When I went over to 4 Millbank yesterday, there was a demonstration outside by about 15 members of the PCS trade union. They were objecting to the fact that BNP leader Nick Griffin was being interviewed on the Daily Politics. I had a chat with one of the demonstrators - who turned out to be a reader of the blog and a West Ham fan - who explained their reasons for being there. He thought it was wrong of the BBC to give airtime to someone he regards as a fascist.
While I totally understand their reasons I wonder if they are not misguided. If they get their way and the mainstream media no-platforms BNP representatives, doesn't it just play into their hands? They are, after all, a legitimate political party even if we find many of their views abhorrent. If we deny them the same democratic rights as other parties enjoy we run the risk of them justifiably complaining that the establishment is trying to silence them, and then they become martyrs.
Is it not better to take them head on and expose the nastiness of many of their policies live on TV? If mainstream politicians are unwilling to do that, what does that say? Don't get me wrong, I find it difficult to be in the same room as BNP politicians without feeling like having a shower. But what we must not lose sight of is the fact that many of their new supporters are not skinhead racists. They are perfectly law abiding, normal people who feel let down by the mainstream parties. If normal politicians don't address that soon, and destroy the BNP's superficial appeal to these voters, they will live to regret it.
95 comments:
I agree with you entirely, Iain. Show up the poverty of their principles, the logical inconsistencies and the nastiness and people will leave them in droves. By making them into a forbidden fruit, they get entirely unmerited credibility.
surely the level of vote that the BNP now commands give them the right to broadcasting coverage? Are they purely a protest vote? who knows but only by giving them the opportunity to broadcast can the public make a decision on their policies.
Yes I think you're right Ian.
The BNP are a democratic party so should be allowed to participate fully with the media.
Nick Griffin was cringeworthy on the Politics Show and Andrew Neil had him in knots over his definition of " Britishness ".
But people are worried about the open borders policy of the government and our illegal foreign wars so the BNP will probably get some Euro seats and increase their council seats.
That's all well and good Iain, but we're in a differnet ball game now.
Who can trust any mainstream politician to be honest?
Who voted so MP's could rip the arse out of the taxpayer. Who voted for two manifesto committments, like a referendum on Europe and not raising the tax threshold to 45p, let alone 50p and then didn't get them?
Who voted for mass unfettered immigration?
Why should we be led by these criminals? Why?
They have shown their true colours now and if any one has any sense, they should now vote for what they want themselves and not even listen to those self indulgent twats who masquarade as MPs.
There is nothing wrong with Parliament or any of the systems we have in place. What is wrong is the people in it. 100% them and no-one else.
These demonstrators don't realise that their protest is actually against democracy and freedom of speech. Not that we have true freedom of speech in this country these days, if we ever have had, which I doubt.
You're all going to have to get over this snide and patronising way of talking about them ... "I feel I need a shower after being in the same room as them". Don't you understand that's how many of us feel about NuLabour.
I accept that BNP have racist policies. But in balance, taking ALL their policies into account, I find them less despicable than NuLabour.
And can people stop talking about them as fascist. Nulab are fascist ... totalitarian, centralist, euthanasing, thought police ... etc. The BNP are nationalistic socialists.
usual hypocrisy from yourself, say that the BNP should be met head on, and then support an event such as vote match which deny the existence of the BNP as even standing in the euro elections.
Don't you just love these democrats? Let's just ban them.
It's Labour's answers to all our problems.
Dale, for a change you have hit the nail firmly on the head.
I agree that no-platforming the BNP is counter productive, far better to let them speak their drivel and then have the other parties have the opportunity to call it just that; drivel.
Yes - you are totally right. We face them head on and argue and discuss with them and show the electorate how bad their policies are. This is the way that democracy operates. Jacqui Smith needs to understand this and not stop people who just have different views from coming into the country!!!!
Who defines "mainstream"? Of course no party should be "no platformed" unless they are advocating violence. Let them air their views and the "mainstream" politicians can argue against them. There is nothing more fascistic than preventing freedom of speech.
The price of a free country is to allow people to hold views different to one's own. The mark of a totalitarian state is when those in power decide what views are acceptable or not.
Who was it who said " I may not agree with what you say but I defend your right to say it"?
If you ban the BNP it will be driven underground and attract supporters by "virtue" of the fact that it is a banned organisation.
By all means allow it to exist. Having to argue its case alongside the other parties will reveal it for what it is- a hateful single issue nonentity.
