Question Time conundrum

Lance Grundy

The BBC shot their "right-wing" bolt with you last night.

What they'll do about Griffin is anyone's guess. Perhaps they can introduce him as "very right-wing" or "very, very right-wing" or "extreme right-wing" or, maybe, "even more right-wing than Fraser Nelson". Who knows?

Jupiter

Good stuff on Question Time last night Nelson.

jenny

This is another reason you fuel support for the bnp, you are just the same as the liberal elite screaming "racist" "skin head thug" this don't do you people no favours what so ever ! The fact is you are scared the BNP expose you for what you are, corrupt, thieving money makers. Yes there are some MP's who are patriotic and love there country but the majority of mp's are in the game for the money and power !

The only way to take on the BNP is to debate, be honest, drop the smears and play the democratic process. BNP will not stop growing until issues are addressed !

Mazza1230

@FN "It is fashionable to claim that the media spotlight will expose Nick Griffin for the racist thug that he is, and that Question Time will be the end of him. Anyone making this argument has no experience of the BNP or understanding of its support."

There are clearly a sgnificant minority of voters who have backed the BNP.

The key to neutralising the BNP is quite simple, the other Parties must address the ISSUES which have prompted voters to act in this way.

Those panelists who are sharing a platform with Nick Griffin will just have to be at the Top of their Game.

Wight Tory

What odds Griffin appearing in Manchester? The BBC bias would on the face of it would love to spoil the Conservative parade, if, as we hope they have a week worth talking about. IIRC on QT last night, the panel wasn't finalised.

I agree with your assessment on the BNP, they do look for the small, less obvious flaws to latch onto and build a case (no matter how disgraceful) to the people that "traditional values" parties ignore/dismiss.

Fraser Nelson

Yes, Lance, I noticed that. I look forward to someone being introduced as being from "the left-wing Guardian". Nicky Campbell once did that to Guido and he replied "it's nice to be on the left-wing BBC". perhaps next time.....

DavidDP

"Nick Griffin is not a stupid man"

It's hard to reconcile that with his views on race and the holocaust.....but I know what you mean.

Any debater should make sure they have a dossier of his more outre statements to confront him with.

Hague would be good for the Tories. Baroness Warsi would be fun too, although she's not got the debating skills.

DavidDP

"There are clearly a sgnificant minority of voters who have backed the BNP"

Not really. Their support at the Euros was down on last time, it's just Labour's support didn't turn out. On equivalent turnout numbers, they'd never have got the seats.

Frank P

The 'non-politico' spot? Bwaaahahahahaha.

Oh Dearie me! Fraser! Perhaps when the other 'politicos' remember which is your surname and which is your given name, you'll consider yourself part of the QT Politicos' Club. Keep on truckin'; you do try so hard.

However, giving the BNP yet another yard of footage, isn't the way to dissipate their momentum. Ignore the cranky buggers! Moreover how can the BNP be worse than the current incumbents of Drowning Street; where is the post about today's DTel amplification of the expenses scandal and the new ghosted book of the whistle-blower. Bit slow on the uptake aren't we?

And one appearance on QT hardly qualifies you to advise the Dimbleby dynasty on how to run their fiefdom, particularly vis-vis the Bloody Nuisance Prickery. I'll bet DD and his chums are having a meeting of the RAC (rigged audience committee) right now.

Jeremy Walton

Hi Fraser,

With sincere respect, could you answer this question please?

What is it the establishment thinks the BNP would do, if it were to gain majority representation?

By that i mean; how would they effect the social set up of the UK, the country's international relations, the ethnic patchwork that is 21st century Britain and the big business culture of Westminster in your (the mainstream establishments) eyes?

You don't like the BNP but you never explain why.

Vile, abhorrent, racist. They are just tags- they're only names. It means nothing now to anyone.

What's the end product that your people are trying to stop?

From a working class perspective i could personally try to tell you why (a lot) of Northern Towns are turning to the BNP, as an opinion- but there is now an absolutely massive gulf between how you (the mainstream) 'percieve' things and how we 'percieve' things.

*We (the working class) don't know what 'your' thinking.*

We just see a Westminster establishment that is failing everywhere, whilst becoming weaker and weaker to the huge detriment of our kids futures.

Simon Stephenson

"Nick Griffin is not a stupid man. He is a hugely talented debater and got to where he is by being mentally agile. He specialises in sounding reasonable, and portraying his opponents as extremists."

In doing this, has he actually done anything different from what the centralist politicians have been doing for the last 15-20 years? The labelling of all contrary views as "extremist" is part and parcel of every ambitious politician's armoury, and the idea that maybe the pursuit of power is less important than the pursuit of truth doesn't seem to figure very much in modern thinking.

The danger in modern politics is not that parties such as the BNP will gain kudos through dishonest campaigning, but that mainstream parties offer so little choice, so little gravitas, so little hope, that they have had to normalise deceit and misrepresentation just so as to maintain an air of relevance. Thereby, of course, opening up dishonesty as an acceptable political tactic.

Let's have some proper, reasoned comment about why the BNP is bad for this country, rather than assuming that Joe Public is only capable of responding to embroidered scare stories and mud-slinging.

paul holdstock

fraser,
if you recall, in doncaster, where labour traditionally never needed to count the votes, just weigh them.
the electorate voted for a mayor from the english nationalists, who are pretty much the bnp with charm.
this is proof, that a vast number of white, working class voters, have abandoned labour, for right wing candidates.
much as in germany, spain, italy in the 1930's
as long as mainstream parties ignore the publics' views on immigration,
the far right will flourish.
if it can already happen in a previously staunch labour town, it can,and will, happen anywhere.

