Nick Griffin, BNP leader on BBC's Question Time

[FireGarden]

Jack Straw (Justice Minister) saying (and I'm paraphrasing here)

"If you want to explain your views on the holocaust I promise you you won't be prosecuted."

Griffin replied "Er..er..er what about France and Germany where it is against the law?"

Straw comes back with "I'll sort that out too."

It's a laugh riot. Griffin is getting beasted!!

Jaw dropping.
Eventually, Griffin was persuaded to reveal that his mind was changed by intercepts of German radio communication. Errr... It seems that Auschwitz sailed in under his radar.

It's already in the Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/22/bnp-nick-griffin-question-time

Griffin was jeered by members of the audience as he struggled to explain his stance on the Holocaust. "I cannot explain why I used to say those things," he said as he blamed his inability to spell out his thinking on the threat of being deported under the European arrest warrant to France and Germany where Holocaust denial is illegal.

As Straw said there was no law preventing Griffin from explaining himself, the BNP leader said he had accepted that Jews were murdered after hearing radio intercepts which showed there had been a mass murder of Jews on the eastern front. "There was Auschwitz," Straw said of the extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland. "You don't need radio intercepts to know that people were gassed."

 

[geni]

This denies anyone the justification to claim they are indigenous, and surely the panel members wouldn't deny that right to other people who claim it, such as Native Americans?

As much of the world that wasn't europe has discovered over the last few centries few rights attach to being "indigenous".

 

[MageLite]

I couldn't think he could dig himself a deeper trench. Then came the question about the daily mail article...

 

[mummymonkey]

I doubt this will have changed anyone's mind. Griffin's abject performance will have gone down well with the non-BNP crowd while his supporters will claim he was picked on by an impartial audience and biased chairman and panel.
The BBC's viewing figures will be up and media luvvies will have their columns for tommorrow.

 

[dudalb]

A protest is not an "attack", nor is it anti-democracy or anti-freedom of speech. On the contrary, it is freedom of speech in action. If you want the Holocaust denier and his party full of weapons-stockpiling nutters to have their say, you have to accept that the overwhelmingly peaceful protesters should have their say too. Indeed, I would say that being offended by the latter and not the former represents a pretty skewed perspective.

Depends on what you call peaceful protest. Some of what I saw in the American TV coverage of this does not look real peaceful to me.
I get the feeling that deep down you really don't like the idea of the BNP having free speech.

 

[Francesca R]

I didn't see the programme yet, but since it was the front story on the 10pm news and the 6am news I would say that the BNP has got a lot of publicity out of this, mostly good for them (good since it is about their leader headlining a prominent current affairs/politics show of high repute).

The comments in this thread about the BNP "hanging themselves" don't jive at all. I know that is what people overwhelmingly want to think.

 

[Lothian]

I didn't see the programme yet, but since it was the front story on the 10pm news and the 6am news I would say that the BNP has got a lot of publicity out of this, mostly good for them (good since it is about their leader headlining a prominent current affairs/politics show of high repute).

The comments in this thread about the BNP "hanging themselves" don't jive at all. I know that is what people overwhelmingly want to think.

I think the protests certainly played into the BNP's hands. They would be absolutely delighted with them.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

The comments in this thread about the BNP "hanging themselves" don't jive at all. I know that is what people overwhelmingly want to think.

Watch the programme. Griffin gets devastated. He flounders, obfuscates and makes a general fool of himself. The highight was when he defended David Duke's KKK organisation by saying they were 'non-violent', and tried to pretend that he couldn't talk about his views on the Holocaust because of a non-existent law.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

The real villains in all of this, in my opinion, are the media who've consistently failed to challenge the BNP in the way they deserve. The BBC is so terrified of being seen as biased it can't even tell a Nazi to get stuffed,

...snip...

It is not that they are terrified it is that they have statutory duty to show "due impartiality".

...snip...
Sky News today was full of uncritically-repeated statements from the BNP press department and the Times had a practically glowing front-cover interview which highlighted the BBC's role in this mess in a most distasteful manner; it made me wonder whether the Murdoch press will now just give favourable coverage to anyone who they deem sufficiently anti-BBC, no matter what a slimeball they are.
...snip...

The BBC is a worldwide competitor to the Murdoch media, the Murdoch media has very few legal constraints on it so show "due impartiality", getting rid of the BBC or reducing it to insignificance is, in commercial terms, quite a legitimate goal for the business.