Yours might be a dangerous position, if only to recall how one national socialist party was able to use democracy to subvert the whole society.
Nick Griffin presents well on telly, and particulary so, given that Neil's onslaught in the Daily Politics was unrelenting.
Quite frankly, given a toss up between Moran and Griffin many are going to go for the latter "cos he doesn't sound like a bad chap".
Lethal. But there you are
No, absolutely not. We need to debate with them and defeat them on the arguments.
No platforming them just plays into their hands and allows them to claim that the other political parties have no answers to their often spurious points.
Whenever Griffin has been on BBC television, he has come across as a warped little man. The more he is put under the spotlight, the more he will be exposed as an extremist - rather than the populist he is trying to paint himself and his party as.
I imagine the party will collapse after June 4th anyway, as all of the signs from Labour, Tory and UKIP internal polling are that the (sizeable) anti-politician vote is going to go UKIP's way due to the big exposure it is going to get fro the BBC between now and polling day (two successive appearances on Question Time, for example).
How can the BBC refuse to give a LEGAL political party airtime?
The day the state broadcaster decides which politicians the citizens of the state should listen to, is the day we should shut up shop and emigrate.
They are misguided in trying to limit free speech.
Nothing would invigorate the sensible majority more than being assaulted by foul opinions from the BNP.
The views are out there, lets hear them; then we, who disagree, must take responsibility for winning the argument.
I have never thought that the BNP should be no-platformed. The arguments that they deploy are so easily demolished. I can remember at the last election my MP took the BNP candidate to the cleaners. We have nothing to fear from debating them. We have more to fear from the silly notion of not engaging with them.
You can't pick and choose which parts of democracy you follow. It's all or nothing.
Ian, not totally off topic, please read my latest post and see if we can either find out if I'm correct or at least help we poor foot soldiers gain some respect on the doorstep.
If those protesting had actually bothered to watch The Daily Politics they would have seen Brillo Neil dismantle Griffin's veneer of respectibility.
Far more effective than making martyrs of them.
Look what Thatcher's "starve them of the oxygen of publicity" did for the IRA!
In a democracy, people with unsavoury views must be allowed to speak so that their arguments can be shown to be vacuous
couldnt agree with you more Iain. Until they were covered on the BBC news last night I did not know the BNP explicitly excluded non-whites from the party. Not that i was being naive but I thought they tried to pretend they were non-racist to attract more members.
Should not the same argument be applied to the "Holocaust Deniers" what beter way to defeat them? Allow them to spout their views and prove them wrong with the facts.
Any party with abhorrent policies will be condemned out of their own mouths.
Surely the way to beat the BNP is by beating them ... not by rigging things against them.
Could it possibly be that people are turning to them because they ... wait for it ... AGREE WITH THEM? That we AGREE that immigration is too lax, that we have capitulated too much to Islam, that we have debased our own culture & heritage.
If you think they are wrong, PROVE it. And then let the people decide. And if we decide that we agree with them then we have to live with the consequences. Don't do what the EU do and refuse us a debate or a vote until you are sure we'll vote the right way ... or keeping making us vote until we 'get it right'!
You're completely right here Iain. We have to stand up to them and debate against what they have to say.
At the moment they are a the ultimate protest vote and, given the news over the past few days, there is a big protest needed at the moment.
If we fail to engage them in the next couple of weeks they will undoubtedly be sending Euro MPs to Brussels under the PR system, will elect numerous local councillors and possibly a council majority somewhere - Luton springs to mind at the moment, the Labour vote there needs someone to elect given Ms Moron's recent dalliances with her expenses...
Keep up with this subject please Iain, all the MSM and a lot of the other bloggers also choose to censor it
Those who want to limit free speech and ban the BNP and others - whom they alone decide to ban - pose the greatest threat to democracy.
The electorate have the right to choose, which includes the right to make a bad choice eg Labour since 1997, and live with the consequences.
Presumably, those who would seek to ban the BNP would also want to hang anyone who voted for them anyway.
As much as I detest the BNP, its history of ignorance and racism I think it would be a very grave mistake to go down this avenue. The BNP is now getting support not due to the rise in racism in this country but the failure of all mainstream party's over a number of years to truly listen to the fears and worries of certain parts of the population.
The mainstream party's have spent too many years denouncing the BNP -rightly so- without actually realising that there message has subtly changed over the last few years.They have taken for granted that there message is getting out to the voters whereas the BNP has listened to the worries of the everyday voter and carefully tailored there message to encompass these views.