Simon Stephenson

DavidDP : 6.32pm

Love them or hate them, the BNP received over 943,000 votes in the last Euro elections,and I don't think you can reasonably argue that this isn't a "significant minority of voters".

David Lindsay

There is a Facebook group to put me on Question Time against Griffin, because "everyone else will have said no". Not yet a week old, it has over 60 members, at least one of whom is a well-known BNP activist here in the North East. (They have alredy promised publicly to contest this seat if I do.)

Even at the last European Elections, the BNP vote was not very large absolutely or as a percentage of the eligible vote. In the latter case, it was about as many people of that mind as there are in any comparable country, and would come as no surprise to anyone. It was only much larger than before *as a percentage of the votes cast*.

This is the error at the heart of the smug assumption that the BNP could never win a Westminster seat: being the first past the post does not mean taking more than fifty per cent of the eligible vote, but only having the single largest share of the votes cast.

The old Monday Club and Alf Garnett constituencies now matter simply because they still vote whereas all sorts of other people, having no one to vote for, don’t. They can therefore maintain a fairly major party of their own, rather than just having to vote Tory if there was no NF candidate or when (especially in Westminster elections) they felt it pointless to vote NF, in either event rendering them invisible within the larger Tory bloc.

But this only applies while several vastly larger constituencies are disenfranchised.

So let’s re-enfranchise them.

David Ossitt

Fraser Nelson.

My wife and I thought that you were excellent on Question Time last night; despite the fact that the left wing fool of a chairman kept on trying to disconcert you by pretending not to know which was your Christian or surname.

I am a Tory and I believe in the Norman Tebbit kind of conservatism but and it is a big but, I do not like all of the nasty name calling and vilification of the BNP.

Whilst ever we have a government who lies, cheats, condones criminal acts of ministers and breaks manifesto promises and who totally disregard the hopes aspirations and wishes of the people, we will always have the need for an extreme left wing groups such as the BNP.

The BNP attract the votes of the disgruntled labour voter.

TGF UKIP

Yes, of course, the BBC will ensure there is an "ethnic" on the panel to try and discomfort Griffin and of course it won't work.

By far and away the best Tory to face Griffin is the one the Clique hate the most - the splendid Lord Tebbit. For one thing he'll be lying in wait to shred either Dimbleby or any of the othe lefties on the panel to label the BNP as right wing, something which all you Westminster lot do as rotuine, Fraser. Lord T, because he's also more acute will rightly enumerate all the reasons why they should be described for being exactly what they are - a LEFT WING nationalist party.

The one thing I am looking forwward to, though, is Griffin taking none of the usual BBC shit, which, once again, Fraser, all you lot do as routine. Doubtless though, even now, despite your elevation you still "need" the appearance money.

Ah those were the days when proper conservatives like Nigel Lawson and Norman Tebbit would simply dismiss Today creeps with "Well we all know this is a Labour Party programme."

Chuck Unsworth

I watched QT with a mixture of amusement and incredulity. Harman was absolutely unconvincing. Hezza was fun - but I think he's losing it a bit. Digby Jones was just too long-winded, by the time he got to the point we'd forgotten what the question was (and so, clearly, had he). You did well, but you could have easily taken Harman to pieces on a couple of occasions. Still, a fun programme.

Oh and who was that Lib Dem chap?

Hawkeye

No one seems to have really grasped the root of the problem here. If the electorate vote FOR the BNP and give them a mandate, then how can that be wrong? Surely the whole point of elections is to elect whoever you want. The electorate cannot be wrong unless you want to emulate the late Eric Hoeneker in East Germany who was informed (after his electoral defeat) that "We have been defeated - we need new policies" and replied "The policies are fine - we need a new electorate"

But that's socialists for you.

old fogey

Could I intoduce a note of dissent here ? I would like to say, though with some diffidence and even regret, that I find myself in agreement with the BNP and its arguments over Islam. I am rather tired of the left wing attempts to equate anti Islamic sentiments with racism--though to get through to them is almost impossible. Yet I am also aware of the probability that the BNP is emphasing its anti Islamic stance because it knows that the "cause" of being anti coloured is futile, indeed a lost cause. But for those. like me ,who regard the spread of Islam in Europe the greatest problem that our societies face, and who are in despair at the inability of the authorities to deal with it--indeed even to acknowledge it--what are the options.

strapworld

Fraser, Next time you are on this programme just keep calling Dimbleby, Jonathon!!

My wife and me thought you and Lord Heseltine were very good. Laws was pathetic. Jones was trying desperately to show how balanced he was and Harman was Harman!

Call me Infidel

You were excellent on QT last night. Tarzan did pretty well too. The Harperson woman should be on the Nick Griffin QT show. It would be hilarious as she would just babble on about what a wicked racist he is. However I fear that they are more likely to be "no shows" and you will end up with empty seats.

James J

The weakness our political class has against the BNP is that running through it is a belief that no “Normal” person can be British and a Nationalist. They can accept French, Scots, Israeli, Welsh or Irish as capable of being reasonable and nationalist but not British or worse English.
This view is not shared by the majority of the electorate.

