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Friday 28 May 2004

The irony of the BNP [beej]

So, right wing politics then.
I was just talking with the continuity announcer for BBC TWO and tonight she has to introduce the BNP's Party Election Broadcast (its on BBC ONE later as well). People are quite touchy about the whole BNP thing, especially your average pinko media-ite, but she's very matter of fact about how the UK is a democracy and if one political party can have five minutes of air time then they all have to.
Now what is so wonderfully ironic is that she's Asian and she was wondering whether to put on a bit of an Indian accent just for laughs. The BNP wouldn't see the funny side would they :)
It's a bit like that Louis Theroux ep where he meets the white supremacists and they tell him he's Jewish (ummmm... no he's not you KKK retards!)

2 comments:

  1. There was a big thing with the BNPs broadcast this afternoon on channel 5. They were apparently claiming some pretty unsavoury things in it (which may or may not actually be true in fact) and C5 told them they wouldn't/couldn't show it. So the BNP bleeped their own broadcast and C5 showed it.
    Now, on one level this is just farcically bizarre. I don't think there is anyone out there who doesn't know what the BNP stand for - so quite what the point of bleeping the broadcast was I dunno. However on another level, you have to ask whether this is worrying for the political process. It doesn't matter if nobody agrees with what the BNP says, the political process is only properly served by allowing them to say it and letting the voting population decide. If we're only allowing people we think are 'nice' to broadcast the message they want to, then where does it stop? Once you've crossed the line do you stop extreme green parties that advocate population control? What about the communists? Anti-war protesters? Do we end up with only seeing politicians who stand for and say absolutely nothing of value in case they offend someone?
    Apparently the broadcast was refused under grounds that it is a crime to broadcast or publish things 'likely to incite racial hatred'. But how is whatever what the BNP want to say actually anything different to the front page of The Sun the morning Abu Hamsa was arrested?
    I just don't know. I have no wish to advocate or encourage the BNP. I personally find most of what they stand for pretty distasteful and I think they're massively exploitative and opportunistic. However the fact remains that if they can't stand up and make their case whatever it may be, then the elections can't truly be described as 'fair and open'.
    Of course the object irony is the BNP will undoubtedly bleat about how their rights have been infringed, while advocating policies which infringe the rights of a significant portion of the population....

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  2. I agree with you, they should be allowed to exist. If they get representation it's because people agree with them. I've noticed the BNP is getting worryingly media canny. I've had a pamphlet through my doorstep and ... pretty much everything on it was reasonable stuff, it wasn't even all about immigration etc.
    So I'm worried they might move more to the centre and start being more mass market but of course, have the same old agenda running underneath which they've always had.
    Then again... isn't that what labour did? They snuck in the mid-left door and suddenly before anyone knew it, we had lefty crap going on left right and centre that no one actually voted for... Well, that's one interpretation anyway.

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