To deny them the right to speak leaves us with no way of refuting there argument and showing how dangerous there message is.
As much as I hate to say it I can see the BNP gaining seats in the European elections and also the general election in the year to come. All this because the mainstream party's became too complacent and arrogant!
Time the PCS looked after their member's interests, instead?
By the very nature of those who find the BNP an attractive proposition, any move to ban them or treat them like pariahs will inevitably make them seem hard-done-by and persecuted and thereby fan the flames.
Give them equality of airtime and expose them for the air-headed, irrational numpties they are.
I find it hard to believe that the BNP could be any worse than the troughing career criminals in Westminster. Hitler after all waived his salary as chancellor being independently wealthy from the sales of Mein Kampf. I don't see Gordon Brown waiving his salary as Prime Minister from the sales of his book 'Courage: Eight Portraits'.
So talk and debate the BNP
Or are you all scared that they may say things that the common people of this land want to hear, not the same old same old the 2.5 main stream parties roll out every day.
We need to start looking after our own country first, forget about helping others, us first
Yes i will be voting BNP because nobody is listening to me
joolz
Ian, I was in our local coffee lounge this morning. Not many people there, but a group in the corner who all seemed to know one-another fairly well. One of them was an older chap - I would say in his 80/90's. He was telling the others that they should all be voting BNP "just to shake the others all up".
Unfortunately, the current noses-in-the-trough business is playing into the BNP's hands as they can't be implicated - solely because they have not been successful at getting anyone into Parliament. I imagine that if they had, they would be in the same boat as the others!
The media should not be making such decisions. The BNP are a legitimate political party.
Given how relatively easy it would be for the politicians to combat the BNP in the open I can only assume they don't because they aren't up to the job. Too wrapped up in PC speak perhaps. Never faced a real challenge in their lives and frequently stand for nothing much beyond the existing public sector muddle and statism.
Nick Griffin was on the BBC last night being interviewed. I am pleased they dared but would wish they addressed the substance of his policies rather than repeatedly question him on the party being racist or not. I suspect they choose not to as the policies that aren't based along 'white power' thinking are perfectly decent from a certain of view - socialist welfare, isolationist politically and militarily. Nothing he said was contentious and he can skirt around the unpleasant nature of his party with relative ease. He had a slick and efficient manner in getting his message across.
The solution is for other politicians to first come up with a coherant notion of what you stand for and then get that message across. Shut Griffin up with ideas rather than trying to tell voters what to do.
I did not know the BNP explicitly excluded non-whites from the party.
as do. for example, the met. police. black officers association
Who stole money from the taxpayer?
Who fucked the economy?
Who still insists on mass immigration to the detriment of those living here?
Who denied us a referendum on Europe yet promised us one?
Who gave Britain the highest number of speed and cctv cameras in Europe?
Who prevents people from coming here when they haven't even applied to come here?
Who denies people the right of abode here who fought for our country?
Who allowed police to enter the Houses of Parliamnet and arrest an MP there(Cromwell would be turning in his grave)
Who promised British jobs for British workers?
Was this all the fault of the BNP?
You reckon you can't understand why people would want to vote for them? You call them fascists and you want to take a shower when you're in the same room as them?
Look where listening to our mainstream parties has got us. Selling us wars like companies sell soap powder. Was the BNP responsible for that too?
They are all decent, honest and truthful and the BNP are not?
The main stream parties are responsible for the rise of the BNP.
What were solid Labour areas that no longer give them the time of day. You never supported the very people that supported you all those years. Because you went to University and you know what is best for the peasants.
The people want help,respect and a decent job so they can pay their way in life and support their families. You shat on them from a great height. Now they are gonna return the favour.
Have you read their manifesto for the EU elections? It's exactly what the Conservatives should be saying. To be honest most people would agree with what they say and you'd have a job to beat them in a debate based solely on the manifesto.
For example Cameron is wooly on ceding more power, they most certainly are not. Fisheries returned to our control, expose corruption in the EU, withdraw from the CAP and more. Just banging on about racism is a bit like flogging a dead horse and people are fed up with it.
If we are still to take a manifesto at face value(?) theirs is certainly one I could vote for.
Of course you are right.
Right morally, because in a democracy all whose behaviour is within the law have a right to be heard.
Right tactically, because the best way to destroy an argument is by producing a better one.
Right pragmatically, because attempting [and doomed to fail] to deny the BNP the right to speak would only increase support for them.
It's a no brainer.
