BNP on Question Time 22nd October: Watch Nick Griffin make a fool of himself

The date of the Question Time broadcast with Nick Griffin has been confirmed as October 22nd.

I walked past a Socialist Workers Party stall today on my way to Walthamstow Library, and one of the petitions being signed said "Keep the BNP off the BBC", with a rather nice cartoon of a person throwing a swastika in the bin.

Bectu, the TV techinican's union, says it will support any member who refuses to work on the programme, while MP and anti-apartheid campaginer Peter Hain told Socialist Worker: "I will refuse to appear on Question Time until its producers meet with me to justify their reasons.Giving the BNP this kind of free publicity elevates them to a level of respectability that they do not deserve."

Unite Against Fascism will also be demonstrating outside the BBC's Wood Lane centre during Question Time, and want to bring "shame on the BBC", which is really nice.

I respect their desire to oppose fascism, but I disagree with them on this issue.

I will be watching the British National Party's leader make a complete fool of himself at 10:30pm on 22nd October 2009, and I hope anyone reading this blog who has access to BBC1 will as well.

I want to see David Dimbelby and audience members question Nick Griffin on:

BNP youth leader Mark Collett's comments in Young Nazi and Proud on National Socialism.

His comments that "We affirm that non-Whites have no place here at all and will not rest until every last one has left our land" and "The ‘extermination’ tale is a mixture of Allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter witch-hysteria", as reported by The Times.

Comments by BNP press officer Phil Edwards in 2005: 'Black kids are growing up dysfunctional, low IQ, low achievers that drain our welfare benefits and the prison system and probably go and mug you."

Why BNP London Assembly Member Richard Barnbrook did not tell the truth about murders in Barking and Dagenham, east London.

Why, if the British National Party is representative of the British people, have they done so poorly outside of Barking and Dagenham?

Why the BNP London manifesto proposes removing bus lanes.

A Hope Not Hate Redbridge leaflet was left on my wall, which claims that a motion to be debated at the BNP conference calls for single mothers on benefits to have a curfew of 9pm and skirts of at least knee length.

Hadleigh Roberts makes an excellent argument against those who oppose inviting the British National Party on Question Time.

My only concern is that Jack Straw, filling the government slot, will not do a good job at tearing Nick Griffin apart. We do not know who else will appear, but Pickled Politics would like to see Vince Cable, David Davis, and Shami Chakrabarti from Liberty.

Ian Hislop is on next week by the way, so it should be worth a watch.