Why the BBC was right to give the BNP airtime
By Tony Watts - Editor - 23/10/2009
The BBC has received a lambasting for inviting BNP leader Nick Griffin to take part in last night’s Question Time. Personally I think it was a brave and necessary piece of broadcasting.
For weeks the controversy has raged: should the leader of a party that is openly hostile to Muslims and gays, and wants repatriation to return Britain to being a white, single culture nation, be allowed to be part of a televised debate?
On the basis that there are many people who are sympathetic to this viewpoint – proven by the fact that they have won two seats in the European Parliament – the answer is ‘yes’. There are a great many people disaffected by the way that open debate in this country is often stifled by political correctness.
This was too important a debate not to be held through any niceties of political correctness and, on balance, the BNP came off second best. If it was an 'early Christmas present', the threepenny bit in the pudding is likely to stick in their throat. But you ignore some unpalatable truths at your peril.
Scrape off the polite veneer of British society and you’ll find millions of people who are racist, sexist, Islamophobic and homophobic. Most are still voting for the main parties and having their prejudices regularly confirmed by some of the tabloids. Had the debate taken place in a BNP stronghold, the audience reaction to Nick Griffin would have been very different.
This is the bigger battle that has to be fought, and it will take probably several generations to win.
What came over last night were two main themes: one is, that the main parties have still not addressed the underlying concerns that many people have about immigration (which is a separate issue to racism); and, while that remains the case, there will still be people who will vote for the BNP.
The second is that some of the BNP’s viewpoints border on the bonkers – the Ice Age Britons being one of the most laughable. Others simply ignore the facts of history - Griffin wriggled like a worm on a hook on the subject of denying the Holocaust. Significantly, the website that sets out all of its policies and principles has been replaced by a holding page – presumably so they can excise some of the worst offending passages.
If the BNP is to be defeated at the ballot box, the main parties need to tackle the genuine concerns that many people have; and some of the nonsenses they espouse need to be shot down in flames – exposing them for what they are. Ignoring them won’t help. Banning them will make them ‘martyrs of free speech’. So more interviews and debates please, not less – it’s the one sure way to cut out this cancer from our society.
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