As a reader of your blog, which I appreciate very much, and also as an old time left-wing anti-fascist (I was in the Red Lion Square debacle against the NF in 1974 etc), I have mixed views on this. While it was clear to me that the SWP nutcases on 'our' side back in the 1970s pushed things to an extreme until our side became no better than the fascists we were opposing, it still seems to me that a 'NO PLATFORM' position is absolutely right. Even the recent Nick Griffin interview on Sky, which showed him up for what he is, will still appeal to voters. We cannot take chances, especially in the precarious position British democracy finds itself in at this moment.
Indeed. Similarly, there are a number of organisations which forbid their employees to be BNP members. Whilst they are obnoxious, they are also a legitimate political party. Any true democracy would allow its members the same rights as members of any other party.
What a mess this shitehole of a government has got us into, in which proven terrorists can make their homes here, whilst those are are willing to lay down their lives for our country are told to fuck off.
Arse over tit.
Ian, you are both right and wrong. Right to stand up for freedom of speech and to allow the BNP as a prefectly legal political party, albeit with some views with which most people would disagree, the same access to the media as any other political party. But surely wrong to think that you might need a shower after being in the same room as someone with a different opinion to yourself. That sounds like the sort of comment that a left wing fascist might make about Margaret Thatcher and would surely be just as misguided.
Nicky Campbell did a crap job on Mr Griffin this morning.
All the usual 'you're a racist/Holo denier' stuff.
He just gave him a platform to say he'd changed his mind about things in the last ten years and that neo-nazis were 'nutters' who 'hated the BNP' as pathetic lefties.
Oh yes and 'why are you asking me just about this and not Labour about communism etc etc'.
I can see why those who are flirting with voting for them would have time for them when they wouldn't have considered it in a million years a decade ago.
His ethnic English thing would be very appealing to those who no longer feel welcome in their own neighbourhood.
And his gimmick that any BNP MEPs would donate 10% of their pay to local communities to stage 'patriotic events' like celebrating St George's Day...rather than you know what.
These protesters are protesting against free speech and democracy.
They are just as big a threat as the BNP.
They are showing typical left wing fascist attitude to free speech and people being allowed to make up their own minds.
The BNP should be tackled directly, and every voter should have the right to make up their own minds having heard from all sides.
( Its a small step from No platform to banning parties outright. If you can do it for racism, then you can do it for Climate Change denial or Diversity issues or religious belief ).
You should see the interview, Iain. It was a total stitch-up job by Brillo. Quite entertaining to watch.
The BBC have little problem interviewing communists and terrorists, why not fascists?
Iain, You say "They are, after all, a legitimate political party even if we find many of their views abhorrent...To be honest, I'm not sure that I know what the BNP's views are. I know what I've been told that they are - usually by the likes of Jim Naughty - but that's not quite the same thing.
If they are as odious as is claimed, then surely the best way to deal with them is to engage them in debate and reveal them for what they are.
The truth sets us free.
Either we have freedom of speech or we don't.
Let them into the sunlight and be seen for what they are.
What an arrogant twit you are!! Feel like taking a shower do you? After the last few years of lib/lab/con politics the whole lot of you should be fumigated. Time to wake up. The old parties are in their corrupt death throes and the BNP is emerging and evolving into a credible alternative. Instead of making slanderous accusations start to look at its policies and its members. The real fascists today are the establishment and the MSM who have not the nerve to enter into open debate with a new, forward thinking party of patriots who have their countries interests, not their own,at heart.
Since they're probably going to do relatively well in the forthcoming elections it's no longer any use pretending they don't exist.
I'm afraid Nick Griffin put it rather well on the Six O'Clock News yesterday:
'Isn't this just a protest vote?'
'Yes, and the British people have a lot to protest about.'
A large number of their officials have convictions for offences such as assault or affray. That they are becoming an electoral consideration just shows how crap the main parties have been.
I was blogging about this the other day too...
If the average punter goes to the bnp website they'll find the front page compelling.
Yet, if you actually do give them a platform, a proper television debate with Brown or Cameron or Clegg or Farage or any politician worth their salt then the BNP will be decimated.
It is not hard at all to argue against scrapping aid to africa (vs make poverty history), conscription (vs "mandatory voluntary" work), death penalty (vs not being american).
Its ruddy hard to argue against it by saying nothing!
When you put people on the extremes then the public does not know how to counter the arguments when they first hear them.
Nick Griffith, like Nigel Farage, is in the final analysis a political and intellectual pygmy.