 

[Darat]

Well, the Conservative Party Representative just explained why you don't need to be an extreme, racist party to have a realistic immigration problem that addresses peoples concerns. Regardless of the merits of the Tory proposal, I think it was important to say that, given that much of the rise in BNP support is due to perceived flaws in government immigration policy, and the lack of government response to peoples concerns in that regard. ​

Which is of course at least partly caused by the Conservatives fueling such perceptions....

 

[Oliver]

For those like me who didn't watch the debate:

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 1

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 2

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 3

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 4

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 5

BNP Nick Griffin on BBC Question Time Part 6

 

[Ian Osborne]

Or if you're in the UK, access the iPlayer and watch the show in one piece.

 

[richardm]

I doubt this will have changed anyone's mind. Griffin's abject performance will have gone down well with the non-BNP crowd while his supporters will claim he was picked on by an impartial audience and biased chairman and panel.
The BBC's viewing figures will be up and media luvvies will have their columns for tommorrow.

The comments in this thread about the BNP "hanging themselves" don't jive at all. I know that is what people overwhelmingly want to think.

My thoughts exactly. Good viewing for people who don't like the BNP. For people who do like the BNP, or even those who are vaguely in tune with some of their thinking, it's just more evidence of the establishment keeping the ordinary man down in favour of wogs and foreigners and being too PC to use words like wogs.

Edit: Just look at some of the comments from the youtube links Oliver posted, for example. I mean, I know youtube comments are just about the lowest ebb the internet has, but still:

Nick did a great job. Obviously the BNP are just normal English people with quite normal traditional values, The hysterical attacks against them seem totally out of measure and are bound to backfire.

Listen to the people yelling at Nick, let him speak...this was more like a zoo than a open debate. It was good to hear other subjects covered by the BNP, there is more to them than just the issue of race.

The country has fallen apart (obviously you don't live here) - people have lost faith in the media of television because it is so controlled and manipulated. This is the new media and the BNP are the fastest growing major party in the UK with almost 1m votes at the last election. Alot of people at work are talking of how aggressive and unfair they were towards Griffin last night and I didn't evenbring it up - its quite something.

 

[Arcade22]

Arcade 22, I am getting sort of concerned about the way you seem to sympathize with the likes of the BNP.

I'm not British but if i were i would probably vote for them. They are afaik the only party that works against multiculturalism and mass immigration, but i could be wrong.

I will watch the videos Oliver linked when i get home, but from all i have heard there wasn't any discussion on politics and they were only discussing Griffin, which is sad.

 

[Perfume V]

The BBC is a worldwide competitor to the Murdoch media, the Murdoch media has very few legal constraints on it so show "due impartiality", getting rid of the BBC or reducing it to insignificance is, in commercial terms, quite a legitimate goal for the business.

Yes, I wouldn't challenge that. I just think it shows a pretty lamentable lack of judgement and perspective to be bigging up an unapologetic white supremacist just because it might bloody the nose of one of your commercial rivals. I mean, who's next, Robert Mugabe? He's barred the BBC from Zimbabwe, so clearly his heart's in the right place there...

I get the feeling that deep down you really don't like the idea of the BNP having free speech.

You got that from a post where I said the BNP and the protesters should both have their right to free speech respected? I'd pack in the clairvoyancy business, it's not your strong suit.

 

[richardm]

I see the BBC are really putting the boot in this morning:

Griffin attacks Islam on BBC show

It's fatwatastic !

 

[Perfume V]

Oh God, they're taking that tack, are they? The anti-Islamic stuff is always a big vote-winner for the BNP (which is why they've suddenly switched to it after years of being nonspecifically anti-non-whites); I'd have gone with his stirring defence of the Ku Klux Klan.

 

[richardm]

his stirring defence of the Ku Klux Klan.

They do mention that in the first paragraph, but that's the headline. Actually if I were the BBC I'd have led with the KKK stuff, since I don't think it's any great surprise to learn that Griffin doesn't like Muslims. Supporting the KKK is a bit more "out there".

 

[Delscottio]

Oh God, they're taking that tack, are they? The anti-Islamic stuff is always a big vote-winner for the BNP (which is why they've suddenly switched to it after years of being nonspecifically anti-non-whites); I'd have gone with his stirring defence of the Ku Klux Klan.

He even got a few claps last night when talking about Islam. Not the best issue to tackle him over.

 

[Ian Osborne]

He even got a few claps last night when talking about Islam. Not the best issue to tackle him over.

The problem is, no one followed up and pointed out that most Muslims dislike the radical extremists he was talking about, and that most religions - including Christianity - has its loony wing.