BBC Question Time from Barnsley – December 14, 2017

David Dimbleby presents topical debate from Barnsley in South Yorkshire. On the panel are Conservative MP and former secretary of state for education Nicky Morgan, Labour's shadow business secretary Rebecca Long-Bailey MP, scientist and broadcaster Professor Robert Winston, comedian Geoff Norcott and political journalist and commentator Isabel Oakeshott.

Austerity Britain: Why the Far Right Is Finding Converts in Barnsley
Pub-goers in Barnsley listening to a characteristically uncompromising Nick Griffin denounce privatisations and express sympathy for striking miners. Photo courtesy of TimesOnline
TIMESONLINE: Outside a large, modern pub on the edge of Barnsley, penned in by police, 150 demonstrators chant “Nazi scum off our streets” and “String ’em up like Mussolini”. Inside, Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, is whipping up 300 white, working-class supporters — men and women, young and old — with a speech tailor-made for these days of deepening recession, rising unemployment and profound disillusion with expenses-fiddling mainstream politicians.

“This country is full. It’s time to shut the doors and look after our own people,” he declares from a platform adorned with a huge Union Jack. Britain should leave the European Union so it can stop the “huge swamping wave of mass immigration from places like Poland which has put hundreds of thousands of our people out of a job”. Instead of bailing out “greedy, corrupt, incompetent banks”, Westminster’s “scumbag, thieving politicians” should be using those billions to rebuild British industry.

Mr Griffin expresses sympathy for the 1984 miners strike, triggered by the closure of the Cortonwood colliery in Barnsley. He denounces the Government’s privatisation programme. He accuses Labour of crushing ordinary people to ensure maximum profit for its corporate financiers. “It has sold out,” he thunders. “The old Labour Party is dead. Long live the new party for British workers — the BNP.” >>> Martin Feltcher | Tuesday, May 12, 2009