The more people that hear what these fringe politicians say the better as then they will realise that the offerings of these fringe parties are ultimately as narrow and bigoted as the failed offerings of ZaNuLab.
Another thing, off the top of my head, if they are given a platform they will be in the real world of political spin and they find it hard to find the budget for it. They could then be exposed for what they are, as you say, or the simple lack of money to spend on PR will see them slipping away.
On the other hand, with the expenses debacle, people might see them as fresh,
A hard one to call in the current climate.
The shower remark could have been made of Oscar Wilde, if you were Joe Public, 100 years ago. If you trouble to read the transcripts of the summing up at his trial, you could only conclude that he was an utter monster. Ditto the women who dared to demand the right to vote.(Read the Hansard transcripts)
If you are not open to real, 90 degree change - you are part of the problem, not the solution.
In recent history the 'gag' on Sinn Fein didn't work, all it did was provide work for someone to speak Gerry Adams' word.
The BNP (and other fringe parties) need to be exposed in the brighest spotlight possible.
The leaders of the BNP have never murdered, nor advocated murdering, anyone for political ends and are almost universally excoriated by the media and Establishment alike.
The leaders of Sinn Fein a.k.a. the IRA have been responsible - sometimes personally - for the wholesale slaughter of thousands of British subjects in pursuit of their political aims and are welcomed into the highest circles at home and abroad.
Let's have an end to double standards in British public life and in the British public's attitudes to these things.
Why are their views "abhorrent"?
Are they not entitled to their view of the world - however much it might diverge from yours?
Why do mainstream political parties and the "establishment" assume they have a monopoly on morality?
Is the view of someone who does not have a double first from Oxbridge any less valid than someone who does?
Who has real political courage - the orthodox apparatchik or the heterodox maverick?
Yours etc,
"Defamatory Vileness."
I have said before & nobody has seriously disputed, that nothing all 12,000 members of the BNP has done compares with the complicity of almost all Labour, LibDem & Conservative MPs individually in supporting openly genocidal regimes, in 2 cases run by (ex-)Nazis, in former Yugoslavia.
In doing so our MPs been guilty of making illegal war, cluster bombing civilians (both war crimes), massacresm ethnic cleansingm genocidem the kidap & sale to western brothels of 10s of thousands of schoolchildren & dissecting 1,300 Serbs, while still alive, to sell their organs to our hospitals.
In the circumstances any claim that the current media censorship of the BNP is due to the moral superiority (or even equality) of the main parties is clearly untrue.
Leaving aside the question of whether a legal political party should be ignored, I will say the BNP should not be.
Nick Griffin made an absolute fool of himself on The Daily Politics, worse than most politicians. He knows he can't say what he means on TV, he knows he must keep up a pretense ... and it fails miserably.
Protesting a TV show to prevent it from interviewing somebody? Geez.
"They are, after all, a legitimate political party even if we find many of their views abhorrent."
Was hoping you meant all their views are abhorent?
London Muslim
http://londonmuslims.blogspot.com/
Its a tough one. The odious Griffin was interviewed yesterday and asked why if his party were not racist was it for whites only (presumably excluding foreign whites as well).
He could give no serious sane answer. Anyone voting BNP have no excuse and should hang there head in shame. Presumably all they want to hang are black people. Next will be the 'queers' (pardon my French).
Any reason why the BNP have been no-platformed on votematch?
The BNP are not that far from New Labour, frankly. Does that mean we can demand that they are not given airtime? No
Sunlight is nature's disinfectant. Put them on. Ask them questions. Rope. Plenty of it.
@Londonmuslim - some of the BNP plans are similar to Labour and other Socialist/Social Democrat parties. If you want to find the furthest party from their position , the LPUK is it.
London Muzzie. I find your views abhorrent, but in this country we put up with you. If I spoke out in any Muslim country of your choice they would chop my hands off. (and that would be the wet liberal Muzzie option)
I agree with you Iain, and have always taken that line.
Like you, I do understand why others may be of an opposite view, but get cross when some of them then call me an "appeaser".
The BBC’s lavishing of publicity on the BNP continues apace. But if you decline to vote for that party for no other reason, then do so because its Leader refers to this country’s people as “Brits”. Says it all, really.
The opposed both the wars afainst Iraq & Yugoslavia. I take it Londonmuzzie that if you find such views "abhorrent" you were entirley in facour of the Iraq war as well as being in favour of genocide, child rape & organlegging in the Nazi cause.