In2minds

Nick Griffin, why all the fuss? He's a politician, he's not here to steal the spoons, calm down. And why can't you trust the voter to make up their own minds AFTER they've heard him speak? This is crazy, grow up.

Jim

The BNP is the only party that rejects adding the bankers debts onto the ordinary taxpayer, if Griffen pushes that point he should do well. Despite the BNP's mad socialist policies to nationalize everything, tackling the basic unfairness of our debt problem could be a big winner.

Suki

So because all the main parties are so useless they don't want to deal with the issues that most concern the public, the public will get behind Lib, Lab and Con and some politico as they all attack the BNP.

Go figure.

Boudicca

Good peformance yesterday Fraser. But if you are invited on QT again, every time Dimbleby calls you Nelson, call him Richard or Johnathan. It annoys him immensely.

Simon Stephenson

paul holdstock : 6.51pm

"this is proof, that a vast number of white, working class voters, have abandoned labour, for right wing candidates."

The BNP aren't right-wing. They're left-wing, and as Labour has moved more and more towards the centre, tearing up its representation of the white working-class, so this part of the electorate has transferred its allegiance from the leftist mainstream party that has abandoned it, to the leftist party that makes the most noise about looking after its interests.

The BNP is no more right-wing than Sheffield Wednesday is a bank holiday.

Peter From Maidstone

The problem is not and has never been the BNP. It seems that Fraser and all of the Metropolitan politico-class seem to think that if Griffin can be bested then everything will be back to normal. You are all ignoring the fact that ordinary non-racist people from all walks of life and all classes and educational backgrounds are deeply concerned about the levels of immigration in this country, about a lack of border controls, about gang warfare and about the dangers of Islamification and the loss of our English identity. While these issues are left unaddressed by the Tories and Labour then ordinary people will look elsewhere. Why is the Spectator attacking the BNP for answering the questions that a majority of British people are asking? Why not try and get the Conservatives to answer the questions? That would be a better solution.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

For the record, the BNP are not "right wing" but very much of the Left.

St Bruno

Why the Report this Comment tag?

I suppose talking about the BNP could offend, could be a racist act just talking about them, could be one of the ignore the BNP and it will go away type foolishness. Lets face it the IRA are still with us but called Dissident Republicans, the suicide bombers are still killing our troops under the name of Insurgents, insurgents from where?

The BNP is here to stay! The people who voted BNP in the last MEP election did so IMHO from a sense of utter hopelessness and bitter resentment at the way Britain and the British white way of life is being changed by New-Labour and condoned by a witless Tory party.

Putting Nick Griffin on Question Time will make not a jot of difference to the way the BNP will gain votes. The BBC Oxford elite will treat him as one of their usual ouks.

Vulture

What is fascinating about your post, Fraser, is that its all about what tactics the other panellists should use to do the dastardly Griffin down. Not once do you engage with what the guy is actually saying or proposing. You like the discredited other parties, just thream 'rathist!' and move on. Could it possibly be that, in the darkest recesses of your heart you suspect that what old Nick is saying may have more than a grain of truth?

daniel maris

I think Peter from Maidstone has got it basically right. If we had a responsive democracy then these issues that concern voters would get properly addressed (or would have done years ago when they were more easily addressed).

In terms of mass immigration we are not at the point where Labour actually thrives off it and the Tories feel they cannot address it without alienating a significant proportion of the electorate in marginal constituencies.

As for the BNP it has always been my view we should have something like the Office for Protection of the Constitution in Germany which can identify anti-democratic parties and prevent them taking part in the democratic process (after due process of course). If they want their Nazism, let them fight for it on the street - they believe in survival of the fittest after all. We should not let totalitarians take part in the democratic process.

Jeremy

Fraser, I always miss your television appearances because I never hear about them until after you've been on. So I've got no idea what you sound like or what you look like in motion, so to speak. Or in three-quarters profile, for that matter. I imagine that you have a Scottish lilt (if not actually a kilt). And although in your head'n'shoulders shots you look like a piece of Greek sculpture, one often finds that in reality (or on the telly) people are far less perfect than that. I also don't like Question Time; although I might be inclined to tune in if I knew that you were going to be on (just to solve the mystery), and I would definitely watch it if Nick Griffin was going to be on. Why? Because that could make for very dramatic television, that's why.

Paul Dobson

Is Nelson drunk or just mad. The mystery is that the BNP aren't in power. It's rare to find anyone in England (who isn't from Poland or the Third World) who, after the usual look over the sholder, doesn't agree with them. Big changes are afoot and it won't be nice.

biggestaspidistra

If you want to know why the BNP have been successful visit Oldham. Sort that mess out and the electorate would see no need for a BNP.

Dave John

How about you, Frazer, offering your sevices to QT, to take on Mr. Griffin. Do you think you could handle it?

Jeremy Walton

Jeremy;

Fraser is at the top of his game, as he proved that on the night of the Euro elections. He efficiently battered those liberal-left clowns that were plonked in front of him throughout the night back then. (as an opinion)

I think (again sincerely) if the BNP had actually recieved a few thousand less votes in Yorkshire / Lancashire and Nick Griffin / Andrew Brons hadn't been elected, then Fraser's pretty full on article regarding the BNP etc in the Spectator would have bought the lad a lot more than he's achieved right now- maybe.

The thing is, no matter how good you are;

'if it's not raining, then it's not trainng'

Fraser. How can you understand what is going down here?

