Griffin's politics of hate

Two media events coinciding gave me pause for thought.  Last night’s appearance on BBC1’s Question Time by BNP leader Nick Griffin, and my own interview this morning on BBC Radio 5Live linked to today’s conference in Leeds on disability hate crime.

I didn’t see the TV show, although I have followed its subsequent coverage.  My personal feelings about Nick Griffin, the BNP and their views and policies wouldn’t allow me to watch regardless of whether he was challenged.

It’s elements of those views which feed and fuel hate crime against anyone who doesn’t fit Griffin’s limited view of “indigenous” British people.

The fact that there exist people who believe that someone’s ethnicity, sexual orientation, relition or disabled status renders them targets for abuse, violence and murder is bad enough.  The fact that there is a political party which supports and propagates such views and attempts to give them legitimacy is truly frightening.

I don’t dispute the BBC’s decision to put Griffin on the show, it rested on sound editorial principles.  But I took the equally valid personal decision not to watch.

If Griffin denies the Holocaust, which, despite his weasel words last night he clearly has and does, then he would also presumably deny T4, the programme instituted by Hitler for systematically “Exterminating” close to half a million disabled people in order to rid the 3^rd Reich of their imperfections.  Clearly there will be members of his party who would laud such action against our community.  Fear the day when a BNP government might take the chance to institute a similar programme.