I find your views abhorrent.
On the other hand I wouldn't want to censor you.
Iain,
I remember seeing you saying on 18DS that you'd "rather stick needles in your eyes than have the BNP on".
Have you changed your view on this in the last couple of years?
My understanding is that all 3 main parties do not believe in open borders for the UK.
Thus all 3 main parties are racist because they do not believe that ALL of the population of the world should have the right to live in the UK. Does the media no platform them? No.
The BNP, like many people, just wants to have TIGHTER immigration policies than the BIG 3 political parties. Why that should make you want to shower Iain, I have no idea.
I haven't yet seen any of the issues properly debated without everyone becoming hysterical.
Gareth Thomas said...
"...the recent Nick Griffin interview on Sky, which showed him up for what he is, will still appeal to voters. We cannot take chances..."Why do you think he will appeal to voters? Could it be that he is articulating their views?
Is that too democratic for you?
Oh right I see, no Fascist`s, but its ok to give the floor to Marxists, Communists, Fabians, pedophiles, liars and criminals?
Those descriptions describe the current set of Dishonourable MP`s admirably I`d say!!
I know that we do not live in a democracy, but at least lets pretend we do!
Man in a Shed:
You say that the 'NO PLATFORM' position shows a "typical left wing fascist attitude to free speech and people being allowed to make up their own minds" and you go on to make a very sensible and understandable point that it is only one more step to banning political parties we disagree with.
It has always been a difficult question, believe me. I remember the arguments back in the 1970s between liberal left people and those of a more Trotskyite view, and it all got very heated. I am not a member of any political party now but probably in the end a Conservative voter - odd though I find myself saying that - I will still argue that a racist party (even when they cover their traces as skilfully as they do in the media) should not be allowed a platform. After losing so many of our countrymen and women in the fight against nazism and fascism we should have a natural aversion to the BNP position, but more important, we have laws against their poison. NO PLATFORM is a NO BRAINER.
Twig: you say "Why do you think he will appeal to voters? Could it be that he is articulating their views? Is that too democratic for you?"
I understand your question. It is a reasonable one. When a man who holds unreasonable views, which he has shared behind closed doors with his fascist supporters, presents a homely little spin suitable for fireside viewing, are we supposed to regard that as equal to the open politics of the democratic system we grew up with? I do not think so. Call a spade a spade, in the simple language of the East End fascist: when people are a threat to democracy they should not be given a democratic platform. Your point about communists is outdated. There is no communist threat. Our only enemy in the coming elections is the racist within, who eats away at the social fabric and who threatens our brother and sister Britons with racist poison. There is no "white race" - for that is a misnomer - there is only the human race. I speak as a Catholic and it is time the churches took a strong lead against fascism and racism.
Rebel Saint said...
Could it possibly be that people are turning to them because they ... wait for it ... AGREE WITH THEM? That we AGREE that immigration is too lax, that we have capitulated too much to Islam, that we have debased our own culture & heritage.Says it all.
As has been said many times, these subjects are ignored by Lab, Con, LibDem etc so where to turn ?
Labour have done awful damage to the UK, especially England, who else addresses this ?
Let 'em speak, after all, they're no worse than the "Respect" party.
Its irreleant as their vote was collapsing in by elections in the weeks running up to the election in any event. Any fallout from expenses will favour UKIP, not them
They are appearing nowehere in the polls, and Predict 09 has their vote as going down in June
We are now in the last month of the Nazi BNP being around to bother us
If the BNP are no threat then there is even less reason for censorship since censorship is, as a matter of prnciple, wrong. At least in my opinion.
I would not be confident we are in the last months of the far more Nazi Lab/Lib/Con parties but there are signs.
"...I find it difficult to be in the same room as BNP politicians without feeling like having a shower." Really? Do you feel that way with members of the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers' Party or, the Black Police Officers' Association, I wonder?
This is the same supercilious smugness that infects the MSM and now, the MSB (Main Stream Bloggers). After June 4th, many of you who feel yourselves members of the holy orders, will realise that the people who vote for the British National Party are notable only for being ordinary British folk who would like to see a decent education for their children, law and order on the streets, respect for our historical institutions, and some common decency shown by elected representatives. Not too outlandish, surely?
However, it seems that the main stream parties have singularly failed in every respect to live up to their responsibilities.
It is average citizen who votes for the BNP on June 4th who feels like taking a shower after being in same room as some of Britain's political leaders.
