Playing a dangerous word game

SOMEHOW, the British justice system today managed to hand the British National Party good publicity on a plate.

Why? Because Nick Griffin today was found not guilty of inciting racial hatred at a retrial in Leeds.

Earlier in the week, his barrister had argued that he hadn't incited racial hatred because Muslims - the subject of what I consider to be a vile speech made in Yorkshire and filmed covertly by the BBC - are not a race. And there is no crime of inciting religious hatred.

To quote the BBC's website: "During the trial, the jury heard extracts from a speech Mr Griffin made in the Reservoir Tavern in Keighley, on 19 January 2004, in which he described Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and said Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole".
At the same event, Mr Collett addressed the audience by saying: "Let's show these ethnics the door in 2004."

In my mind, had there been such a crime of inciting religious hatred, then the Crown Prosecution Service would have been home and dry. But for now, we will have to tolerate Mr Griffin and co carping on about a victory for silent public, the ordinary man in the street etc, etc.

Gordon Brown has already intimated such a law should come in. It doesn't need a lengthy government review, it just needs action now.

But why can Griffin do this in the first place? Because he's in Britain, where we have free speech and a democracy. I'm all for anyone who wants to standing for election. If they want to believe they will actually make real progress rather than justing winning odd seats with clusters of protest votes in areas which the mainstream parties often appear to have abandoned, then so be it. Who are we to stop them getting a metaphorical bloody nose at the elections?

It was rather amusing to hear Nick Griffin talk about Tony Blair 'never being able to take our freedom' because a) Griffin looks nothing like Mel Gibson in Braveheart and b) Tony Blair has never tried to do that.

Much as you or I may oppose what we did in Iraq, the PM has never avoided a talk about the issue when confronted.

Ask the BNP a serious question such as 'Are you racist' or 'why didn't you win' and from the organisers of the party you are likely to get a round-the-houses argument which never attempts to answer the question but tends to end up with a phrase like 'When we're in power, you journalists will know about it.'

And that's the truth. On the ground, many of their activists are pleasent chaps and lasses. Many more aren't, but those that are appear not to be reading the same literature we read from the BNP. And that's where the truth can get muddled.

The BNP is a big fan of the word 'truth.' Here's it's take on why the BBC went undercover to expose the party:

The publicly funded broadcaster was, at the time, colluding with Tony Blair’s close colleagues in the Labour Party hierarchy and a criminal outfit called Searchlight which was co-founded by a convicted but now deceased, and unlamented, homosexual predatory paedophile.These are the kind of people; liars, crooks, war-mongers and close intimates of vile perverts who exist on one side of the fault lines of the British political scene. On the other side stand the heroic men and women who are prepared to stop the moral rot, end the inevitable slide into an EU controlled totalitarian police state and who will do their utmost to prevent this green and pleasant Christian land becoming an Islamic State.

Now ask yourself why the BBC felt the need to go undercover. Having worked in several areas where the BNP has made attempts - mainly unsuccessful - to get into elected office, I know the answer. They won't let you in to hear what they what they are saying because what they are saying is much more extreme than the leaflets they put out.

As for the BBC colluding with Searchlight? And where do vile perverts fit into this? The BNP is a secret world where, from the outside, answers are hard to come by, and playing with words has become an art form.

The leaflets they put out, by the way, seek to blame all of the nation's problems on one section of society. It used to be illegal immigrants, not it's Muslims. Not so long ago, someone else had a similar idea of scapegoating to get into power. We now have an international Holocaust Day to mark the terrible crimes which followed once that man, a certain Adolf Hitler, got into power.

It may sound extreme to compare the two - but that is what they are. Extreme, with little notion of what the truth is. And that's why we all have a duty to do all we can to stop them getting in.

I personally believe their successes at the polls will remain at a local level. Constituencies up and down the country are too diverse, and in the main voters too intelligent, to fall for the BNP spin and fingerpointing. A one-off local issue (their 2001 success in a council by-election in Blackburn was based on the possiblity a derelict OAP home could be turned into flats for asylum seekers. It never happened) won't win a general election.

But we need to make sure it doesn't happen.

How do we do that? Simple. We vote. And when we do, we make sure our 'x' isn't next to the BNP candidate. Mr Griffin and co won't be smiling then. Not matter what words he chooses to use.