Comments on: Censorship is the wrong way to combat BNP

By: John Piggot

John Piggot — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:11:37 +0000

So “Index on Censorship” thinks the BNP is “racist” and “ridiculous”? Labour plus Tories voted to invade an Arab country on the basis of doctored intelligence reports and a pack of lies (more or less the reasons Hitler invaded Poland). A million Muslims and Kurds died as a result. In contrast, the BNP always opposed the war. One million ethnics killed by Labour and friends. Zero muslims and Kurds killed by the BNP.

Who are the racists? And who is the most ridiculous?

By: Dr Caspar Hewett

Dr Caspar Hewett — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 11:38:38 +0000

I think the comments in response to this article show a typical failure to engage with Clare’s central argument – that people should be trusted to hear all the arguments and make up their own minds. The left in the UK and USA have for years held the cowardly ‘no platform’ position that has given minor parties like the BNP credibility that they could never have had if anti-racists had had the courage of their convictions and had the arguments out in public. It does everyone a disservice to silence any politicial view rather than argue against it.

By: Dominic

Dominic — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:07:57 +0000

Postal workers? I was responding to someone who basically said he was a BNP member. Or maybe I got the wrong end of stick, in which case, yes I’m thick. Why on earth anyone would think I’d wish any harm to postal workers is beyond me.

By: Eamonn De Valera

Eamonn De Valera — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:32:50 +0000

Jeffrey Marshall wrote:

Dominic wrote:

“And I thought there was nothing positive about knife crime. Well it’s good to know that every cloud has a silver lining.”

Postal workers getting stabbed is positive? I always suspected the Left included some sick human beings but you have even surprised me.

Jeffrey, Dominic is displaying the usual half baked lack of intelligence, typical of the knee-jerk reactionary. However, your response is not much better in generalising about the “Left”, as that is where your party stands. Left/Right is an economic measure and has no bearing on how fascistic or liberal the non-economic measures are. Your party is a fair stride to the left of centre, economically, with a large authoritarian content to its policies. Just as far to the “left” as the “left you generalised about and regard as opponents.
For the others, who may see this,: consider this point – Labour Conservative and LibDem are a long way over to the “right” and just about as authoritarian as the BNP.
My point? Think carefully before deriding others – get your *FACTS* right and beware of how easy it is to shoot yourself in the foot.

By: Jeffrey Marshall

Jeffrey Marshall — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:57:11 +0000

Dominic wrote:

“And I thought there was nothing positive about knife crime. Well it’s good to know that every cloud has a silver lining.”

Postal workers getting stabbed is positive? I always suspected the Left included some sick human beings but you have even surprised me.

By: SOCIALIST UNITY » CLAIRE FOX REPLIES ON "NO PLATFORM"

SOCIALIST UNITY » CLAIRE FOX REPLIES ON "NO PLATFORM" — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:58:53 +0000

[...] to an article by Claire Fox, from the Institute of Ideas, who had argued tin an article for Index on Censorship that the attempting to anathematise the BNP is a form of censorship. This is Claire’s reply [...]

By: C Sanderson

C Sanderson — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:07:53 +0000

Addendum: I meant ‘Extreme political views’ in my second line.

By: C Sanderson

C Sanderson — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 09:55:31 +0000

Claire is right: ‘the point of a democratic election is to give the electorate a free choice to vote for any political party they wish’. Political views are like a disease: if they exist, it is better to have them expressed than to try to suppress them. If the world pretended that swine flu did not exist, where might we be in a few months’ time? Perhaps where South Africa is with AIDS; their last president said AIDS did not exist, and now it is widespread. So it might be with extreme views, if they were suppressed. In the same way, it is wrong to stop people coming into the country to speak – whether they be ‘pornographer’, ‘Taleban’ or ‘racist’ – and to prevent those already here from speaking. Stop them only if they promote violence or deliberate illegality. The BNP is a legal party, and its access to the polling booth, the electoral platform – or Buckingham Palace – should be the same as any other party, be they Monster Raving Loony, Commander Bill Boaks (who was dead right, and streets ahead of his time, on road safety), or the Socialist Workers.

The other point to make about attitudes towards ‘racism’ is to suggest a parallel with attitudes towards homosexuality, when it was illegal. Before Wolfenden, many homosexuals, it is said, were pursued with unexpected zeal by agents provocateurs, who loitered round toilet cubicles and waited for – or actually prompted – behaviour that was then illegal. It is likely that many of those zealots (like Hoover of the FBI) felt secretly guilty of their own ambivalent sexual attitudes. In the same sort of way, I suspect that many of those who speak most strongly against the BNP, and who seek to censor them, are, in fact, closet ‘racists’; that is, they have reservations (or stronger feelings) about people who are not like them. This accounts for their virulence, as it probably did for Hoover’s.

The parallel is only with the attitude, and the feelings of guilt: there is no suggestion that racist behaviour is legitimate as homosexuality is now accepted to be.

Let the BNP and all the others speak: their words will provide the vaccine to stimulate resistance to their views.

By: Dominic

Dominic — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:46:17 +0000

Jeffrey Marshall (BNP) wrote

“If she had ever distributed BNP leaflets as I have she would know that this is where the greatest danger lies, and what the postmen were probably concerned about most was getting stabbed by blacks.”

And I thought there was nothing positive about knife crime. Well it’s good to know that every cloud has a silver lining.

By: Jeffrey Marshall (BNP)

Jeffrey Marshall (BNP) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 17:24:58 +0000

Nice article – but Claire seems to miss the point that the postal workers actually refused to deliver to ethnic minority areas.

If she had ever distributed BNP leaflets as I have she would know that this is where the greatest danger lies, and what the postmen were probably concerned about most was getting stabbed by blacks.

High-minded matters of ‘censorship’ did not enter into their calculations.