Prime Time.

[davywavy]

Roderick Griffin, leader of the the Brownshorts National Party, is to appear on the BBC's Question Time tomorrow night. Some people feel that he and his supporters should be denied any public fora, despite the undeniable fact that they did poll in excess of one million votes (6.2% of the vote) in the recent European Elections, and now have elected representatives squatting like toads in Brussels.

Personally, I feel that they should be allowed into public debate; they've got as many elected representatives from this country in Brussels as the Greens or the SNP, and Alex Salmonds' unappealing features are barely ever off our screens.
By marginalising them they can cast themselves as martyrs; it is only with free, open debate that imbecility and unfitness for power can be publicly demonstrated.

But what do you think?

[Poll #1474164]

Comments

[raggedhalo.livejournal.com]

I actually think that by preventing the BNP from talking to anybody else we just reinforce their ridiculousness, because they're never challenged (except by banner-wielding anti-fascists). I used to argue against NUS' "no platform" policy, although I think my view on that has changed now.

My feeling is that we should let them debate on QT and that we should hoist Griffin by his own petard when he opens his mouth. But then, I bet they said that about the Nazis, so...

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

iirc from A Level history the post WWI government suppressed the Nazi's at the beginning, which as the Nazi's were talking about German pride gave support to the idea that the Weimar Republic was the tool of the Allies/France. Not letting them talk gave them an underground chic / sense of being the only real alternative to the governing parties, and there is evidence to suggest that letting them be part of the mainstream would have resulted in the Nazi party not being so solidified and supported.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I used to argue against NUS' "no platform"

Back when I were a student, one of the various religious societies (I forget which one) were banned from putting up anti-arbortion and contraception advertising up around the union. When banned, they took up the 'Freedom of Speech' cause and took it to a vote in the union to see if the prevailing political orthodoxy of not allowing people the NUS doesn't agree with to speak was just and democratic.
I was one of the people arguing in favour of free speech and the society being allowed to go aheaad, on the basis that then i would be allowed to say anything I damn well pleased about them.

Still lost, though.

It reminds me of the time the SWSS tried to change the name of the SU to the Winnie Mandela Building. I counterproposed that we renamed it the Lucretia Borgia Building, as if we were going to be naming things after murderers why be coy about it?

That one almost got me banned.