I've never seen them interviewed, but I've looked at their web site. They have basically shifted onto the ground that Labour abandoned, so it is basically old Labour.
As far as I'm concerned all of our main political parties are socialist. The difference with the BNP is that they want to leave the EU and stop immigration.
Clearly in a democracy they should be allowed to express their opinion, obviously though that will sharpen up Nick Griffin.
I'm expecting Britain to undergo economic collapse before autumn. If that happens the BNP will probably benefit, but a lot of immigrants would leave then anyway.
'I find it difficult to be in the same room as BNP politicians without feeling like having a shower."
Really. When I read remarks like that, I remember the sleaziness, greed, corruption and most of all the utter hypocrisy of MPs, who whilst lecturing about morality guzzled at the trough of public money when they thought they could rip us off in secret, sold honours for cash and stripped us of our freedoms whilst lying to and deceiving us at every turn on the great matters of the day such as EU membership, mass immigration and so on.
Whatever may be said about the BNP politicians, they at least are not in it for the money and preferment. They at least do not go along with fashionable but immensely damaging opinion because it is easy and profitable to do so.
Nick Griffin is more a man of principle than is that very flexible fellow David Cameron, for example. Cameron's first boss at Tory Central Office said he had no noticeable beliefs at all.
Furthermore, the BNP views on race and immigation were the views of almost all those who fought the Nazis in WW11. You owe everything you are and have to that generation, whose views you and politicians like you despise, but who were and are superior morally and in virtually every other way.
You should remember that when you next insult the BNP and its supporters.
Opinion polls (eg Sky News)show that most people nowadays also agree with much of the BNP attitude to race and immigration, if not the party itself. If this is not widely known, it is because of the stranglehold on the media such as the BBC by the left-liberal political class.
And there are those who would strangle it still further. So much for freedom of expression in our 'democracy.' If it is not generally understood that allowing the BNP a platform is not a privilege to be doled out by its political opponents, it is their right, we are even further down the road to totalitariansim than ever.
And it is the BNP's opponents in this matter who reveal themsleves to be the real fascists in our society.
Anonymous said: "Clearly in a democracy they should be allowed to express their opinion... I'm expecting Britain to undergo economic collapse before autumn."
And there you have it: the politics of the hopeless, the politics of fear. The fear of collapse goes with the rise of the loony fascist right. It was ever thus. Thank you 'anonymous' for setting it out so briefly and clearly.
'I find it difficult to be in the same room as BNP politicians without feeling like having a shower."
That's just a disclaimer for his political masters, proves he's just another typical tory snob!
I will be reading BNP blogs from now on.
Good. Piss off then.
I find being in the same room with a socialist nauseating; that doesn't give me any right to gag them. Any more than I should be allowed to gag a communist (whose political doctrines are far more evil & nasty than the BNP's)
Only the left want to censor a left wing party (read their manifesto; they are left wing socialists)
Why ?
Why do the left wing ALWAYS want to shut up people who disagree with their position as self appointed moral judges ?
The only difference between the mainstream left wing parties & the BNP is their public stance on the treatment of minorities.
At least the BNP WANT to debate with us; the rest of the left wing do not tolerate dissent. As their continuous attempts to gag the BNP prove
I agree, I think they should be taken on in debate. If people are turning to them I believe its because they must feel they have no where else to go, thats a failure of the main parties that people feel like that.
Exposing them and defeating thier arguments is only part of what needs to be done.
gareth said
There is no "white race" - for that is a misnomer - there is only the human race.
someone needs to tell these people
gareth,i dont think they heard you.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519965,00.html
'A large number of their officials have convictions for offences such as assault or affray. That they are becoming an electoral consideration just shows how crap the main parties have been'.
When the BNP membership list was published on the Net, in the hope that it would be detrimental to the Party (It had the opposite effect because it showed that contrary to the myth put abroad by those of their opponents who comfort themselves with the idea that the BNP are subhuman thugs, the members were in fact a good cross-section of the decent working/lower middle classes with a fair sprinkling of the highly educated and professional) I recall that a hostile analysis of the list revealed that 30 people on it had criminal convictions.
This is in fact a proportition which is far lower than the population at large.
It is true that some of the officials of the party, including Griffin himself have convictions. However, given the thuggery of the party's opponents and the legal oppression of their views,this is hardly surprising.
The BNP is I should say almost indistinguishable in its policies, including immi gration and related matters and in its membership from patriotic Old Labour up until very recently, ie up to the point when Labour was being comprehensively hi- jacked by the class of 1968 neo-marxist middle-class revolutionaries.
