The Gown Student Newspaper at Queen's University Belfast

OPINION: The BBC were RIGHT to have Nick Griffin on Question Time

On Thursday evening over five hundred anti-fascist demonstrators dominated the media spotlight, just hours before the BBC would broadcast Question Time with Nick Griffin on the panel. This highly contentious decision has split public opinion, and divided politicians on whether this far right fascist party should be given a platform to air their heavily criticized odious views. Despite the efforts of the protestors, the BBC refused to intervene to stop the recording of the program. They issued a statement claiming the recording would go ahead  as the BBC “are obliged to treat all legal political parties registered with the electoral commission with due impartiality”.

BY AOIFE MORRISON

In a hysterical reaction, the ever swelling number of protestors stormed an entrance of the BBC studio in West London where, as a consequence, despite the presence of over seven hundred metropolitan police officers, twenty five people breached security and entered into the main lobby. The Metropolitan Police have since issued a statement claiming that they have made three arrests, two of which were for violent disorder.

Given the extent of this passionate protest, one can conclude that members of the British public from all race backgrounds, all religious or non religious groups, young and old generations, are all united in their distaste at the BBC’s arguably shameful act.

However has the BBC taken a step too far? The U.K prides itself in being a model example of a liberal democracy where the electoral voice of its citizens must be represented. Since June 2009 the BNP have secured two MEPs and one member of the London Assembly. This victory was achieved within the democratic system and as a consequence of claiming six percent of the electorate vote, gaining almost one million votes.

Therefore the argument to exclude this rising political party from political debate has been called into question. Without doubt, the BNP’s policies are distastefully racist and this was recognized by London County Courts when the Human Rights Commission sought an injunction on the BNP’s membership policy, which outlined “Indigenous Caucasians” only worthy of recruitment.

There is a fine line between freedom of expression and constraining offensive views, yet the BNP play within the democratic game and thus are entitled to their share of freedom of expression. To deny this right would be simply detrimental to liberal democracy.

In the words of Roy Greenslade, “Censorship does not remove prejudice, it drives it underground, a greater threat to democracy than reading and listening to offensive points of view.”

Tags: bnp, Gown, griffin, newspaper, nick, qub, Queen's, queen's university, question, student, The Gown, time

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 3:04 pm and is filed under News, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.