How can Cameron, Brown, Clegg or the rest of you lot even come near to what people really think, this whilst at the behest of all the people that would knacker your party's funding at the hang up of a phone call?

Sat in the middle of that engineered, liberal left arena, e.g. 'Question Time' is an illusion. That illusion is that the audience is a cross section of UK society.

Let's be fair;

It is made up of the Suburban lower middle class, political student types and and the minority of people who can be arsed to apply to get onto 'BBC Question time'.

I think the elite are setting themselves up for a fall here.

Lots of things are rapidly changing maybe.

David Lindsay

If the BNP really is the left-wing party claimed by some, then funny how it endorsed Boris Johnson. Funny how Nick Griffin’s father is an ex-Tory councillor who gave his phone number as the Welsh contact number for IDS’s Leadership campaign (not that I blame IDS - I rather like his views on Europe, social justice, and the expendability of the Tories) and then answered it with the words “British National Party”. Funny how, of the main parties, only Tories have ever been found to be BNP members on the side. Funny how a lot of things.

Not least the fact that its vote was formerly either Monday Club Tory (NF if they could get it and could see any point) or Alf Garnett Tory (NF if they could get it and could see any point). Or the fact that I have to tell readers on The American Conservative’s website not to fall for its charms, but instead to look up Peter Hitchsn on the subject, just as he himself regularly has to deal with comments on his blog from people who wrongly see themselves as both its supporters and his.

Peter

The BNP are NOT right wing! They ARE left-wing!
Even more socialist than Labour? Nationalise everything, British jobs for British workers,Everything run from central government.
Maybe we should look closer at what they actually stand for & put to one side the racist rants for a second..

Laura

Is there a middle way out of all this? Why not copy the Australian and American ideas of setting aside land for Native Indians and Aborigines by setting aside places for native whites only?

Because, of course, any such venture would be so oversubscribed there would be riots among those who couldn't get in. So that's that in the bin.

Nick Griffin & Co don't need to put in any effort to get the votes the BNP are collecting.

The BNP's entire momentum comes from the mainstream political parties' attitude toward immigration and from their media lapdogs.

Having sold us all down the river, the politicians and the commentariat now have the gall (here and elsewhere) add insult to injury by expecting the public to rush to support them as they attack the BNP.

Now that the immigration horse has bolted, blaming the BNP for people's anger only makes them have more sympathy for the BNP.

This is a timebomb made by our political and media elites. The fact that it’s now going off in their faces, it’s no one’s fault but their own. Who will ever trust any of them on immigration ever again?

Snowman

Scanning through the readers’ comments in any of the newspaper blogs from the Guardian to the Mail responding to the columnists on issues such as immigration, law and order, education, the EU, and comparing them with the BNP policies, I’m amazed that the party hasn’t got if not hundreds than at least tens of MPs. What’s been holding the voters back is the fear of being branded racists. That’s why everyone on the panel will shriek ‘racist’ whatever Griffin may say, you’ll see. If any of the major parties were to debate actual policies properly, the viewers cannot but identify more with the BNP than any of the major parties. It’s a sad reflection on both the Tories and Labour that they've completely lost touch with the mood of the country.

Herbert Thornton

Fraser Nelson writes -

"Westminster politicians don’t know how to debate the BNP. Mostly, they shout ‘racist’ down a microphone - and that’s as close as they get. It's precisely the shrilness (sic) of this tactic which drives BNP support."

Yet Fraser, by referrring to Nick Griffin as " the racist thug that he is", attempts the same sort of tactic.

However, assuming that it too will help bring more support to the BNP, it seems to me to be a fortuitous phenomenon.

Roy

Every adverse comment made in the list regarding Nick Griffin could represent many politicians in the main stream Westminster line-up. In fact they have more to answer for than Nick Griffin, whose faults are only hearsay and frightened scaremongering. It is the old political line-up that has done the dirty on the British people. It is a scandal that for the ordinary citizen of these Fair Isles finding themselves disenfranchised, yet political writers have the cheek to knock back someone who at least recognizers this and points the way for an answer, with a suitable respect for the original long time inhabitants.

Dixon

Mr Nelson, you have just produced a fine summary of reasons why I should vote for the BNP. I wont be. I have never voted in my life. But, according to your summary: an intelligent, mentally agile leader with well thought out policies in all areas, largely about independence from Europe, standing athwart the mindless march of "anti-NAZI" thugs and trust-fund fascists...my, you have made a convincing case for the BNP. It is very temting, put as you have it here.

w smith

The BNP is defiantly a racist party...dedicated to the British nation and our homeland survival. If this single fact is not understood and made clear then no debate or argument on QT will be of significance to the thinking British people. Furthermore the program itself might decline to merely a soap opera rather than a bastion of democratic communication. Hopefully this epochal event might be an opportunity for DD and the BBC to blow the cobwebs off our biased,closed shop,journalistic media hacks and the establishmentarian elitists.

TomTom

It is Labour that has repeatedly wrecked the British economy and built a Quasi-Police State and which removed the Primary Purpose Rule on Immigration in 1997.

The BNP is hardly in a position to do anything like the damage former members of the Communist Party like Straw, Clarke, Mandelson have done to this country and yet we see the Establishment unite against outsiders whenever their franchise on power is threatened.

There is almost a Common Purpose to Labour, LibDem, Conservative political machines - almost as if they are ciphers for the same backers

TrevorsDen

what sort of audience will the bbc put up for griffin?

