Demise of a country

BBC’s Question Time and BNP’s Nick Griffin: Stumbling Into The
Mainstream, Against A Wall Of Bias

By Sean Gabb

On Thursday night, October 22, Nick Griffin, the leader of the British
National Party (BNP) was invited by the BBC to appear on Question
Time. This is the most important political discussion programme in
Britain. Its format is typically a panel—Government ministers and
senior representatives of the main political parties—that takes
questions from an audience of the general public. It is watched every
week by millions, and it has considerable influence as a shaper and as
a mirror of public opinion.

Inviting Mr Griffin onto the panel was both acceptance that he and his
party must be recognised as part of the political spectrum within
Britain, and was a first-class opportunity for him to put his opinions
directly to the largest audience he has ever faced.

Now, in reviewing his performance, I must confess that I do not
support Griffin or his party. I am a libertarian, not a white
nationalist. If I am inclined to vote for any political party in
Britain, it is for the UK Independence Party, which campaigns
specifically for withdrawal from the European Union, and is generally
a sort of Conservative Party in exile.

This is not a disclaimer made out of fear that I shall somehow be
smeared myself as a white nationalist, but out of honesty. I will try
to be fair to Mr Griffin. Indeed, I will avoid commenting on his
opinions, and stay so far as I can to the technical aspects of his
performance.

Mr Griffin and many of his supporters have spent the time since the
broadcast claiming that the BBC showed an open and disgraceful bias
against Mr Griffin. They are right. There is no doubt that it was
intended that he should be treated unfairly. The other panellists were
Jack Straw, Minister of Justice, Sayeeda Warsi, a Conservative
politician, Chris Huhne, a senior Liberal Democrat, and Bonnie Greer,
a black American woman who has somehow been made a Trustee of the
British Museum. The programme was filmed in London, which is now
perhaps the most racially diverse city in Europe.

From the opening minutes, it was plain that this would not be—nor was
planned to be—a normal episode of Question Time. The other panellists
had conferred and brought along set speeches of denunciation, which
the Presenter, David Dimbleby, both allowed and encouraged. Indeed, he
joined in with hostile questions of his own.

It is unlikely that the audience had been fed questions to put. It was
hardly necessary, bearing in mind the demographic profile—quite unlike
Mr Griffin’s own electoral base. The questions were universally
hostile. So were most of the audience comments.

Rather than Question Time, this was an hour in which Nick Griffin was
put on trial before the nation, following the sort of process that a
Communist police state might have envied. It was all set up to be
grossly unfair.

I believe that Mr Griffin is planning a formal complaint to the BBC
about bias. Sadly, he is missing the point. Whatever unfairness was
meant, he was given the opportunity of a lifetime to do two
things—first, to show the world that he was not a sinister crank;
second, to tell the world directly and in brief what he was in
politics to achieve. Judged in terms of this opportunity, his
performance was an embarrassing failure.

He did make two points very well. The first was to defend his claim
that Islam was a “wicked and vicious” religion. This is a claim that,
astonishingly, got him into court a few years ago, and for which he
might, had he been found guilty, have gone to prison for seven years.
He explained himself with great authority, and the Moslems in the
audience were reduced to the defence made by every religious
enthusiast—that their holy book had been misquoted or misunderstood.

His second good point was to remind the world that Jack Straw might be
uttering sanctimonious platitudes about “fascism” and “Islamophobia”,
but was also a member of a government that had helped murder not far
off a million Iraqis in a war of military aggression.

But that was it. Otherwise, Griffin squirmed and fidgeted his way
through several questions and accusations that he could easily have
turned in his own favour.

The most important of these came when Mr Dimbleby accused him of
having denied the Holocaust. Griffin’s answer at first was that he had
never been convicted of Holocaust Denial. He then claimed that he had
changed his mind on the basis of some radio intercepts, and added that
he was unable to elaborate because of “European law”.

When Mr Straw pointed out that there was no law in this country
against denying any historical claim, and promised, as Minister of
Justice, to shield him against any extradition request from elsewhere
in the European Union, Griffin had no answer.

