John Kampfner
British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin received the oxygen of publicity he craved by winning his spot on Question Time, Britain’s premier TV debate show, but at the end of a nation’s ordeal, democracy emerged intact, says John Kampfner.
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The British National Party leader’s appearance on Question Time is not a “no platform” issue, says the Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary. It is time to confront the BNP by championing moderation and tolerance
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Index on Censorship chief executive John Kampfner was a guest on Channel 4 news last night, discussing the free expression controversies surrounding BNP leader Nick Griffin’s forthcoming appearance on Question Time and the Twitter campaign against Jan Moir’s article on the death of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately. Watch it below (segment starts six minutes in).
Read journalism.co.uk’s Judith Townend’s round up of the argument here
Well, it’s happened. The BBC has announced that British National Party leader Nick Griffin MEP will appear on political discussion show Question Time on 22 October. Facing him (among others) will be Justice Secretary Jack Straw, a man believed by frequenters of far-right web forums to be a key part of the International Jewish Conspiracy.
I mention this partly because it will be interesting to see if Nick Griffin manages not to mention it when he faces Straw. Griffin, of course, is the author of the 1995 pamphlet Who Are The Mindbenders, which catalogues in some detail how Jewish (and in many cases “Jew-ish”) people control the media. While the BNP is now more noted for its anti-Muslim outpourings, it retains a root in classic far-right conspiracy theories on pernicious Judaism. Anti-fascist website Hope Not Hate just last week claimed to uncover an audio file of Griffin and party comrade Simon Darby alleging that “anti-Islamisation” group the English Defence League is in fact a “Zionist false flag operation”.
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