'There is no "white race" - for that is a misnomer - there is only the human race'.
Why not 'there is no black race?' or 'There is no Chinese race?' Doesn't come so trippingly off the tongue , does it!!
'There is only the human race is just a piece of essentially meaningless leftist sloganising, like 'workers' of the world unite'
It is designed to obscure differences that exist in the world with a piece of universalising,thought dulling and suppressing whitewash.
There was/is a stream of leftist thought which tells you that there is no differnce between the sexes - this in spite of the experience of humanity since time began and a thousand studies that say otherwise. 'There is only the human race' is another of the same kind that spits in the face of every day experience.
In this case , however, scientific evidence to the contrary is suppressed in our 'liberal ' nirvana because those scientists who produce it are highly likely to lose their jobs, even if they are DNA Nobel prizewinners.
"There is no white race" is the normal sort of "leftist" Newspeak - redefine the meanings of words & suddenly thoughtcrimme becomes impossible.
By any traditional definition races do exist. One might as well say Labour, Conservatives & BNP do not exist because they afree on all sorts of things like the law of gravity & breathing being a good thing.
I submit that such dishonest Orwellianism is nearly as danferous as real Nazism & infinitely moreso than the BNP.
Incidentally may I point out that the Green movement has, by pushing the DDT ban alone, killed many more people than Hitler (this is only a small part of their crimes) & are far more fascist than the BNP. This doesn't seem to keep them off the state broadcaster or stop Cameron sucking up to them.
I'm of African parentage. I've read the BNP website and there are lots of things on that site that I wish were said by other parties. The one thing that lets BNP down is their tendency to make stupid comments like 'black British don't exist' and to suggest white people shouldn't marry people from other races. After the 7th of July 2005, they were the only party articulating what many of us felt. There is no genuine conservative party in this country. The elite appear to hate Britain. It really puzzles me. I went to school in Nigeria and I know more about Chaucer and Shakespeare and Cromwell than many of my peers educated in England. My parents weren't rich - I went to what you'd call a bog standard comprehensive in this country, yet I knew so much about English classical literature and history and culture. In the end the BNP doesn't pose such an electoral threat as they don't seem very intelligent. And people in this country would rather not be poor, as they have no economic answers that seem viable. So many threaten to vote for them but on the day, don't.
We can only pray UKIP becomes a proper professional party and that a new party emerges on the left. It's the only way to prevent us sliding into terminal decline culturally. I'm English and would rather not fill out 'ethnic monitoring' questionnaires. I live in a Christian country. I want this acknowledged by ALL politicians. I live in England. I want to see England's heritage celebrated openly everyday. I know lots of non Christian Asians. They're all as keen on England and English culture as I am. But the politicians would rather speak to 'community leaders' from Muslim Council of Britain and other such nutters.
AProlefrom1984
Bravo!
Neil Craig: Your rather angry response seems to indicate some kind of agenda. Sorry you are so upset. When I say there is no "white race" I mean there is no white race in the puerile way that this phrase is used politically. If I were to fill in a racial profiling form, I must fill in 'white' because there is no recognition of my actual ethnic parentage on the form. That is what I mean. For as long as people like you shout out slogans without recognising the genuine questions people have (and I'm not left wing, by the way), then you will be missing the point. The point is that we need to seek agreement on a workable democratic way forward in what is, obviously, a mess in which fascists will cash in.
Gareth we all have our agendas & I'm sorry if I upset you but language is the tool which politics is carried out with & I hate to see it being deliberately broken. Race is indeed a word with meaning & facts should be faced.
I think I have done my share of asking genuine questions & have railed regularly against the reduction of politics to slogans/soundbites.
I run a community web site which had a section for the local political parties. I today had an email voicing their concern if the BNP posted on there, I responded by saying it was intended for those that had been elected to the community council. I was then warned that this was illegal since the Conservatives have no councillors and I couldn't legally stop them from posting - but yet this same person didn't want the BNP posting there. Both are legitimate parties. I have now removed the politics section from the site. And the community I want to serve have to go elsewhere for information on local councillors.
Gareth,
You either have freedom of speech or you don't, it's not something you can be selective about.
It's the people who say otherwise that we should be afraid of. If they had a strong argument they wouldn't be afraid to take on the BNP in open public debate.
the government and media are speedily creating a totalitarian state in the UK
That is what Political correctness or rather cultural Marxism/fascism is really about.Going against open debate and reason
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