Opinion A questionable time

A glance at some of the BNP’s claims to fame reveals its racist agenda. It was only a few weeks ago that the party was forced by the court to change its constitution which earlier allowed only white people to become members. Griffin himself was convicted in 1998 for inciting racial hatred. His anti-Semitic past goes back to having read Mein Kampf at 13. He later said it had “some really useful ideas.”

Where this becomes sinister is that he has been trying to give the BNP a veneer of respectability by talking about his extremist agenda in code or when it suits him,not at all. He has said,“This is a life-and-death struggle for white survival,not a fancy-dress party. Less banner waving and more guile wouldn’t go amiss.”

A more undeserving candidate for QT’s panel is hard to find.

The BBC was wrong for one principal reason. The format of QT legitimises Nick Griffin. Having worked in television I know that the only way to get close to nailing down a double-speaking politician is to interview him or her individually and at length. However,with four other panelists,a moderator and an audience pulling the “discussion” this way and that,Griffin wriggled out just fine and for a while even managed to turn the tables on his fellow panelists who yammered on about failed immigration policies.

By placing him on a panel,he received the status of an “equal” or worse,won sympathy,going by the complaints the BBC received about unfair treatment towards Griffin. As if on cue,Griffin has complained that he was confronted by a “lynch mob” in London (where QT was shot) which according to him is “no longer a British city.”

After angry demands that the invitation to Griffin be withdrawn,the BBC dug in further saying censorship was the job of the government and not the BBC. I agree. And in fact,its not censorship that I want but a display of better editorial judgment. The BNP should not be removed from the airwaves. When their party wins an election or incites violence or does anything “newsworthy” then they must be covered. Nick Griffin must be interviewed,but just not on shows like QT that throw a cloak of respectability around the BNP.

The chief counter-argument in this debate is that not inviting Griffin violates his freedom of speech. This is a slightly uni-dimensional way of looking at it because this line of reasoning ignores the fact that words can be used as codes — understood by the right audience,while staying within the law or simply as lies that suppress a darker agenda.

Griffin has said as much while sharing a platform with a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan,whom he ridiculously called “non-violent.” Standing before a crowd of white nationalists,Griffin told them it was all about using “salable words” such as “democracy”,“freedom” and “identity”. “Perhaps one day,by being rather more subtle,we’ve got ourselves in a position where we control the British broadcasting media,then perhaps one day the British people might change their mind and say yes,every last one must go (non-white immigrants).”

Words can be sweet and sinister. Such tactics allow the BNP to become more and more acceptable,while completely deflecting attention away from its real thuggish agenda. It is exactly that kind of creeping extremism that any society needs to guard against. This brings me back to my argument. If we have genuinely committed to the dustbin of history,the notions of racial purity and white supremacy,what we need today is not censorship but a much more rigourous cross-examination of the return of such destructive politics The BBC,which otherwise does this so well and which has truly earned the trust of its audiences,betrayed them this time.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in London