(un)sympathetic

(this is a long rambling semi-coherent piece of political bilge - feel free to skip it)


well it is the day after question time and the world has not changed.
it is hard to imagine the circumstances in which you could feel much sympathy for nick griffin and the british national party, but the last week or so has come close.
why?
well let me tell you, i do warn you though it will be a long and rambling road that probably takes a diversion here and there, a rest stop or two and more than likely a few dead ends.

let me start by saying the obvious (but regardless of how obvious it is i am following the convention of the last few days here) i have little truck with the british national party they are a bunch of odious people who have a warped view of the world (but then i think that of the conservative party as well). (it got to the point where i was expecting people to say “none of my best friends are bnp”.)

back during the euro elections over 900,000 people voted for two bnp members to join the european parliament. leading up to those elections there was a lot of hand wringing and wailing on the part of the major parties as a lot of politicians had been caught with their hands in the expense tin. no one trusted parliamentarians. the media joined in with talk of protest votes. this quickly became scare mongering that the british national party would benefit from all of this and how bad that would be.
in fact it would not just be bad it would be dangerous.
yet the more politicians and the media went on about this ‘danger’ from the bnp, the more they told the electorate not to vote for the bnp. the more they argued that the bnp should not be given a chance to be heard. the more likely it was that they were going to have a strong vote.
it is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.
during those elections i could imagine nick griffin and his cohorts just rubbing themselves in glee at all the free publicity they were getting. to make matters worse it appeared as if they were being victimised for their beliefs. the bnp could have planned it better if they had tried.
election held. ballots counted. close to a million votes for the british national with the result that they get to send two of their party to the european parliament.
it is generally accepted that a large bulk of those votes were a protest vote aimed at slapping the main parties in the face and to punish them not only for the expense scandal but for not addressing some of the key issues of the day.
that said i think there was another reason for the strength of the bnp vote – people didn’t want to be told who not to vote for, when the people telling them not to vote gave no reason why they should stick with the main parties.

the result was concrete proof of the legitimacy that the press and political parties had given the bnp in the run up to the elections. if they had spent their time saying ‘oh woe are us for being bad boys, punish us by voting for the greens’ the result might have been different.
now sensible people would have learnt from that.
politicians it appears are not sensible people.

with their two european seats the bnp could expect to make an appearance on the bbc’s ‘question time’ show. now it is not like representatives of the bnp have not appeared on the nation’s screens before. nor is it unusual to hear their voices on national radio. often when they are allowed to speak they shoot themselves in the foot (and the ankle, the kneecap and at least one gut shot as well). given the chance to talk more often than not the bnp hoist themselves on their own petard. so much so that you could be blamed for thinking that they were a comedy act satirising far right politics.
that my friends is one of the strengths of democracy, it is the beauty of freedom of speech: not only can you persuade people of your veracity but you can show yourself up. the bnp are very good at showing themselves up when they are given the chance.

the bbc make the right decision to allow nick griffin his hour of glory by appearing on ‘question time’. cue the outraged politicians. the protestations of how evil the bnp are, how no one should share a platform with them, how this just gives them legitimacy they do not deserve (even though they got close on a million votes).

we have been here before.

in the main i have faith in our elected politicians. i know that there are fine and decent people in the labour party, the conservative party and the liberal democrats. i also have faith in them to be able to sit down at the same table as anyone from the bnp and to be able to win the argument.
see that is how it should be in a democracy – hear the opposing views and show where there are wrong. simple really. they do it all the time with each other. yet when it comes to the bnp they seem a little scared.

the bbc, to their credit, stick to their guns.. it doesn’t matter that people such as peter hain, diane abbott and andy slaughter were vociferous in their condemnation of the bbc for allowing the bnp a platform.
all three are members of the government yet they don’t want to instruct the bbc to ban the bnp because to do so would be create martyrs of the bnp (though quite how the bbc banning them from ‘question time’ would not create martyrs of them is never explained). in fact all of them are keen for the bnp to have their say, but not on question time. so it is sort of freedom of speech and it is sort of democracy – just not the freedom of speech and democracy that would be extended to the green party.
nor did the three politicians want to see the bnp be made an illegal party (skipping over the current controversy over their membership rules – which didn’t seem to bother people while they were a loony fringe party).
the politicians didn’t want to make the hard decision – they wanted to pontificate about it rather than do anything about it – they wanted the bbc to become the guardian of the democratic process. to their credit the bbc did. nick griffin was allowed on to question time.

outside broadcasting house (where ‘question time’ is recorded) there was a mass demonstration of people who didn’t want to let nick griffin have his say. the irony of using bullyboy tactics seemed to be lost on them. again no calls for the banning of the bnp, just their ability to have their views heard.
even ken livingston was to be heard saying how terrible it was that nick griffin was to be allowed to speak. this would be the same ken that had meetings with the ira who were involved in a bombing campaign on mainland britain.

