THE planned appearance of the British National Party leader Nick Griffin on tonight’s Question Time television programme is controversial but correct. We live in a democracy. We cherish our right to freedom of speech and expression.

Mr Griffin is one of Britain’s elected representatives in the European Parliament. He has as much right to appear on the BBC programme as any other politician.

The irony of his appearance, which was the subject of eleventh hour discussions by BBC bigwigs as we went to press last night, is that the democratic rights that allow him to take his place on the panel would be denied to the rest of us should his party ever attain power. The avowed intention of the BNP is to control the media. It is an aim shared by extremists the world over. Our hope is that Mr Griffin’s fellow panellists and the Question Time audience expose him and his party for what they really are – a nasty bunch of oddballs and unreconstructed racists; fascists to the core; skinheads in suits.

The truth behind the BNP’s mask of respectability has been exposed in recent days in Mr Griffin’s reactions to criticisms from senior military figures of his party’s use of images like the Spitfire and Churchill in its campaign literature.

His responses have been both laughable and abhorrent.

He has claimed most British troops in Afghanistan support his party, compared British generals to Nazi war criminals and claimed Churchill would be a BNP member if he were alive today.

Mr Griffin is clearly both fascist and fantasist.

Let us hope the full glare of public scrutiny tonight exposes him as the sad, deluded little man he really is.

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