supporting modern-day fascism.

For some reason, the BNP’s statement fails to offer a link to Carey’s article. I wonder why that is?

Lest there be any doubt about Carey’s view of the BNP, here’s what he told the News of the World in October 2009:

To hear the phrase “Christian Britain” coming from the mouth of Nick Griffin made me shudder. It was the most chilling moment of Question Time, perhaps better described as the Nick Griffin Show.

And what a pity that none of the other panelists challenged Griffin’s deceitful attempt to align his despicable policies with Christianity. This squalid racist must not be allowed to hijack one of the world’s great religions.

All of us who believe in tolerance and decency must stand shoulder-to-shoulder in rejection of Griffin’s notion that “Christianity” has any place in his bigotry. I tend to agree that the BBC was mistaken to give the BNP such prominence. To use Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, it was the “oxygen of publicity” that propelled the insignificant and undeserving party into the Big Time. The BBC’s Director General errs in arguing that in a democracy all views should be heard. The views of the BNP are not simply false, they are dangerous, indeed irredeemably evil.

Nevertheless, ‘Any Questions’ DID expose Nick Griffin’s views to public scrutiny. What we saw on our screens was a 21st Century pipsqueak heir to Hitler and Mosley. If the public believed beforehand that support for the BNP was a protest vote against remote or out of touch politicians, they were proved wrong. The BNP leader was unveiled as a sly, shifty figure who would hide unpalatable truths, and cynically spin regardless of the truth, for the sake of votes and funds.

Quite so.

Edmund Standing

2009 in review - Nick Griffin appears on Question Time

Police hold people back outside Television Centre
protesting BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time

Baroness Warsi recalls the most controversial TV show of the year

Normally before a television appearance you're all in the same green room and you mingle in the make-up rooms, too, but this time we all had our own rooms and our make-up was done separately. It wouldn't have been fair just to isolate him.

The only time I felt nervous was when I saw the piles of paper Jack [Straw] and Chris [Huhne] had. I felt like a student who hasn't done enough revision for an exam.

David Cameron felt that everything Nick Griffin finds repulsive about today's Britain is embodied in me. I'm a Yorkshire-born, Muslim daughter of hard-working, working-class parents. It was quite a brave decision. It was a high-profile, high-risk programme, politically. Once we got started, I enjoyed it. I find Nick Griffin an unpleasant and manipulative man, and intellectually shallow. He's part of the "anti" brigade. Always anti-someone: first Jews, then Blacks and now Muslims. But I think the BBC should have him on. As long as you're not beyond the pale – violent and beyond rational debate – you should be engaged, and exposed.

I was hoping the programme would follow the usual format, with questions on the economy, the Royal Mail, etc. Instead there was an obsessive concentration on race and what Nick Griffin had said in the past. I would have been intrigued with the BNP's policy on getting Britain out of the economic recession.

Nick Griffin was both extremely nervous and trying extremely hard to please. This was his big chance to seem a nice, reasonable guy. It looked very forced. David Dimbleby pulled him up, asking, "What are you smiling about?" At times it was like a comedy – especially when he talked about "non-violent versions of the Ku Klux Klan".

Later, Jack was waffling on that immigration was not an issue in Britain today. It was a difficult moment because I had to acknowledge that there was an element of legitimacy to what Nick Griffin was saying. I said, "I don't agree with the guy on the end, but you, Jack, aren't being honest on this."

Afterwards, my phone was jammed with texts and I had hundreds of emails. I read each and every one. There were some nasty ones saying, "Go back home," but 95% of them were positive. I also got a lot of emails from British Muslims, saying they were proud to see someone comfortably British and Muslim and able to articulate a sensible view – rather than the hotheads the BBC usually have on.

I don't think the BNP have had a poll boost. The poll questions are couched so wide that almost everyone would fall into them. Academics from the University of Manchester told me if there was a rise it was from about two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half per cent. I've also been told that on fascist and racist websites Griffin has been pilloried: things like: "He was trying so hard to hug the black woman and be nice to the Asian woman." So he's upset his core vote.

I'd happily share a platform with Nick Griffin again, but I'd much rather do it in a format where you can really debate the issues. I wanted to get behind and below the BNP beliefs; Question Time is more about point scoring.

Observer

Grim polling news for the BNP...how sad, how very sad

This article was submitted by one of our readers, Iliacus. We welcome any contributions from our supporters (as long as those contributions conform to the law and are in reasonably good taste). Please send your articles to us via email.

A major opinion poll by Ipsos MORI was published at the weekend. Polls, of course, need to be treated with caution, and it's never wise to read too much into a single set of figures, but MORI is a reputable pollster and there is some interesting information to be found - especially in the detailed figures. And the news is pretty grim for the BNP!

The base polling figures for the minor parties run UKIP 4%, Greens 3% and BNP 2%. Of course, when you get down to figures like this there is a significant margin of error. The number of people responding is low, and the risk of sampling error is high, but the basic message is simple. None of these parties have any sort of widespread, national support in the context of a general election.

