Question Time will expose BNP and their hateful policies
Oct 22 2009 Agenda, Birmingham Post
As the BBC prepares to host the BNP on tonight’s Question Time, Charlie Mole explains why it is an essential move.
The most famous example of fascism, and the one around which we frame modern debates, is that of the obvious: Nazi Germany.
1920s Germany came to inspire the rise of a vicious racism which is so infamous it needs no more description. On such evidence, democracy is a fallible institution which must be protected at all costs.
Peter Hain, in his recent letter to the BBC, follows such a line, attempting at all costs to bar the BNP from airing its obviously vile politics. Instead of allowing multicultural Britain to remonstrate and argue its case, Hain is undermining its credentials and pushing the problem the BNP poses to the back of the political agenda.
So, the question goes, why let them on Question Time to elaborate and expand upon their ignorant hatred? The answer seems clear: because not to do so would be to ignore rather than to confront.
The reality of grassroots racism in Britain was portrayed earlier this week on BBC1’s Panorama programme. The foil for the undercover investigation was a female journalist who posed as a young Muslim without a firm grasp of English. She was subsequently met with a shocking barrage of verbal and even physical abuse from children as young as ten, the extent of which should hit anyone who watched like a freight train. What makes the programme so pertinent is the fact the BNP had heavily canvassed the region, obviously aware of the scope for electoral gain.
With immigration set to be a huge issue at the next election following the Department of Communities and Local Government’s announcement that the UK’s population will hit 70 million within the next 25 years, and unemployment still rising following recent economic difficulties, there are obvious seeds of discontent which provide the perfect breeding ground for the bigoted message that Mr Griffin is espousing.
This type of discontent has found expression on Facebook groups, particularly the ‘ban the mosque in Dudley’ campaign, which has nearly 13,000 members, and displays a virulent and explicit racism, the like of which came through so shockingly in Panorama and highlighting the reality the problem is more widespread than many realise.
Indeed Trevor Phillips, the Commissioner for Racial Equality, displayed a shocking naivety when he claimed recently that ‘racism is declining in modern Britain’. The fact is the political hierarchy is becoming more and more out of touch with the public, as every new expenses detail, poor electoral turnout and fallen soldier, displays.
Public apathy and public anger are at risk of being hijacked by the demagogic rhetoric of Griffin and co. Instead of allowing them to proselytize their racist views unanswered, they should be made accountable through debate and discussion, with Question Time providing the perfect vehicle to do so.
By engaging with Mr Griffin, politicians can show they are able to grapple with the voice of the inner-city that seems to be so hopelessly under-represented.
By not doing so, politicians have allowed Griffin to seize the initiative and combine his hate with real policy issues that chime with ordinary working people such as immigration, inner-city poverty and MPs expenses, which his party has used with great effect to attack the political elite.
Doing this, Griffin has been able to couch himself as an outsider to the political mainstream, a position that can gain much support in a period which has seen the Prime Minister pay back over £12.000, and the Attorney General flout the law, keeping her job, while many ordinary people lose theirs.
Make the BNP tackle hard questions in a public arena, exposing their frailties. For instance why does Mr Griffin’s second-in-command Mark Collet refer to AIDS as a ‘helpful disease, which kills blacks and gays’. Where does this fit into them being a nationalist rather than racist party, which Griffin tries so hard to argue. Furthermore, tackle the BNP for their sheer lack of reasoned policies, make them squirm in much the same way mainstream politicians are made to so regularly on the programme. The BBC’s political editor Nick Robinson was able to do so recently, forcing Griffin to expand on why he referred to British Generals as ‘Nazi War Criminals’, forcing him to claim, in a less than authoritative manner, that ‘it was just a bit of black humour’ – a rather ironic choice of phraseology one might think.
The fact is the BNP is no longer knuckle-dragging Neanderthals, but has revamped its image to appeal to a widening constituency, as their recent victory in the European election shows. It is perhaps time, therefore, for politicians to realise the full remit of their support amid the electorate (Mr Griffin is indeed an MEP), and engage them in a discussion which can undermine their hateful agenda publicly and legitimately.
Only by airing and engaging with the ideas Mr Griffin espouses can we defeat such ignorance, which is more fruitful than allowing the issue to fester unscrutinised, as the likes of Peter Hain and Trevor Phillips are in danger of doing.
The greatest victories against prejudice have not been fought quietly, but thrust into the public limelight as the examples of Martin Luther King and Thic Quang Duc highlight. As Panorama made clear, there are many issues, such as immigration, that need to be addressed publicly and rationally, before they can be poisoned and twisted by the likes of Mr Griffin and his cohorts.
The BBC has managed to ridicule Mr Griffin over his ludicrous claim about the Army and expose Trevor Phillips’ naive assertion, in the space of two days. Lets hope Thursday’s Question Time makes it three out of three.
