MPs back BBC over Question Time BNP stance (From Oxford Mail)

MPs back BBC over Question Time BNP stance

7:48pm Friday 23rd October 2009

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NICK Griffin today challenged Witney MP David Cameron as the debate over the BNP leader’s Question Time appearance rumbled on.

Mr Griffin questioned whether the Tory leader would “disassociate” himself from the protests outside Television Centre last night after Mr Cameron said he backed the anti-fascist campaign against the BNP leader.

A spokesman for the Tory Party leader said he had no intention of responding.

Other MPs in the county gave their verdicts on the controversial TV appearance.

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Dr Evan Harris, who had previously backed the BBC’s decision to give a platform to the BNP, said: “I didn’t see all of it but what I did see led Nick Griffin to be exposed for the extremist he is.

“In a democracy, legal parties are entitled to fair coverage and during that coverage it is the duty of political opponents to take them on. Then the British people, who are grown up, can make a decision as to who they support.

“If he says something that’s against the law he can be prosecuted, but they are not an illegal party.

“Trying to prevent them getting the coverage they are entitled to, limited though it is, creates martyrs of them.”

Wantage MP Ed Vaizey, shadow minister for culture, said: “The BBC was absolutely right to have him on.

“If we continue to debate whether or not the BNP should be given a platform we completely miss the main point by continuing to pretend they don’t exist.”

Dr Taj Hargey, chairman of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford, said the publicity was a “temporary fillip” to the BNP, although he said the party’s leader was “completely unable to answer his critics”.

He added: “The first platform shouldn’t have been Question Time. It should have been a grilling by John Humphrys or Jeremy Paxman as they would have asked him in detail to explain his nefarious perspective.”

Rabbi Eli Brackman, of the David Slager Jewish Centre, in George Street, Oxford, said: “I don’t think he shouldn’t have been invited.

“His views are abhorrent in today’s society but I recognise freedom of speech and one cannot stop him from speaking.

“I think public debate and discussion helps people form their views against the BNP.”

Two years ago, protesters stormed the Oxford Union before Mr Griffin and holocaust-denying historian David Irving were due to debate free speech.

Mr Griffin yesterday said his party would make a complaint to the BBC over the programme, which he claimed was “twisted” in order to focus on him and his party’s policies.

He said: “The public are aghast at the display of bias from the BBC. That was not a genuine Question Time, that was a lynch mob.”

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