BNP 'Does Not Want All-white UK'
BBC: British National Party leader Nick Griffin has said he no longer wants to see an all-white United Kingdom.

Watch BBC video: Nick Griffin tells Andrew Marr he no longer wants to see an all-white United Kingdom >>>

Mr Griffin, who is due to take up his seat as an MEP for the North West, said the idea of a UK without ethnic minorities was "simply not do-able".

Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show, Mr Griffin said: "Nobody out there wants it or would pay for it."

He said claims that he was a fascist were "smears" but said the European Union was "very close to fascism".

Mr Griffin told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that the BNP would put more money into voluntary repatriation programmes for members of ethnic minorities "who want to go back to their lands of ethnic origin".

He added that Britain was overcrowded and "terribly unstable" as a result of its "multicultural experiment".

The BNP leader also defended his view that the EU should sink boats carrying illegal immigrants.

Mr Griffin said: "What needs to be done as an example is to sink a couple of boats near the shores of Libya - throw them lifebelts so they can paddle back, so they understand they will never get to Europe.

"Because the alternative is accepting that Britain eventually is going to end up like Africa." [Source: BBC] | Sunday, July 12, 2009

Watch BBC video: BNP chief rejects 'racist' tag >>>

Watch BBC video: BNP's first MEP attacks EU >>>

Channel Four Interview: Nick Griffin

More Protests Before BNP Meeting
BBC: Protesters have gathered outside a pub in Manchester where the BNP leader Nick Griffin is to hold a news conference.

Mr Griffin faced angry protests when he tried to speak in London. Photo courtesy of the BBC
Mr Griffin was forced to abandon a similar event outside Parliament on Tuesday after he was pelted with eggs.

Mr Griffin, who has been elected to the European Parliament for the North-West region, called on other political leaders to condemn the attacks on him.

But Gordon Brown told MPs that mainstream parties needed to expose the BNP's "racist and bigoted" policies.

At prime minister's questions, he called on all parties to "unite" to fight the BNP by showing they had solutions to pressing issues such as employment and housing.

And Conservative leader David Cameron said the battle against the BNP must be fought "doorstep to doorstep".

About 50 protesters have congregated outside the Manchester pub where Mr Griffin is planning to speak.

There is a heavy police presence there after Tuesday's chaotic scenes in London, when a BNP briefing broke up soon after starting in the face of angry demonstrators.

Mr Griffin said the fact that he was being prevented from speaking was a threat to democracy.

As well as Mr Griffin, a second member of the BNP was elected to the European Parliament on Sunday, for the Yorkshire and Humberside region. [Source: BBC] | Wednesday, June 10, 2009

THE INDEPENDENT: Police Let Mob Run Wild, Says BNP Leader

BNP leader Nick Griffin urged the police to "get a grip" of protesters who forced the party's MEPs to abandon their first joint press conference yesterday.

The British National Party leader spoke out after being besieged by around 40 protesters when he held a press conference in a Manchester pub today.

Mr Griffin, who along with Andrew Brons was elected as an MEP, said: "There wasn't a huge police presence yesterday. The police let the mob run wild.

"I think it's very sad that a hostile mob which is partly paid for by taxpayers and backed by Labour and the Conservatives is allowed to get away with mob violence on the streets of Britain in 2009.

"I've got to go and visit constituents in places like Preston and Andrew Brons has to go to places like Bradford. The police need to get a grip on these people and stop them throwing eggs and bricks.

