And you might want to look a little deeper into the circumstances behind Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

Labour plus Tories invaded Iraq on the basis of doctored intelligence reports and a pack of lies (more or less the reasons Hitler invaded Poland). In contrast the BNP always opposed the war. A million Muslims and Kurds died as a result. Who are the racists and the nutters? I’d say Labour and friends are about a million times as racist as the BNP, though I’d accept a mere 100,000 or even 10,000 at a pinch.

I’ve never seen this show, but if I may put in my two cents worth, the complaint could be easily moderated at least with good moderators, who shut off any of the guests when they take too long or wander off of the point of the argument. If the BNP (curious question- is the a different party than the British Fascist Party?) talks about their views on taxation and such, all well and good. If they start talking about Jews and such, shut them down. But disgusted as I am by these kinds of racists, I do agree that they have the right to say what they want. And if the British people show that they indeed want such a society, then that’s what they’ll end up with. It cannot be helped. We had that idiot Bush for 8 years because he fixed the votes- er, I mean, because he was voted in. Nobody had a gun put to their head and was told “Vote for Bush, or else!” That’s what the people wanted. And they got what they deserved.

And yea, I’ve been there a few times and been taken aback by some of the off-the-cuff racist I’ve seen and heard. In one breath someone can defend Jews, but in the next, go on about the goddamn Paki’s.

Ironically Nick Griffin did exactly the latter part of that paragraph in the first few minutes of the show. Jack Straw attacked the policies & principles of the BNP, Nick Griffin countered by arguing that while his father was fighting in WWII, Mr Straw Senior was languishing in prison for avoiding the call up (paraphrased obviously, I can’t remember his exact words but have look on iPlayer or some where else if you doubt it).
Personal attacks seem to be fair game when the BNP are involved but wouldn’t be tolerated on any other edition of this show.

There is no such thing as absolute free speech. It doesn’t exist anywhere, nor should it. It is all a matter of where you draw the line. Disagree – show me some examples of places that have absolute free speech.

‘Absolute free speech’ isn’t the fundemental basis of democracy in any case, nor is ‘voting’. A level of freedom yes (not ‘absolute’) and some form of voting, but also a pluralistic society, various institutions, levels of material equality, security and protection of people, a functioning society that hasn’t broken down into violence and warfare. The rule of law. Lots of things are important, not just one abstract concept.

A very good argument for keeping BNP people off Question Time type shows is that they disrupt debate just as if someone came on amnd started shouting “cunt cunt cunt” at everyone, or came on and made vicious insults against audience members and other panelists. The BNP talk utter shit and lie. There fundemental programme undermines the concept of debate and democracy (ie that we can come together and discuss things equally). Many people find what they stand for, who they are and what they do in society more insulting and replusive than someone shouting “cunt”, someone who would be banned from the airwaves within seconds.

Is it a contradiction to allow them to run for election but also for editors to keep them off the airwaves, not interview them, for other panelists to refuse to debate with them, for people to protest against them and harass them? Not really, because the former is a minimum and legalistic right and proscribing political parties should be a last resort (they are barely legal as a political party in any case). The latter is about social interaction and they are getting the ‘interaction’ they deserve: i.e.

If someone tries to deny my humanity and equality then I will use all legal means to neutralise them – hence doing things to deny them a platform. If an organisation aims to destroy debate and undermine democracy then they don’t deserve to be permitted to participate.

The only kind of debate any of these people would get from me would be ‘go fuck yourself’.

I agree with it to an extent; but we’re almost getting into personal morals here, so it’s hard to say who is right or who is wrong. Hence why this turned up in the comment section I suppose :)

I don’t get why the BBC felt that the BNP’s first big break should be on Question Time of all places. It’s more of a circus than anything. They should have put him in a 1-1 interview on one of those serious politics shows that they have on sunday morning. Maybe people would have watched. And a decent interviewer would have torn Griffin apart (yet still given him a chance to air his views).
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For me, the interesting thing is that the world that Griffin describes (and which a large percentage of the BBC “Have your say” commenters seem to agree with) isn’t a world I recognise.

Maybe it’s my lack of experience, but all the people talking about “multi-culturalism being a failed experiment” seem to be living in a different world to me.

Half of our companies are multinational. Meaning they have multinational workforces. Every company i’ve ever worked for has dozens of nationalities… yet they are mostly invisible – we are just people, all together. Music, games, movies, work, friends, etc… it’s all multi-cultural, and it all seems to work fine.
In-fact, due to the internet, I have friends in a dozen countries, and many of them I have no idea what race they are. It just doesn’t matter.

It seems like no-one notices the 1000s of places where we are all totally integrated, just because we are totally integrated. But the 1 or 2 places where things break down are magnified.

PS/ If the BNP is forced to open up it’s membership, we should start a twitter campaign and all join… like the always-funny twitter takeovers of the Daily Mail polls. ;-)

Of course, you or I will take one look at it, screw it up and chuck it in the bin, but what about people who hadn’t heard of the BNP? I did a quick poll of younger (18-21) friends and many of them hadn’t heard of the BNP. They hadn’t been making headlines for a while and we seem to be living in an age where a lot of people grow up not knowing things because they’re simply not told. (I spent three years working as a higher level teaching assistant at a primary school and you’d be amazed at the things I had to teach children that I assumed everyone just picked up at home.)

I’m not denying that the vast majority of BNP voters are racist bastards that know exactly what they’re doing, but I do think there were a lot of people who were duped into voting for a racist party because they were the only ones talking about the issues they cared about.