Nick Griffin’s Appearance on BBC’s “Question Time”

Recently, an event of surpassing lunacy took place on British television. The weekly popular current affairs programme, “Question Time”, invited Nick Griffin to appear as one of the five politicians who respond to questions from a studio audience.  There are some clips from the programme on the BBC website.

Now Nick Griffin is not just any old boring political hack; he is the Leader of the BNP, the British National Party.

For our American friends who may not be up to speed on the minutiae of British politics, this is a minority party which is strongly anti-immigrant. Moreover, Nick Griffin himself is homophobic, has flirted with leaders of the KKK and is said to be sympathetic to Nazi ideas, though this he denies, alleging that the British Nazis hate him.

The latter, by the way, are a group of microscopic importance on the British political scene; extremism having never taken root in British politics.

In short, and by “common consent” – whatever that is – Nick Griffin is a pretty unsavoury character with fascist, xenophobic and homophobic views. He is in the eyes of most people the antithesis of the average Brit, who is tolerant, pragmatic, phlegmatic, cynical and as far as I am concerned, the salt of the earth.

As for racism, Britain has welcomed immigrants of many colours and races from many countries for many years. We have thriving Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, West Indian and other ethnic minorities who have melded into the good old Anglo-Saxon way of life with no problem whatsoever, while at the same time retaining many elements of their home culture to the overall benefit of Britain. Britain has never been hostile to immigrants.

So on the face of it, Nick Griffin and his philosophy are pretty odious and basically alien to the British psyche. And yet ……. his party has grown increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in certain areas of heavy mass immigration. The BNP even won two seats in the European Parliament at the last election. Of course, there they have a “fairer” electoral system of proportional representation than in the British parliament, which functions on the basis of the “first past the post” voting system.

What explains this increasing popularity of the BNP, which though worrying is still insignificant in electoral terms? The answer surely lies in the Labour Government’s immigration policies of the last 12 years. Anything done to excess is dangerous. You can die from drinking too much water, for a start. In the last few days, an accusation has appeared in the British media that it was the Labour Party’s secret intention to swamp the country with immigrants as some kind of “final solution” to the supposed “fascism” of the Conservative government and conservatives in general. This is despite Labour Party claims over many years that it was effectively controlling immigration.

Let us be clear. Immigration has been good for Britain in many ways, but as stated above you can have too much of a good thing. Some areas of Britain have now become practically “no-go areas” for whites or non-Muslims. Two years ago during one of the regular spats concerning British Muslims one of the latter was heard saying to a reporter: “How dare you come into a Muslim area”?

Now Britain is not Muslim. The average Brit is open to all cultures but does not want them thrust down his throat, especially in large numbers. Britain is a small island with a high population density, particularly in the South-East. There is little room to expand and tremendous pressure on housing, schools, transport and all the rest. But in recent years, it is not so much this pressure that has grated as the exclusivity of some Muslim immigrants and their insistence on trying to create a mini-Islam in Britain. The Muslim treatment of women, the burkha, the indoctrination of children are alien to British people, many of whom do not, for example,  agree that public funds should be spent on teaching ethnic languages rather than intensive English to give immigrants the skills they need to prosper in Britain.

Part Two of Democracy and Marriage is continued tomorrow.

By Chris Snuggs

• Musings
• Politics