"Like us or not we are a democratic party elected by people who have specific concerns they think we will address properly." >>> By Lucy Collins, Press Association | Wednesday, June 10, 2009

YOUTUBE: Condemnation over British Far-right Triumph in Europe Elections

UAF Violence: Nick Griffin MEP Interview

The fact that I bring this video to you should in no way be construed as an endorsement of the BNP or its policies. However, I do feel that in a democracy, everybody’s views should be heard, however distasteful we might find them. There appears to be a concerted effort on the part of the establishment in general, and the media in particular, to silence Nick Griffin and his followers. If this is the objective, then there is a better way forward. Nick Griffin and his followers’ ideas should be challenged in debate, head on. This is the correct and civilized way to deal with this matter. Throwing eggs at him is immature and unworthy; it also endears him to many potential followers. – ©Mark

European Elections 2009: How Labour Let the BNP Flex Its Muscles
THE TELEGRAPH: The collapse of the traditional vote in working-class strongholds was the key as an openly racist party won seats for the first time in a nationwide election, says Philip Johnston.

The smirk on Nick Griffin's face as he walked on to the platform at Manchester town hall in the early hours of yesterday morning said it all. The BNP had arrived. For the first time in a nationwide election, the voters of the United Kingdom had returned candidates from an avowedly racist political party.

Our cosy complacency that imagined that only Continental Europeans elect fascists to parliament was shattered. A collective wail of middle-class angst went up from mainstream party leaders: what have we done? Liam Fox the Tory shadow cabinet member, said: "All politicians should be asking themselves 'how did we allow this to happen?' "

The hostility engendered by Griffin's victory was palpable: as he took his place on the stage, giving a Churchillian "V for Victory" salute, his opponents all walked off. But we cannot keep walking away from the BNP. They need to be tackled head on. It is because the mainstream parties, Labour in particular, have failed so comprehensively to address any of the issues exploited by Griffin and his followers that they have been able to win two seats in the European parliament (under a PR system whose proponents might now think twice about pursuing it for Westminster).

Harriet Harman, Labour's blue-stocking deputy leader, said: "It's a terrible thing that we've now got representing Britain in the European parliament a party that is a racist party, a party that doesn't believe black people should even be allowed to join this party. What extremist, far right, racist parties like the British National Party do is exploit people's fears and if people are worried about their future they turn inwards."

But whose fault is that? This has not happened in a political vacuum. It was the collapse of Labour's vote in areas it considered its fiefdom that let in the BNP. After 12 years in power, Miss Harman cannot try to pass the buck. Most galling of all is that the British taxpayer will now fund the BNP through the generous salaries and allowances for which it now qualifies in the European parliament. >>> By Philip Johnston | Monday, June 08, 2009

This article is totally unbalanced, since it fails to mention some of the most important reasons why people felt moved to vote BNP: The mainstream parties gave them no alternative. The election of two BNP MEPs has clearly rattled the British establishment.

The fact is that all three mainstream parties will not face, still less confront, the real issues facing us all. Islam is growing apace in Europe. The demographic jihad (as well as many other jihads!) is being waged against us. The nature of European society is changing before our very eyes, and nobody is prepared to discuss the problem from the mainstream parties, still less do anything about it. The BNP is prepared to attack the problem head on. That is one big reason why many so-called "working class" people voted BNP, I believe. The liberal, leftist élite, of whom David Cameron is one, judging by his policies, knows nothing about the dangers of Islam, and they are too cowardly to confront the problem head on. The BNP is not.

All main parties are for the accession of Turkey into the EU. Most people I know - middle class people or working class - are against this accession. Yet nobody in the mainstream parties will speak for them. The BNP will. It is firmly against Turkey’s accession; and rightly so.

I predict that if things go on as they are, the BNP will grow and grow, because they will fill the political void that the other parties have created.

It is such a pity that the Conservative Party has lost its courage. Historically, one could always depend on the Conservative Party to get us out of a hole. No longer, it seems. Hence, many must have felt disenfranchised. The result: Many decided not to vote at all; others voted for extreme parties.

This problem needs to be tackled head on; otherwise extremism will continue to rear its head. – ©Mark

European Elections 2009: BNP in Line for £4 Million Cash Boost in Euro Success
THE TELEGRAPH: The British National Party is in line for a £4 million cash boost as its European election breakthrough was widely condemned as a "shaming" for Britain.