Surreywelsh

There are very few people who can face down Griffin with authority. So many of our politicians have been exposed as greedy opportunists, as I'm sure Griffin will point out. As for your suggestion of Shami Chakrabati, whoever voted for her? Who do liberty represent? (her wealthy human rights lawyer husband?)Another point Griffin, with his million votes and rising, will undoubtedly make.

Geoff Miller

Tom Tom has it right.

Is there any "mainstream" party that cares about the British people? No - Labour is funded by Trade Unions and the Tories by big business.

Whatever happened to party's funded entirely by the people? - the only one I know is the BNP.

Whatever happened to party's that believed in representative democracy? Only the BNP addresses peoples concerns on mass immigration, over population, food, energy and military security, islamofascism and the continuation of the British people as a race/culture.

Stop all business/trade union/"community organisation" and lobbyist funding of political party's and make them get their funding directly from the electorate by giving the electorate what they want. No State funding - ever.

Thats the only way to defeat the BNP - by giving the British people their country, and their democracy, back.

David Skitmore

Fraser!!hope you read some of these comments do you get the picture English politics is no longer just about Labour and the Tories the poltical-left have open up pandora's box of political opportunities a box the left will find impossible to close now it's open.......

john mckay

The public are quite rightly digusted with
our current government, we have become the most lied to people on the face of the earth.
The BNP by comparison are a refreshing change in politics; what you see is what you get.
The liberal elite are now seen for what they are; self serving, deceitfull with an eye for the main chance.
Harriet Harman with her conviction of supremacy, is Nick Griffin's greatest
asset.

Minnie Ovens

you are just the same as the liberal elite screaming "racist" "skin head thug" this don't do you people no favours what so ever ! The fact is you are scared the BNP expose you for what you are, corrupt, thieving money makers

Gosh! So glad we have you, Jenny, with your clinical, even handed insight on these matters.

John

The BNP name calling racist fascist thugs now represents a creaking door by the politicians who are terrified of being exposed and loosing their luxurious positions

The BNP have never sent our people to the third world colonies or over the top into foreign fields to be slaughtered or into illegal wars

It wasn’t the BNP who sent our children down the mines or up chimneys

They actually have never harmed anyone, perhaps some British traitors pride

There is nothing wrong in putting your own people first, for this is what them in Westminster fail to do

Minnie Ovens

TrevorsDen
September 26th, 2009 9:23am Report this comment

what sort of audience will the bbc put up for griffin?

Interesting point.

Rhodaradamus

My prediction is that it will not happen, one way or another. Either nobody will take him on, or some sort of crowd disturbance will take place to wreck any debate.

The BBC is not about to let him have a platform to say something as off-message as BNP policies.

TGF UKIP

Fraser, 50 comments registered up to 10.43am Saturday. Completely in line with large number that are made each and every time you or any of your hacks put up a post featuring the BNP inevitably accompanied on each and every occasion by your obligatory contemptuous "racist thug" sort of epithet.

On QT much mention as usual of "the disconnect between the governed and the governing" but I suggest you and the rest of the London villagers, with your "racist thug" knee jerks, would do well to ponder on the disconnect between you and most of the rest of us as reflected in many of the posts above.

Living in your multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Tower of Babel no doubt nationalism is completely alien to you, not so, though, I'm pleased to say among the still largely nationalist provincials.

Small wonder that Norman Tebbit has such contempt for your Mekon/Cameron Tory Party.

Huw Thornton

Congratulations, Fraser, this is the best article I've seen yet on the implications of having the BNP on Question Time.

Cllr Chris Cooke

Lot of sense in this article - until the last line - quote - "This will discomfit Griffin – he’s use to talking to white people about brown people."

Griffin is more than used to taking to ethnic groups and politicians - an amazing number of whom even back BNPO policies. Griffin will relish the opportunity of talking to a "brown" person on Question Time - because it will show that he treats ethnics with charm, courtesy and reasonableness. It is not a person's colour but the policy (lack of policy??) of mass immigration and the effects of the resultant culture shock (for want of a better term) on Britain that is the crucial issue.

Griffin will reserve his most stinging attacks for the hated white politicians. "Bring them on" will be his confident thought!

Frankly I think whatever way they play it the politicians are in for a pasting. Although my bet's on those taxpayer financed U.A.F. bully-boys smashing up the event beforehand!

Verity

Paul Holdstock, listen very carefully, for I will say zeez only wance, the BNP is not right wing. It is far left. Hitler's gang were not right wing. The Nazis were far left. (A clue is in the name of their party, The National Socialist Workers Party.

What on earth are you doing commenting on a political site when you don't know your political left from your right?

I am far right. I believe unfettered private enterprise, the right to keep most of what you have earned through very low taxation and low government spending, the right to educate your children as you see fit, paying and equipping the military properly. I believe the police are there to serve the public and that they have no political master except the taxpayer. I believe most things should be privatised. I believe we should adopt the French method - customer choice and the money following the customer - health service and get rid of the Fascist NHS. I believe we should wipe the socialists' (that is, the far left like Tony Blair, Harriet Harmon, Gordon Brown, et al) 3,300 new laws right off the books with one stroke of the pen. That is far right. None of this includes the BNP or Nick Griffin, although as far as the far left goes, I have far more respect for Nick Griffin than I do for Tony Blair, Gordon Brown or any of those Fascist sleaze bags currently picking Britain apart.