the one main lesson to come out of the ‘question time’ incident was how little we respect democracy and freedom of speech. it seems we only believe in it when it agrees with us.
the problem is that for democracy to be strong and vibrant, for it to remain valid it has to be able to deal with dissenting voices and views. a strong democracy should have no problems with the less than pleasant views of the few. as bonnie greer said on ‘question time’ democracy is the least worst system we have come up with and it needs to be defended. you don’t defend it by banning and curtailing all the things you don’t like.

before the programme took place there were a number of bbc radio talk shows. on several occasions where there was a member of the bnp on the panel – the other panellists were at pains to tell everyone how uncomfortable they were to be seated next to, near, in the same room, building, street, city, county, country as the bnp member and that they would go home and would use a scrubbing brush on themselves before they would ever feel clean again. each one seemed to up the ante for how debased they felt, i was expecting them to commit hara-kiri to regain their honour. (i am exaggerating here, but not by much.)
several times people made the rather spurious argument that the bbc wouldn’t give this sort of time to a party of paedophiles, which somewhat ignored the issue of legality and that we would be a pretty fucked up country if close on a million people voted for such a party.
several times it was mentioned that david copeland, the london nail bomber of 1999, had been a member of the bnp and therefore you could not have talks with bnp. copeland left the bnp because he was unhappy with their move to being more democratic. by the same argument you could tarnish all muslims in britain because of the july 2005 bombings.
a few even suggested that they shouldn’t be on there because they were never going to get elected as the government – crikey nick clegg there goes your spot on ‘question time’.
most of the people being interviewed followed the line of politicians such as peter hain and andy slaughter: that the bnp should not be given the oxygen of publicity that this event was giving them. missing the point that the only people whipping up the publicity were the protesters themselves. in fact the protesters were doing the work of the bnp publicity department.

what the protesters had ensured was that more people than ever were going to tune into ‘question time’ and were going to hear nick griffin and the bnp.
job not quite so well done on the part of the protesters.
so much energy was put into demonising the bnp yet all it achieved was to cast nick griffin in the role of the underdog and provide him with a much larger audience than he could ever hope for.

the show went ahead. if it were a prison movie nick griffin was gang shanked in the showers. the other panellists picked on him, bullied him and hectored him. he was clearly shaken and intimidated by it all. so much so he is now complaining that the format of the programme had been changed so that everyone could gang up on him.
well tough shit nick what did you expect them to do? welcome you with open arms and tickle your tummy? was never going to happen and he should have known it.
yet the funny is it seems to have backfired and instead of seeing nick griffin for the odious chubby man that he is what many saw was someone being victimised.
so when someone like sayeeda warsi (who, along with bonnie greer, was the star of the show) in the follow up interviews went on about how scared griffin appeared you wanted to shout ‘well he was facing a very hostile panel and audience, not to mention a potential violent mob who wouldn’t be scared?’

if there was a problem with the programme it was that it concentrated solely on nick griffin and the bnp, not touching on issues such as the postal strike, the recession, bankers bonuses, more troops to afghanistan and other issues of the day. given the run up to the event it was probably inevitable that it would have been this way. yet a golden opportunity was missed to quiz the british national party on what its’ policies are on a whole range of subjects and to show that a vote for the bnp is effectively a wasted vote.
ironically this also let off the main parties – for once they were not under fire, they could sit back and bask in the glow of nick griffin being beaten down by the sheer weight of disapproval that surrounded him.

why it would have been important for the parties to engage in a proper political debate around the issues that affect the country right now is that the bnp have secured a hefty chunk of votes. not all of these votes are from racists a large chunk of them are from people who feel like the political process has ignored them.
there are issues that worry people. there are concerns and confusion about the effect that the european parliament has on daily life, some are worried about immigration, where it is not a question of race or colour but a question of numbers, some are worried about the breakdown in values and traditions, others are worried about the loss of identity. they are worried about the recession, they are worried about violence in the streets, concerned about the war in afghanistan, the encroachment of the state on daily life, the power of corporations and much more.

for the time being the bnp can pick up support for as long as the major parties fail to address these questions in a way that is accessible to the general public.
it is easy to tar the bnp with a racist tag – but is more complex than that the bnp have received votes from the ethnic community (which in and of itself is pretty jaw dropping) and it is pretty easy to see this in simple black and white (and brown) terms, but racism isn’t one way: there are indians out there who do not like pakistanis while they are not keen on the west indians

‘question time’ wasn’t perfect, an opportunity to demolish the policies of the bnp was missed. it did highlight, if we needed it, that at its core the british national party and nick griffin are fundamentally nasty pieces of work. it also served as a reminder to the main political parties that they have to engage, debate with and win the arguments that provide the bnp with its support. this isn’t beyond the main parties, in fact it is the bread and butter of what labour, conservative and liberal democrats are about. they can’t hide, ignore or ban parties such as the bnp they have to show the potential supports of the british national party that a vote for the bnp is wrong on several levels that it is ineffective because it will not bring about meaningful change and that is wrong because it is divisive because a vote for the bnp can lead to pointless hate and fear.
for that stark reminder of what democracy is all about and the responsibility that is in the hands of the leaders of the three main political parties the decision of the bbc was vindicated.