The BNP On Question Time

Here in the UK we have a weekly political TV show called Question Time. This show features a panel normally made up of representatives of the three main political parties, a representative of one of the minor political parties and a respected or celebrity political commentator answering questions about the political issues of the week posed by an audience made up of the general public. The show has been broadcast on BBC 1 for thirty years and in the days before multi-channel TV was one of the only ways for politicians to engage with the public making it something of a national institution. This Thursday (22/10) everyones favourite Holocaust denying, Nazi saluting, Paki-bashing paedophiles - the British National Party (BNP) will be making their debut on the show. The fact that their two seats in the European Parliament makes the BNP a legitimate political party makes it near impossible for the BBC to deny them airtime. However this hasn't stopped Britain's chattering classes having a rabid debate over fascism and the limits of free speech with Cabinet member and decorated anti-apartheid campaigner, Peter Hain calling for the BNP to be banned from the show. Personally I'm waiting with baited breath to see how much of a fool, party leader, Nick Griffin is going to make of himself come Thursday.

In the meantime the British Establishment seem to be doing everything in their power to make sure that the BNP stop publicly humiliating themselves and become a more respectable and electable party. Last week they did this by issuing a court order forcing the BNP to change their constitution to allow non-white members to join. Although all the talk of court orders, injunction and fines sound ominous this whole process actually does the BNP a huge favour. You see, at the moment, the argument in pubs. living rooms and Internet chat rooms across Britain as to whether the BNP is a racist party or not goes something like this;

A BNP supporter says that the party is not racist so the person they're talking to asks if the BNP lets black people join. The BNP supporter claims that they don't so the other person says, "Well you're racists then, now F*** off."

It's so simple that a ten year old can win it. With a new constitution that argument becomes more complicated allowing the BNP to recruit more ten year olds as members. Further more the current BNP constitution states that new members must be from bizarre ethnic groups such as the Scottish Celtic Community or the Welsh Celtic Community. As I'm sure anyone whose college form tutor also happened to be a senior research fellow in ancient British history at Oxford university* knows these ethnic groups simply do not exist nor have ever existed. There were ancient British tribes known as Celts but the notion of Celtic folk was invented in the 17th century as a way to sell tat to tourists. Therefore allowing members of the BNP to claim that they are members of the Celtic folk community allows them to announce to the world that they are idiots who know nothing of the British heritage they claim to be protecting.

Today has brought another attempt to civilise the BNP as a number of former British Army generals signed an open letter calling on unnamed extremists groups to stop using the iconography of the British military to further their political cause. Although the language used in the letter is pretty strong calling for "all those who seek to hijack the name of Britain's military for their own to cease and desist!" and claiming that their values "are at odds with with the values of the modern British military " it is hard to view the letter as anything other then an attempt by the British military to make the BNP more electable.

After all it was the BNP who dubbed their European election campaign as "The battle of Britain, a fight for British jobs for British workers" and used images of Winston Churchill and RAF Spitfires to emphasise their point. However being the BNP they used the image of a Spitfire from one of the RAF's Polish squadrons that was flown by a Polish pilot. A prime example of a skilled worker coming over here to take the job that a British worker wasn't skilled enough to do which makes the BNP's anti-immigrant worker stance look more then a little bit stupid. Besides every time Nick Griffin compares himself to a man in any army I have to fight this seemingly irrepressible urge to point out that this short, podgy, one-eyed freak couldn't even qualify as cannon fodder should he ever grow the balls to try.






*Seriously his name was Wilfred Leng and he tried to get me to apply. You could ask him yourself but apparently in 2004 he died of some exotic disease in some far flung part of the South American jungle which as a pretty odd place for him to be on an archaeological dig.

**Yep the memory service people are coming tomorrow at some time between dusk and dawn. I hope you won't think less of me if I appear tomorrow proudly announcing that I've just punched a female nurse in the face.