Regional breakdowns are even more subject to sampling error, since the numbers involved are smaller still. For the BNP their 'best' region is the Midlands (4%), with 1% recorded in the South and the North. Support shown in London was so low that it failed to register - technically it was 0%, though obviously that doesn't mean that nobody will vote BNP in London at the general election. But what it does suggest is that, in the context of a general election, the BNP will struggle to poll above 2-3% across London as a whole. It certainly isn't encouraging news, for example, if you were a prominent BNP member who had decided to look for a London seat in which to stand ... thinking perhaps that the party's best chance was in that area ...

MORI also breaks down responses by age group. The BNP polls 4% in the 18-34 age group, 2% among the 35-54 age group. For over-55s their share is less than 1%. Their apologists might claim this as evidence that the BNP was "the party of the future", but there are two flaws to such an argument.

Firstly, the under-35s are far less likely to turn out to vote; turnout is highest among over-55s, the very group where BNP support is weakest. Secondly party loyalty is weakest among young voters; strongest in older voters. So the BNP is strongest among voters who are less likely to vote, and most likely to change their minds and perhaps drift away. The BNP is weakest among voters who are most likely to vote, and who are less likely to switch (e.g. to the BNP).

There are some further interesting findings:

• Social Group : BNP support is 1% in Social Groups A, B and C1 - professional, managerial and skilled; 3% in Social Groups C2, D and E - unskilled, unemployed, economically inactive.
• Housing Type: In social rented housing BNP support reaches 5%; it's 3% in the private rented sector, 1% in owner-occupation.

There is no categorisation for educational achievement, but there is a breakdown by newspaper readership. I've not noticed such a breakdown previously and it's worth listing in full:

• Amongst tabloid readers: Con 41%, Lab 34%, Lib Dem 14%, UKIP 5%, Green 3%, BNP 2%.
• Amongst broadsheet readers: Con 42%, Lib Dem 25%, Lab 24%, Green 4%, UKIP 3%, BNP 0%.

Yes, that's correct. They couldn't find a single BNP supporter who read a broadsheet newspaper. Are we surprised? No.

So, to summarise (with tongue firmly in cheek!). For success the BNP needs a constituency in the Midlands; with a high proportion of under-35s; who live in social rented housing; are in social groups C2, D and E; and only read tabloid newspapers. And even there they would only just climb above 5%!

Seriously, there will be areas where the above demographic combines with one or more of the following - an active local BNP group; incompetence/ idleness in the mainstream parties; a particular local issue which benefits the BNP. And where that happens, on a very local basis, the BNP will poll well above their national levels.

None of this polling means that we can relax, or that we can ignore the danger of BNP progress at the general election. But what it does mean is that despite the election of two MEPs, despite Question Time, despite all the boasting, despite the lies and distortions in the popular press playing to the BNP agenda; despite all this the BNP have failed to make any significant progress in winning the hearts, minds and - especially - votes of the vast majority of the British people.

David Miliband bans envoys from helping the BNP

David Miliband has secretly banned British embassy staff from giving help to BNP leader Nick Griffin. The Foreign Secretary has also ordered diplomats not to assist the far-Right party’s other MEP, former National Front leader Andrew Brons.

A letter, entitled ‘Handling Extremist MEPs’ and marked ‘Restricted’, was circulated to the heads of Britain’s European embassies after the pair were elected to the European Parliament in June. Written by Matthew Rycroft, the UK’s top European Union diplomat, it says far-Right MEPs, like other British members of the European Parliament, can be sent ‘factual written briefings’ on policy issues but nothing else. British MEPs from mainstream parties can normally expect private briefings from officials and to be offered the chance to meet diplomats and Ministers.

Mr Rycroft wrote: ‘FCO Ministers have decided that there should be no other contact with MEPs of any nationality who represent racist or extremist views.’

The letter adds that other Government offices have also been advised to restrict help. As a direct consequence of the policy – revealed after a Freedom of Information Act request – the BNP MEPs have not been invited to two Foreign Office receptions.

Last night, the Foreign Office said the letter was to remind diplomats of the ‘longstanding’ policy on those who represent racist views. The disclosure follows the row over Mr Miliband’s attack on the Conservatives’ alliance with the Latvian Fatherland And Freedom Party and one of its MEPs who, the Foreign Secretary said, had an ‘anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi past’.

But it also comes after Labour’s decision to abandon its policy of not sharing the same platform with the BNP – paving the way for Nick Griffin’s controversial appearance on Question Time with Justice Secretary Jack Straw.

Mail Online

Nazi Hands Off Muslim Graves

Over 100 people joined a UAF rally outside Southern Cemetery in Manchester last Sunday to protest against the desecration, for a third time, of Muslim gravestones. All of the twenty headstones toppled last week were in the Muslim section.

'This attack is not act of mindless violence. Those who did it knew exactly what they were doing. And we all know that they are a tiny, tiny minority in this City', said Cllr Val Stevens, deputy leader of Manchester City Council speaking at the rally. Police are treating the desecration as a race hate crime.

Many at the vigil were asking why is this is happening again? And why now?