British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin celebrates his election results. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
The far right group won its first two seats in the European Parliament as the Labour vote collapsed, sending shock waves through Westminster and the country.

Leader Nick Griffin, one of the successful MEPs, said it meant a "huge change in British politics". Critics lined up to condemn the result.

Mr Griffin and his new MEP colleague, Andrew Brons, will now be able to take advantage of EU expenses and allowances worth up to £395,000 a year each over their five year term.

Mr Griffin and Mr Brons will each have access to an annual salary of £80,443, an annual staff budget of £190,000, phone and postal allowances of £45,000 a year and a daily attendance allowance worth up to £80,000 a year, with no receipts required.

In comparison, in 2007, the BNP raised just £500,000 and in the first five months of this year are said to have raised £650,000.

Their success has also presented new problems for broadcasters who have to offer "due impartiality" to all political parties.

Ben Bradshaw, the Culture Secretary, admitted the success poses a "dilemma" under impartiality rules.

Mr Bradshaw told the Commons: "I'm sure that the broadcasters will be taking their responsibilities under the impartiality rules extremely seriously, but you are right to say that what happened yesterday does pose a dilemma for them.

"My own view is that usually when you give these people a platform, they condemn themselves through their own mouths."

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said: "It sickens me and it should sicken everybody here that the British National Party has succeeded in these European elections.

"It brings shame on us that these fascist, racist thugs have been elected to the European Parliament."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, labelled the BNP a "party of thugs and fascists" who "don't provide any hope, they don't provide answers, they don't provide solutions to people's problems, whether it is jobs, climate change or crime."

Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, said the result was "horrific" but admitted it was partly down to Labour's collapse in its heartlands. >>> By Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor | Tuesday, June 09, 2009

MEP Nick Griffin

THE TELEGRAPH: Anger as BNP Wins Two European Seats

Muslim Turkey’s Attack on Leaflet “Proof of the Danger of EU’s Expansion” says BNP Leader
BNP: The demand by the Muslim country of Turkey for the withdrawal of British National Party leaflets objecting to that nation’s inclusion into the European Union is proof that the BNP’s position on the matter is correct, Nick Griffin has said.

In his reaction to the news that the Turkish embassy in London has formally complained to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office over the BNP European election material, Mr Griffin said the reaction “showed that the Turkish government had a fundamentally flawed understanding of what democracy was, and that democracy included the right to free speech.

“We would never dream of trying to dictate to Turkey what it should allow and what it should not, even when it for example officially criminalises anyone promoting the 1915 Armenian genocide,” Mr Griffin said, referring to the near extermination of Armenia by the Ottoman Turkish Empire during World War One. That atrocity is officially denied by the present Turkish government, despite worldwide disapproval.

“The point is that Turkey has a very poor track record of democracy and free speech, and its demand for the suppression of a perfectly legitimate political party’s election material in another country shows exactly how dangerous it would be to expand the EU to include this 99 percent Muslim nation,” Mr Griffin said. >>> BNP News Team | Monday, May 25, 2009

Czech Far-right Party Linked to BNP Runs Euro Election TV Ads Demanding 'Final Solution' to Gypsy Problem
Nick Griffin. Photo courtesy of MailOnline
MAIL Online: A far-right party in the Czech Republic, which has links with the BNP, has caused a storm by calling for a 'final solution to the gipsy [sic] issue'.

The Nazis used the term as a euphemism for the mass slaughter of Jews in the Holocaust.

The National Party in Prague made the call in a TV ad for the European Parliament elections next month.

The camera panned over dishevelled and dirty-looking Roma women and children, before a voice-over said 'we call for final solution to the gipsy issue'.

There were also slogans on screen such as 'Stop black racism', 'No favouring of gipsies' and 'We don't want black racists among us'.

Czech extremists routinely refer to Roma people as blacks. The Czech government has expressed outrage over the broadcast and pledged that it will not be repeated.

BNP leader Nick Griffin spoke last year at a rally of the National Party, which is also anti-immigration and anti-Muslim.