Bob

The problem is that otherwise intelligent people will pass off Muslim bashing tabloid fairy tales, such as Muslims having people arrested for mentioning Christianity, as gospel truth.

It is this sort of vicious mischief-making we should worry about, not the BNP who come along after the fact.

MikeF

Re your point 3, Griffin will simply point out that the more or less official doctrine of multi-culturalism spawns multitudes of little, ethnically-defined subgroups - Black Police Association etc, etc - provided, of course, that the ethnicities involved are those of minorities. He will then point out the hypocrisy by which the people who support this sort of development label as 'racist' anything that is designed to be exclusively 'white' - even if it is.

That is the key difference between now and the days of Mosley's Blackshirts. Sure there was lots of 'diversity' then - but it was the natural result of local and regional particularisms. It was not fostered at an offical level on the basis of ethnicity. As long as 'multi-culturalism' and its associated 'anti-racism' - a belief system that needs racism to exist and will therefore invent it where it doesn't if necessary - are official policy then the BNP will exist. When they are replaced by an emphasis on shared values irrespective of race and ethnicity the BNP will fade to nothing.

John Thomas

Remember: 1) the BNP were given success by the arrogant Establishment (that means Labour/"liberal", mainly), ignoring and despising ordinary working-class English people and their concerns (the BNP don't win seats in Tory seats/middle England). 2) as suggested by commenters here, the BNP will continue to grow until those concerns are addressed (and never when the Establishment confine their responses to demonising the BNP and shouting "Racist!" 3) The people who have the power in the country are strong supporters of such things as the abortion holocaust, destrcution of marriage/family/childhood etc., which are as evil as anything the BNP are likely to do, if they should gain power.

Nicholas

Scary comments but I think the devalueing of both the word and concept 'racism' deserve exploration and debate. The word (and concept) now seem to generate an automatic emotive response even though the parameters of its meaning have been expanded to include national pride and xenophobia. If immigration and its impact on British communities cannot be debated without the slur of racism being invoked how can we even begin to argue for preserving a distinction in British identity and culture? That is one of Labour's many mixed messages.

One of the problems has been that the argument put forward by those who say that Britain has in the past successfully assimilated many waves of immigrants (true) also undermines the government's current approach of introducing coercive legislation against expressions of racial and religious antipathy. Actually I think that approach is foolish and has led to increased racial and religious tension. Labour's insistence on multi-culturalism, enfoced diversity and "positive" discrimination in favour of ethnic minorities has bred resentment and a feeling of being treated unfairly amongst indigenous whites. Societies evolve they are not engineered but this is lost on Labour's numpties and so we have to deal with the unintended consequences of their incompetent immigration policies and their coercive, manipulative legislation which together with the omnipresent influence of Political Correctness suppress honest debate.

In short Labour are wholly responsible for an enormous mess and a growing problem which will soon become a crisis. Focussing hatred against the BNP with ridiculous epithets (New Labour also have discriminatory and fascist tendencies aplenty) is pointless. What we need is mature debate where those who seek to suppress freedom of speech by violence (completely contrary to centuries of British law and tradition) should be dealt with swiftly and effectively by the police. A partisan police force which hopelessly attempts to enforce laws in favour of the ruling regime's political ideology will inevitably make matters worse. People don't like being discriminated against or treated unfairly - whatever race, colour or religion they are. The way Labour's unnecessary laws are being enforced discredits and undermines the benefits of racial and religious tolerance and harmony. It is ridiculous and counterproductive to attack hatred and prejudice with more hatred and prejudice - or badly conceived, worse implemented coercive laws.

New Labour have done more to undermine racial and religious tolerance and to aggravate racial and religious tensions than the BNP ever will. It is time their policies were put under the spotlight, even by those ethnic minorities who believe themselves to be protected by them. Only by honesty in the debate and by reacting firmly against violence - whichever side it comes from - will we get anywhere with this.

mouse1

I dislike Griffin and loathe his nationalist, socialist views, but it's stretching the truth a little to claim he's more of a threat to the life and liberties of this country than, say, Gordon Brown or the European Commission.

Rhoda Klapp

Verity, I like your manifesto. I wonder what parts of it a current tory politician would dare to agree with.

Simon Stephenson

Nicholas : 4.36pm

Very good comment, as was your earlier one.

You write:-

"Societies evolve they are not engineered but this is lost on Labour's numpties"

but I think you should extend numptydom to include the whole of the Big State authoritarian centre - to include, of course, all 3 main parties. This is where the fault really lies, in the assumption by the political class that Joe Public wants maximumalist national government. He doesn't, he wants the government to deal with things where there is an obvious advantage in national policy, to do this at the very best value-for-money, and to butt out of everything else.

The first major party to realise this and to commit to implementing policy accordingly, will guarantee being elected for the next 20 years.

hadrian

The rise n the BNP voteat heart is a spiritual/religious problem. As this country's historic Reformed Christianity recedes and is ever more denigrated, so too does our alertness against totalitarian utopianism, be it of the 'left' or 'right' and so messianic, raw power politics gets its foothold. Those who believe in man's natural total depravity will not be deceived by totalitarian promises.
The BNP is a stench of spiritual declension and indicates the low state of our country's once great civilising, restraining influence.

Peter Phillips

Cllr Chris Cooke says:

'Although my bet's on those taxpayer- financed U.A.F. bully-boys smashing up the event beforehand!'