"Since the first attack on the Muslim graves last month, we have seen the BBC put the Nazi BNP leader Nick Griffin on Question time, and we saw hundreds of racist thugs in the EDL march in Manchester city centre making Nazi salutes and carrying placards saying 'No More Mosques'", explained UAF spokesperson Mike Killian. 'This has created a climate of hatred against Muslims which we must stop'.

Widespread support at the vigil, included local MP John Leech, Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders, as well as from the African Caribbean community and trades unionists.

The support and solidarity with Muslim brothers and sisters that was shown at the vigil demonstrated the very unity and solidarity that those who desecrated the graves most fear. A stronger and broader Manchester UAF was established at a meeting following this protest.

Greater Manchester Unite Against Fascism

Can the BBC shirk its responsibility if anti-Muslim attacks increase?

I was glad to see the panellists and members of the audience confront British National Party (BNP) Leader, Nick Griffin, head on during the BBC Question Time, with regards to his despicable views of the Nazi Holocaust and ethnic minorities earlier this month. However, I was equally raged when asked about his views on Islam, he was left to openly preach hate and ignorance without any challenge whatsoever from neither the panellists nor members of the audience. A sad sight indeed.

While most commentators are consumed with how he came across long after the programme, with his unchallenged remarks on Islam, it will inevitably lead to more and more attacks on British Muslims. In recent months the so-called English Defence League have openly been demonstrating throughout the country against British Muslims. We have witnessed attacks on mosques in Luton, Sunderland, Woolwich and recently in Bishops Stortford. The national press are also at it. Recently the Daily Express ran with the headline, ‘Now Muslims Demand Full Sharia Law’, clearly an exaggeration. The alarming rise in Islamophobic attacks on British Muslims, sadly fanned by some parts of the media, is flourishing unchallenged by politicians as well as security forces alike.

Under the current climate it was clearly a serious error of judgement on the part of the BBC to give the BNP a national platform. Today the situation facing British Muslims is identical to that of the American McCarthyite era in the 1950s. We are merely seen through the prism of security; surrounded with suspicion and continuously faced with claims of disloyalty that our way of life is incompatible with the British way of life.

No. We are part and parcel of this society and our contributions speak for themselves - not least the Muslim soldiers who fought for Britain during the First and Second World Wars. Yet we are always misunderstood. Yes, there are a handful of Muslims who wrongly, for example, call for Shari’ah Law in the UK. But one bad apple should not equate an entire community.

The BNP and far-right fascists are concealing their true colour under a veil by attacking British Muslims and Islam (because we are an easy target), but they will soon move to the rest of the “non-indigenous” population. By allowing Griffin a seat on their flagship political programme, the BBC has given the once convicted criminal his much craved legitimacy and recognition.

Many commentators have said that ‘the only way to defeat the BNP’s ideas is by having them out in the open and properly contested’. Of course we all agree. But don’t give them a national platform with 8 million viewers. It was completely the wrong setting. If he is to be robustly challenged, let it be in local community centres up and down the country; not a short debate on a panel alongside real mainstream panellists. It has created an unprecedented interest in the BNP which the recent YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph clearly shows. 22% of people questioned now “seriously consider” voting the BNP. The taboo of voting for the BNP vanished overnight. The BBC cannot shirk its responsibility.

During the summer I was travelling as a Global Fellow of the Prime Minister: learning about culture in India. Every Indian I spoke to said how brilliant, open and free they thought Britain was: as one student said, “The UK is the real land of opportunity.” While there, the Indian media and public were gripped by reports of racist attacks on Indian students in Australia. One student where I was teaching said: “We should cut all ties with Australia until they act.” The image of Australia is now tainted in India. Sadly, I think the image of our country will now be tainted internationally too.

As a young British Muslim, I feel the saga surrounding the BNP and Question Time marked a dark period in our country’s history. A dark week in fact for democracy. Because democracy is not about giving a platform for one to openly preach hate and vilify a whole community without debate. It sadly marked a grave period for mainstream political opinion and a rise for far-right extremism. At the end of the day: there is only one community who will suffer: the Muslim Community.

I, as well as many British Muslims up and down the country, feel let down. Let down by the silence on the panel and in the audience of the unchallenged Griffin attack on Islam, and let down by the BBC for allowing the media hype. As the Guardian wrote, it was “a once in a generation PR opportunity.”

Make no mistake. British Muslims will be left picking up all the pieces of the BBC’s decision. And frankly, from anger, the sentiment amongst British Muslims is now turning to more alienation, disenfranchisement and mistrust with resulting negative implications for our society. No one seems to be challenging the fact that the Far Right are using Muslim extremism as a pretence to gain mainstream following. It appears our politicians and the media alike do not seem to appreciate the real threat the BNP and other far-right fascist groups are posing to British Muslims and for that matter our society.

Tragically, Griffin’s appearance on the Question Time has played into the hands of those who seek to demonise Islam and its teachings. By leaving Griffin’s attacks unchallenged, the BBC has recklessly added fuel to an already ignited fire. And for that the BBC should be held responsible, if as I suspect, there is a rise in anti-Muslim attacks.

Kawsar Zaman is Vice-Chair, Youth Committee, Muslim Council of Britain

The Muslim News