In his speech he railed against the accession of Turkey to the EU, saying that the introduction of millions of Muslims into the EU would 'drive down wages, living standards and increase taxes'. >>> By Allan Hall | Friday, May 22, 2009

A Right Menace: Nick Griffin
THE INDEPENDENT: Fears of a surge in support for the BNP at the European elections have put its leader in the spotlight. And now he's got Buckingham Palace squirming

Whichever way you look at it, the announcement that Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, might attend a royal garden party at Buckingham Palace is a milestone moment in British politics. For it marks another stage in the transformation of Britain's biggest far-right party from a past of street thuggery to the brink of electoral breakthrough. Griffin could next month become the party's first member of the European Parliament.

The real question is whether it has done that by shrugging off its neo-fascist antecedents and entering the extreme right of mainstream politics – or is it being done by the perpetration of long-running confidence trick upon the electorate? The answer to that lies in the one man whose personal writ runs authoritatively throughout the party. So has Nick Griffin really changed?

There can be no doubting the unsavoury background from which Griffin emerges. It is deep rooted in his family history. His parents met while heckling a Communist Party meeting in north London in 1948. Nicholas John Griffin, who was born a decade later, was as a boy reputedly given by his grandfather some of the more anti-Semitic literature of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. While at private school in Suffolk aged 13, he was reading Hitler's Mein Kampf and making notes in the margins. "Adolf went a bit too far," Griffin conceded in 2006.

When Griffin was 15, his father Edgar took his son to his first National Front meeting. When he went up to Cambridge in 1977 to read history and law at Downing College, he founded the university's Young National Front Students group and soon rose through the ranks of the neo-fascist party. Within a year he had become national organiser.

But the National Front fell apart a decade later. Griffin was a key figure in the foundation of one of its successor factions, the International Third Position (ITP), advocating a blood-and-soil alternative to communism and capitalism. In it he praised the black separatist Louis Farrakhan, met David Duke, the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, travelled to Libya at the expense of Colonel Gaddafi and expressed support for Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini – who also had a strong dislike of Jews, women's rights, homosexuals, liberal democracy, international capitalism, Coca-Cola and McDonald's. >>> | Saturday, May 23, 2009

BNP Chief 'Barred from Royal Party'
PRESS ASSOCIATION: British National Party leader Nick Griffin has been effectively barred from attending a Buckingham Palace garden party.

The right wing politician had been invited to the social event by BNP colleague Richard Barnbrook who, as a London Assembly member, was nominated for two tickets by the Greater London Authority (GLA).

But Jeff Jacobs, the GLA's deputy chief executive, has written to Mr Barnbrook telling him to change his controversial guest and stop exploiting the situation for "publicity", or his nomination would be "reviewed".

In recent days London Mayor Boris Johnson and Darren Johnson, chairman of the London Assembly, have both spoken of their concern about Mr Barnbrook's chosen guest. >>> Copyright © 2009 The Press Association. All rights reserved | Friday, May 22, 2009

Johnson Intervenes to Block BNP Leader from Attending Queen's Garden Party
The toff of toffs: Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, the Mayor of London. Photo: Google Images
THE GUARDIAN: Mayor urges London assembly to rescind invitation to far-right colleague of Nick Griffin to spare monarch embarrassment

The London mayor, Boris Johnson, today intervened to prevent the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, from attending a garden party hosted by the Queen.

Johnson wrote to the London assembly chair, Darren Johnson, urging him to rescind the BNP assembly member Richard Barnbrook's invitation to the Buckingham Palace event in June.

The mayor accused the far-right party of trying to turn the garden party in to a "political stunt".

Johnson's intervention came after it emerged that Barnbrook said he intended to take Griffin to the party as his guest.

Speaking at a routine assembly session with the mayor, the assembly chair said members were "extremely concerned" that the BNP was seeking to turn a social event into a political stunt.