That's exactly what I think will happen, and the police will do nothing to stop them nor will any of them be arrested or prosecuted. The UAF, and its sidekick Searchlight, are no different from Hitler's Brownshirts, or the numerous state-sponsored terrorising equivalents of the former communist regimes of eastern Europe.

But remember, along with many Labour MPs, DAVID CAMERON is signed up supporter of Searchlight. So much for HIS democratic credentials.

As for the 'it's left-wing/right-wing' debate about the BNP, it's actually a sensible mixture of both.

MrJones

What people need to understand is the BNP may have only got about a mllion votes but there's a *lot* more who are on the edge but can't quite cross that Rubicon yet.

People in that camp who are more inclined to Labour have probably already decided to stay at home. People who are inclined to give the Tories a chance are still in play so the Tories have most to lose here.

If they're planning on a united front against the only people calling for a halt to mass immigration then it's important for them to make sure they're not percieved to be on slightly different ground as Labour and LDs.

MrJones

Messed up. The last sentence should have been:

"it's important for them to make sure they are percieved to be on slightly different ground from Labour and the LDs."

bert

Peter,
The BNP are neither left nor right wing, they are Nationlists, some policies are to the right, some to the left.
Also nationlising the utilities with a difference.

philip

Can the Labour Party please send Harriet Harman to speek for the Labour party, I would love for her and Mr Griffin to have a real good go at each other, that alone would drive up the rateings.

Oliver

Really interesting read.

I'm an avid supporter of the BNP, and know very well how different the actual party is compared to what the media and opposing politicians try to portray them as.

Watching Mr Griffin shread the lies and enlighten millions of viewers on our actual policies, will be a spectacular moment of television. Looking forward to it!

bernard

Why does everyone think that QT is some kind of massive watershed/platform for Nick Griffin?
I've yet to meet anyone who actually watches the program or can even remember anything about it half an hour later.

R Richards

I am a ex tory voter of 30 years,joining the British National Party felt like comming home, one big family and like all familes it just keeps growing.

TGF UKIP

Now 72 posts.

Fraser, as well as being extremely intelligent you are also a very acute and perceptive man so I hope you will ponder long and deep over the message being transmitted.

Perhaps, if you lived in Richmond North Yorkshire instead of Richmond on Thames you might better understand the disconnect.

TGF UKIP

Peter Phillips are you sure Cameron is a signed up supporter of Searchlight which I had always categorized as the SWP under another name?

If he is that will absolutely confirm how justified I am in my loathing and contempt for the sod.

Nick Parsons

Peter Phillips, you rightly mention that David Cameron and many many other cross party politicians are signed up members of Searchlight AND also the UAF. It all smacks of soviet style repression under our current lib/lab/con establishment. The BNP is really up against it, but as it says - you cannot ultimately defeat truth. I think that a lot of people know and feel that the BNP speaks the truth and represents how the majority of people feel.

Lee John Barnes

The BNP is not right wing or left wing, we are British Nationalists, that means we put the interests of Britain and the British people first, not any trite ideological notions of global free market capitalism versus international fabianism both of which relegate Britain to the status of a slave nation under the domination of the same Global Corporate Fascist system. The notion of a left wing / right wing in British politics is archaic nonsense peddled only by those in the pantomime of Parliament and the media which elects the political puppets of the media corporations into power.

The only political struggle now is between Nationalism and Globalism in its left wing/ right wing/ Fabian guises.

As for the BNP being 'racist', this is simply the same old sloppy thinking. The definition of racism is PREJUDICE + POWER = EXERCISED TO DISCRIMINATE ON THE GROUNDS OF RACE. Racism is a manifestation of political power, and as the BNP have never enacted any of the laws in this country responsible for racism, then the BNP as a political party cannot be racist.

In the multi-cultural system all ethnic communities are expected to organise to represent their collective community interests, yet when the indigenous British people do this we are called racists.

This hypocrisy is staggering, this is our homeland and if we dont defend our interests as a nation and a people who will ?

To be frank I am sick of idiotic people pontificating about the BNP when they have been too lazy to actually educate themselves about the reality and instead have merely parroted the usual asinine rhetoric of the media.

Mark

Very well said Oliver, couldn't of put it better myself.

Peter R

In one hundred years time when the indigenous in these islands are a very small minority ( they will be a minority in London and Birmingham by 2015 and a minority in England in 2045) , will they read this blog and wonder how this all came about. They will be a ghost people like the whites of former Rhodesia. "We must be mad as a people, literally mad"

Leon

Nick Griffin is a political giant, and he would tear apart the regular self-serving, self-loathing sycophant that appears on Question Time.

Thank you Fraser for at leash having the singular courage to actually present some truth about Nick Griffin, rather than the usual establishment/media garbage that is spewed out about Nick Griffin.

mark watson

I am amused to note that Mr Barnes lapses to caps as he froths, but it could be worse - ' indiginous' and ' homeland ' were still lower case.

Another fail from Mr Branes.

Verity

TGI UKIP - I don't even know what Searchlight is (going to Google it after this post), but no one can best me in contempt and loathing for David Cameron. He is authoritarian and sneaky along the lines of Ed (So what?) Balls and Jack Straw.

