Over in the Independent, Lib Dem shadow home secretary Chris Huhne writes about his experiences on last night’s BBC Question Time as a fellow panellist alongside BNP leader Nick Griffin. Here’s an excerpt:
The key method of Griffin was on display: pretend to be moderate and reasonable in order to garner support which would be revolted if it knew his real agenda. He was confronted with quotes from YouTube, in which he told David Duke of the Ku Klux Klan that the BNP had to move softly because the British people were not yet ready for talk of racial purity, so you talk about identity, freedom and security.
Underneath the media-trained veneer, the old racial politics was there. It is the same politics we have seen time and again through the decades: find a scapegoat and blame a minority for all our ills. Mosley and the British Union of Fascists blamed the Jews in the Thirties. Enoch Powell blamed the blacks in the Sixties and Seventies, and now Nick Griffin is trying to peddle hatred and fear against the Muslim community.
You can read Chris’s post in full here.