He confirmed he would take the matter to the chief executive to request that Barnbrook's invitation be withdrawn unless he had a "more acceptable guest" to take along. >>> Hélène Mulholland, Matthew Taylor and Rachel Williams | Thursday, May 21, 2009

BNP Leader Nick Griffin to Attend Queen's Garden Party
Nick Griffin will be the guest of Richard Barnbrook, a BNP London Assembly member. All Assembly members have been invited. Photo credit: TimesOnline
TIMESONLINE: The leader of the far-right British National party is to attend a garden party hosted by the Queen, it was claimed today.

Nick Griffin will accompany Richard Barnbrook, a BNP member of the London Assembly, as his guest at the event on July 21, Mr Barnbrook said.

A BNP spokesman said: “Richard Barnbrook has got an official invite in his capacity as a member of the London Assembly and he is allowed to bring a guest, which will be Nick Griffin.

“For him to snub an invite from the Queen would be absurd.

“It is something people are going to have to get used to because if we get elected MEPs, this is the kind of thing we are going to be doing on a regular basis.

“It is the emergence of a party from beyond the pale to mainstream.” >>> Fiona Hamilton | Wednesday, May 20, 2009

The British Political Élite and Media Quake in Their Shoes as BNP Show Signs of Making Significant Breakthrough in Upcoming European Election
After years and years of unbridled greed, uncontrolled immigration, Islamization of the United Kingdom, and generally ignoring the wishes of the electorate, are we about to witness a spectacular first: The rise of the far-right in British politics?

Whilst this may be regrettable in many ways, the powers that be cannot say they weren’t warned. People of influence have ignored the wishes of the people for far, far too long. In short, they’ve treated the electorate with disdain and contempt. They have also had a ball. In many cases, on the back of the taxpayer. The ball, however, may soon be over. All good things come to an end. – ©Mark

THE TELEGRAPH: Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National Party, is poised to become a key figure in the creation of a new far-right group in the European Parliament.

Leader of the British National Party Nick Griffin. Photo courtesy of The Telegraph
Fears are growing he will be at the centre of a wave of victories in next month's elections that would give nationalist parties a firm foothold in Europe.

Searchlight, the international anti-fascist magazine, has suggested they could pass the threshold of 25 MEPs from seven countries necessary to form a European Parliament grouping entitled to public funding worth up to £1 million per year.

Over the last year, Mr Griffin has strengthened links to extremist European groups to prepare the way for a far-right surge at euro elections next month.

High-level Labour sources have told The Daily Telegraph that a high abstention rate, fuelled by popular disgust over the Westminster MP expenses scandal, could lead to the election of at least four BNP MEPs, including Mr Griffin.

Should Mr Griffin be elected in the North West region with at least three colleagues from the North East, East Midlands and London, he would be among those competing to become the leader of Europe's far right.

Other extremist groups in Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and Slovakia are expected to make major gains during the elections after using the economic crisis to stir up resentment against Roma gipsy minorities.

The French National Front already has four MEPs led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was stripped of parliamentary privileges this year because he described Auschwitz as a "detail of history" during a debate in March.

A new political grouping would be eligible for £5 million of public funding over the next five year term of the European Union assembly enabling it to promote political links across Europe and publicise their cause with "information" and conferences.

Gordon Brown and other senior government members are afraid that public disenchantment with politicians and the economic crisis will lead to low turnout during the elections on June 4 and will open the door to the BNP and other far-right extremists across Europe.

"Their strategy is not just ideological but ruthlessly practical," said a spokesman for Searchlight. "If they are able to get group status with their colleagues then they will have access to millions of pounds in resources, paid by the taxpayer, to fund their campaigns." BNP Could Be at Heart of Far-right EU Group >>> By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Friday, May 15, 2009

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

Nick Griffin Defends BNP Leaflet that Says Black and Asian Britons 'Do Not Exist'
MAIL Online: British National Party chairman Nick Griffin spoke today of a 'bloodless genocide' as he defended a party leaflet which says that black Britons and Asian Britons 'do not exist'.

