An appearance by the leader of the British National Party (BNP) on the BBC’s top current affairs panel show today has sparked a fierce debate about how media should cover the rise of the far-right.
Nick Griffin, the Cambridge-educated, besuited figure who has steered the BNP to its strongest-ever position, will take questions with four other public figures from audience members on Question Time.
The program is the most potent symbol yet of a media dilemma that has come into sharp focus — give democratically elected BNP politicians the oxygen of publicity, or keep their allegedly racist views out of sight?
Cabinet Minister Peter Hain has threatened legal action against the BBC unless it pulls Griffin from Question Time, saying it is an unlawful party after a recent court ruling that told it to admit non-white members.
“You are giving the BNP a legitimacy even they dare not claim in their current unlawful status,” Welsh Secretary Hain wrote to BBC director-general Mark Thompson last week.
“It would be perverse for you to maintain that they are just like any other democratically-elected party,” he wrote.
Anti-BNP protesters are also expected to target the recording of the show.
The issue has flared up now because in June British voters elected the first two BNP members to the European Parliament, including Griffin.
While it seems unlikely that the BNP will secure a first Westminster member of parliament in the general election, which must be held by June, experts say it and other fringe parties could benefit from a recent scandal over lawmakers’ expenses.
There was another sign of high-level concern on Tuesday when four top former members of the forces, including two former army heads, signed a letter accusing the BNP of trying to “hijack” the military’s reputation for its own ends.
The BNP used pictures of World War II fighter aircraft and wartime premier Winston Churchill prominently during its European election campaign.
Griffin brushed off the Question Time furore but sparked fresh controversy by comparing the military top brass to Nazi generals hanged after the Nuremburg trials at the end of World War II.
This was because of their roles in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, he said.
Question Time is a prime-time discussion show hosted by David Dimbleby, one of British television’s elder statesmen.
On the show, which attracts around 3 million viewers, public figures take questions from the audience on a wide range of current topics.
Others appearing alongside Griffin today include Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim Conservative member of the House of Lords, black playwright and critic Bonnie Greer, and Justice Secretary Jack Straw.
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