Tuesday, December 14, 2004

griffin arrested

Nick Griffin, the leader of the British National party, was today arrested on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred after a television investigation exposed the extent of racism in his organisation.

Quite right too. That makes his arrest the 12th resulting from the excellent BBC film 'The Secret Agent' which screened earlier this year. The 11th to be arrested was John Tyndall, who was arrested on Sunday.

The documentary, screened in July, featured covertly-filmed footage showing BNP activists confessing to race-hate crimes and party leader Griffin condemning Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith".

5 comments:

Jonathan said...

These BNP idiots really are so dumb it's amazing that no-one has set them up so successfully before. That program made it abundently apparent that all you have to do to provoke all kinds of racist, xenophobic shit from them is tell them you're a convicted football hooligan and buy them a pint of bitter. They'll proclaim you a friend for life and an hour later you can drop the secretly filmed video tape into the police station on your way home.

Ben said...

Yep, the programme was excellent - posted about it on SWSL. At the time I remember reading somewhere someone calling the documentary pointless because it didn't show anything we didn't already know (ie that the BNP incites racial hatred). Well, here's some good that's come of it directly!

Jonathan said...

Yes, it's true to say that the intolerance which characterises the BNP's voters won't suddenly disappear if the BNP is unravels, but I think much of the appeal of the BNP to people in those communities is that they feel the party is in some sense 'sticking up for them'. The visibility of the party confirms this sense.

If that visibility was significantly diminished then yes, intolerance would remain, but that intolerance would not be channelled and focused as significantly as it presently is - and I'm minded to think that the way that the BNP channels debate in the areas where they are strong is highly manipulative. I don't believe that every BNP voter is a boot-boy.

Anonymous said...

NEVER TRUST JOURNALISTS IF YOURE AN ANTI-FASCIST, AS THEY ARE QUITE HAPPY TO CARRY ON FILMING YOU ON DEMOS, KNOWING THAT THE POLICE OR EVEN FASCISTS WILL GET THE PHOTOS, REPORTERS ARE GRASSES THE BBC DOCUMENTARY GOT INFO FROM SEARCHLIGHT A WELL-KNOWN POLICE MAG., SEARCHLIGHT HAVE POLICE LINKS.

Jonathan said...

Never trust anyone who only uses capital letters either!