The BNP leader was referring to the party's Language And Concepts Discipline Manual, which says the term used should be 'racial foreigners'.

Mr Griffin said to call such people British was a sort of 'bloodless genocide' because it denied indigenous people their own identity.

The leaflet was leaked to an anti-fascist group.

Commenting on the leaflet's content, Mr Griffin told The Report on Radio 4 that although 'in civic terms they are British, British also has a meaning as an ethnic description'.

'These people are 'black residents' of the UK etc, and are no more British than an Englishman living in Hong Kong is Chinese,' he said.

'Collectively, foreign residents of other races should be referred to as 'racial foreigners', a non-pejorative term... The key in such matters is above all to maintain necessary distinctions while avoiding provocation and insult.'

The manual describes the BNP's 'ultimate aim' as the 'lawful, humane and voluntary repatriation of the resident foreigners of the UK'. >>> By Daily Mail Reporter | Thursday, April 23, 2009

Who Would Be Part of the BNP?
TIMESONLINE: The British National Party’s leaked membership list was supposedly full of middle-class professionals. So where were they during its annual festival, asks Anna van Praagh.

It had all the hallmarks of a genteel country fete. Yet amid the fairground rides, Morris dancing and stands selling organic Welsh cakes, the BNP's annual summer festival had one rather less bucolic stall, at which revellers were invited to get their heads shaved.

The attraction was billed as being all in a good cause, a fundraiser for British troops. Yet, given the party's long association with skinheads and boot boys, one could be forgiven for construing it as some kind of party initiation ritual.

The BNP chairman, Nick Griffin, wreathed in pinstripes and smiles, and flanked by a coterie of intimidating, crop-haired security guards, laughed it off. "Men of a certain age tend to suffer from follicle problems," he told me as we stood outside a marquee festooned with Union Jack flags.

"You can't discriminate against them for that. Lots of the British rugby team are bald. That doesn't make them Nazis."

Since Griffin took control of the party in 1999, the BNP's high command has eschewed its trademark number-one crop haircuts, Doc Martens and Nazi salutes, replacing them with press releases, soundbites and appearances on Newsnight.

Last week, Griffin seized upon the publication of a list purporting to comprise the entire membership of the British National Party as proof that it had left behind its street-fighting days, and that it is now attracting a broad range of professionals: doctors, teachers, IT workers, clergy, more than a dozen soldiers, and a former Conservative constituency chairman.

He said: "Instead of the public being terrified, they can see we are not a bunch of knuckle-dragging morons but a party of people just like them. Long term, it's going to do us a great deal of good in the public's eyes."

However, The Sunday Telegraph has discovered that at least 30 people named on the list have criminal convictions. And there are thought to be many more. >>> By Anna van Praagh and Patrick Sawer | November 22, 2008

THE INDEPENDENT:
BNP Men Held over 'Racist Leaflet' >>> | November 24, 2008

SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Far-Right NPD Is a 'Serpent at Democracy's Breast'

A leading German politician is suggesting a way to deal with the far-right NPD -- cut off state funding. His proposal has met with some skepticism and on Friday many German papers argue that it could set a worrying precedent.

German democracy is having a tough time dealing with the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) which is steadily gaining political ground. Now there are calls to hit the party where it hurts -- in its pocket.

The NPD has been deemed "racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist" by the country's domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. There have been calls to ban the party, but an attempt to have the country's Constitutional Court outlaw it failed in 2003 and the NPD continues to get state funding, consistent with Germany's campaign finance laws.

The far-right party is no longer confined to the margins of German politics. It has increased its membership to 7,000 and has a presence in the regional parliaments in two eastern states, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. >>> | November 21, 2008

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback) – Free delivery >>>

Is This What They Call the ‘Cream of the Crop’?
WATCH GUARDIAN VIDEO: Free speech debate sparks protests
Mark Alexander

Irving and Griffin Spark Fury at Oxford Union Debate
Photo courtesy of The Guardian
It is to be noted that the people demonstrating against free speech at the Oxford Union were trying to take our liberties away from us all by intimidation. They forget that millions of people have died for this cherished freedom as recently as the last century. These demonstrators are naïve in the extreme, and totally without understanding.