This came right at the beginning of the programme, and it told me
beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Griffin either had done nothing to
prepare himself for the ordeal, or had been prepared with crass
incompetence. Since I would not accept the post, it is no loss for me
that I am unlikely ever to be invited to advise him on handling the
media. But if I had been his adviser, I would have given him the
following response to the absolutely predicable question about the
Holocaust:

“I came into the nationalist movement thirty five years ago. I was
drawn in because I believed that it answered the question of why this
country had been dragged into the sewer. I still believe broadly in
that answer. However, I have now realised that how much falsehood is
mingled in with that truth. I denied the holocaust without examination
as part of a package. I have now looked at the evidence and have
changed my mind. You can think what you like of me. But I bet I’m the
only politician you have seen here in a long time who admits to having
looked at facts and changed his mind on their basis.”

He could then have brought in the point he made elsewhere in the
programme—his support for Israel. I suspect this would have shut down
that whole line of attack. Someone might have accused him of lying
about his present beliefs. But that is always a weak argument.

The second idiotic answer came near the end of the programme. Some
popular singer had recently been found dead in a Spanish hotel
bedroom—I understand it was drink or drugs. Some journalist had then
written an article for The Daily Mail, claiming that this was proof
that the homosexual lifestyle was morally corrupt.

Everyone on the panel—as is required—joined in the condemnations of
the journalist. Mr Griffin began in the same tone, and then announced
that many people in this country found something “creepy” in the sight
of two men kissing.

Of course, this is probably correct. It is not a feeling shared by the
liberal establishment—and I am, for what it may be worth, a
semi-detached member of that establishment. But not everyone shares
our state of “enlightenment”. Nevertheless, my mouth fell open at what
Mr Griffin said.

Again, had I been advising him, this is what he might have said:

“I share the condemnation of this article. I uphold the right of The
Daily Mail to publish it, but despise the idea of attacking the dead.

“But I would say that, wouldn’t I? After all, I know all about The
Daily Mail’s idea of fairness. If many of the people here tonight
think I am the most evil man alive in Britain, it is probably because
of some smear against me published in that ‘newspaper’.”

He could then have joined to this the subsequent point he made: that
BNP policy was to leave people alone in their private actions, but to
forbid the preaching of homosexuality to schoolchildren.

Griffin ended by adding that he had been responsible for moving BNP
policy to this from a promise to make all homosexual relations illegal
again.

By then, however, the harm was done. All the predictable condemnations
were washing over him even as he was insisting on his own tolerance.
He could have turned his answer to an attack on one of his enemies and
flattened claims that he was a sexual bigot. He did not.

Though I am not a supporter of Mr Griffin’s party, I do have much
personal sympathy for him. Now that he has dropped National Socialism,
he is normally an effective and indeed eloquent spokesman for millions
of people in this country who feel, quite rightly, that they have been
deliberately ground into the dirt by both Conservative and Labour
Governments.

For being this voice, Griffin has faced the sort of persecution I
would once not have thought possible in England. He has been smeared.
He has been physically attacked. It was only because a jury disagreed
with the State that he was not sent to prison for saying about Islam
what may or may not be true, but that had always so far been classed
as fair comment. And still he continues to state his opinions. For
this, he deserves both sympathy and admiration.

But this does not cancel the fact that he was presented with an
enviable opportunity by the BBC and failed to take advantage of it.

It may be that the sheer awfulness of his performance will encourage
the BBC to invite him back. After all, the BBC is the public relations
wing of the Establishment, and its job is to destroy people like Mr
Griffin. It may now think that another few performances like this will
see off the whole BNP threat.

Perhaps it would. I have no doubt there are people in the north of
England who would vote BNP even had Mr Griffin called for the
slaughter of the first born. But he is unlikely to gather in many
middle class votes on account of His Question Time appearance.

On the other hand, he might do better on his next airing. Everyone has
the occasional bad night, and he almost certainly has the ability to
do better.

In closing, I will simply repeat what I have said in my other articles
about the BNP. This is that, while the party is no longer national
socialist in any meaningful sense, it is far from being a good vehicle
for the opinions that it now claims to hold.

This is not because of any possibility that its leaders are hoping to
lie their way into power, and then pull off the mask of
reasonableness. It is simply because of what its leaders used to be
and used to say. Any party that wants to roll back the Politically
Correct police state now imposed on my country will face inevitable
demonization. The BNP is just too ideal a target for demonization.

However much he may have brought it on himself, Mr Griffin was treated
unfairly by the BBC.

On the other hand, anything that depresses his chances of replacing
the Conservatives after their inevitable future collapse, increases
the chance that their replacement will be UKIP—for all its faults a
more trustworthy and more electable choice.

Copyright© Samantha M Jones 2008

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nw62YHlJos&feature=related

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