Tony

Verity
September 26th, 2009 2:12pm

BNP are neither left wing nor right wing. They have policies that would me more at home with right wing Conservatism whilst others may be more akin to the left of politics. Either way they are simply a party that believe in nationhood and have a set of policies to reflect this and give the electorate another choice in addition to the almost unified liblabcon mob.

Craig Pond

I've spoken to, and watched speak both Simon Darby and Nick Griffin, and you're missing the point with these guys. What makes them so strong and passionate, what gives them their drive, is the unshakable belief that what they say and what they do is right.
All the viewers are in for a treat as Nick will answer the questions from the floor as straightforwardly as is possible, and will fight his corner, not with the hysterics of his opponents, but with that measured and relentless assurity that the three "mainstream" parties are petrified of the general public seeing and hearing.
Jon Cruddas is known in the BNP as Johnny three houses, so sitting him at the table with NG will create some gruesome exchanges,
which NG will win by a country mile.
There is real excitemet within the nationalist movement, and you are correct in your assessment that a place at the QT table represents the arrival of mainstream politics.

By the way Fraser, excellent appearance on QT yourself, especially liked you tearing a strip off Harriet Harpy!

Peter West

If Tariq Ali ( who has never been elected,) Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, Peter Hain and the sickening George Galloway can appear on "Question Time," then Nick Griffin has every right to appear.

Simon Bennett

It may "only" be Question Time, but this is going to be politically ground-breaking and the BBC know it!

Bring it on.

Andy Jones

Mark Watson attacked some BNP guy, who in my opinion gave the most unarguable view on here and said "another fail".

I've heard far left wingers state that same childish comment before. Never proving any point he made was incorrect. Another dismal fail from the left, again!

Overall, interesting write up and lots of good common sense from the commentators.

Lets see how Jack "The British as a race are not worth saving" Straw fares on QT. against the "Great and good" Griffin. hehe.

BereniceR

If all of the above comments have been posted by "BNP racist thugs" then I can only think that they are extremely articulate, educated and well informed people. Quite unlike that which we are led to believe. I am a convert to the British National Party from being a lifelong Conservative supporter for all of the arguments above. If you want to hear the truth, check into the BNP website and compare it to any of the others. Read the National and Regional news posted on a daily basis and then make up your mind.
Nick Griffin is a passionate and committed politician and tells it as it is. Something you will never hear from any of the others. Did you see Gordon Brown on the Andrew Marr show this morning? If, like me, you found his method of "bigging himself and his party up" on what they have done, what they are going to do, and that they are the ones to put this country back to where it was before they took over, quite stomach churning, then I think there is no contest. Thankyou

hadrian

I consider myself as 'right wing' as one can get on issues such as crime/punishment, traditional disciplne and nurture of children,proper immigration control and policing and defence, the severely limited role of governments, opposition to supranational imperialistic states, and 'hard man' politics of fascism and nazism, as well as fanatical, messianic left wing totalitarianism.
For all those reasons I find the BNP as repugnant as any leftist ideology. Those who are deluded that crypto Nazism will 'save' our country will be in for one enormous shock if we ever do sink so low as to vote them in.
The BNP represents salvation-by-statist politics- surely the very thing true right wing people revile as we work away from such delusion towards modest expectation of what what government can ever provide.

David Topple

Having grown up surrounded by the middle-class types who populate the Tory Party, The Spectator's readership, and the audience of the 'centre right' media, it's pretty clear to me that as today's soaking wet Conservative Party gets even wetter, the likely beneficiary will be the BNP; yet we're always told the BNP takes support from Labour (which it does of course). Presumably then this is one reason why the BNP is seen as dangerous: potentially it has core support within various sections of the native population of this country. That's why the 'establishment' is so determined to destroy the BNP and repopulate the country with 'non-natives' as quickly as possible. The latter policy (repopulation) is what became known in the 1990s as 'ethnic cleansing', though this time it's being done without large-scale use of weaponry. Quite how this policy harmonises with the desire of the 'left' for global bio-diversity I can't quite understand.

I read that moves are afoot to ban BNP members from employment in the public sector. That's quite an interesting tactic. To my knowledge, in our recent European history the only regimes to pursue a policy of banning those they didn't like from various occupations were either fascist, Nazi, Marxist, or Communist. Into which of these four categories do the BNP's ever so respectable opponents fall then?

I might add that having spent some time living in the former East Germany a few years ago, I find it worrying to reflect on what I learnt about that regime and then to notice many of its more subtly oppressive policies gradually appearing in 'liberal' Britain. Still, what can you expect from people who start a war in the Middle East and justify it with a lie? What can you expect from people who spend hundreds of billions on nuclear weapons which only an evil madman would ever use? What can you expect from people who deliberately unravel the threads which used to hold our society together?

So, I look forward to being able to examine Mr Griffin's performance on 'Question Time'. Far from being savaged by his ever so respectable opponents, there's an outside chance he will wipe them all over the floor.

Lastly, I should point out that I am not a member of the BNP, though I used to be. The only political organisation to which I'm still affiliated is one of the major 'green' pressure groups (so presumably I'm a left-winger then?). Left wing / right wing: these are idiotic terms and should be dumped, as I think Lee Barnes indicated above.

Bruce Shaxson

It's good to read that some people have a sensible attitude towards the controversial BNP and Mick Griffen.
People mostly have no idea of the importance of democratic expression however unpopular, so good on The Spectator for making sensible comments on unpopular political beliefs.
Viva la free speech! Bruce Shaxson.