Just because we find someone else’s views offensive - and David Irvings’s views on the Holocaust most certainly are – this does not mean to say that that person should have no right to express them.

Those demonstrators wanted to close down all that we Britons have held dear for so long. Many of those demonstrating have surely come to this country from abroad. They have probably fled tyranny themselves. Now they want to impose their own tyranny and restrictions on us!

It is also to be noted that there were banners displayed in those demonstrations in favour of a “multicultural” Britain. One can but wonder if these same demonstrators realise how little multiculturalism there will be in the United Islamic Kingdom!

These people are supposed to be intelligent. Intelligence is usually accompanied by insight and foresight. As far as I can see, they have shown themselves to have very little insight, foresight or understanding of what living in a free society means. Free means free for ALL people, not just free for students who worship at the altar of multiculturalism. There are other people out there with different views, and their views should be heard. Remember Voltaire’s words of wisdom: ”I disapprove of what you say, but I shall defend to the death your right to say it.” Voltaire must be turning in his grave! - ©Mark

· Demonstrators breach security cordon
· Speakers forced to address audience separately

THE GUARDIAN: A debate on free speech at the Oxford Union descended into chaos last night after scores of demonstrators broke through a security cordon and staged a sit-down protest in the union's famous chamber.

Scuffles broke out in the hall as the demonstrators - there to voice their opposition to the presence of discredited historian David Irving and BNP leader Nick Griffin - clashed with organisers and security guards.

Order was eventually restored and the event went ahead with Griffin and Irving forced to speak in separate rooms as hundreds of students and anti-fascist campaigners surrounded the venue chanting and singing.

During his speech Griffin described the protesters as a "mob which would kill".

"I have seen them beat old men and women who are wearing war medals and try and kill them. Had they grown up in Nazi Germany they would have been splendid Nazis."

During his speech Irving said he would not be bowed. "I am not going to write what they want me to write. I am going to write what I find in the archives."

At the end of the event Union president Luke Tryl, who had invited Griffin and Irving, said his only regret was that some people had been intimidated. "At the end of that David Irving came out looking pathetic ... I said in my introduction that I found his views repugnant and abhorrent because I wanted that on record ... I think the principle has been proved," said Tryl.

The meeting was disrupted again when Peter Simpson, a student who had travelled from Essex, heckled Griffin from the floor. Afterwards Simpson said: "I cannot believe people will sit in a room and listen to him spout his despicable ideology." >> By Alexandra Topping

The Oxford Union

THE SPECTATOR:
My Comment

Mark Alexander

Oxford Debate Delayed by Protest
BBC: A debate at the Oxford Union has begun after being delayed when protesters forced their way into the building.

BNP leader Nick Griffin and controversial historian David Irving were invited to talk about free speech.

Thirty protesters pushed their way into the hall to stage a sit-down protest at the debating table.

Earlier, 500 people staged a sit-down demonstration outside the gates of the building, preventing about half the students due to attend from getting in.

Anti-racism campaigners said the two men should not be given a platform to speak at the debate in St Michael's Street, Oxford.

Protesters chanted anti-fascist slogans and jeered "shame on you".

The students broke through a security cordon into the building where the debate, scheduled to start at 2030 GMT was delayed.

Union security officers said the protesters got into the building by jumping over the wall while others created a diversion by gathering and crushing at the front gate. >>

WATCH BBC VIDEO:
Students against fee speech

THE TELEGRAPH:
Protesters break into Oxford Union debate By Ben Farmer in Oxford

THE TELEGRAPH:
Context should not affect free speech

TIMESONLINE:
Rival students clash as Holocaust denier turns up for Oxford debate

Mark Alexander