The Zohan

Now i am not in any way a fan of Nick Griffins or the BNP. I feel they prey on the weak, scared and easily led. I am not a big fan of Labours new laws on so called race hate and incitement.
This kind of plays onto the hands of the likes of the BNP IMHO.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/16012006/32...ate-trial.html

Quote
""The charges will be vigorously defended and the trial will be used to demonstrate both the vicious attacks on free speech by the New Labour regime and to prove that Islamic fundamentalism is an evil faith which has no place in Britain," the BNP said on its Web site.

If found guilty, the men face a maximum of 7 years in prison.

More than 500 anti-BNP protesters and about 150 supporters demonstrated outside the court before the trial began.

"We believe it's important to stand together to defend our multi-cultural society," said Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism.

"We believe it will be a tragedy if he hides behind our democracy in order to attack it, which is the basic plan of the party.
BNP activists said police should have been more concerned with Muslim extremists than the words of Griffin, citing the London bombings last July in which four young British Islamists killed 52 people.

"I don't think it's wrong to take aspects of the Koran and criticise them," local BNP organiser Nick Sass said."

OllyK

This is the problem when the governement removes freedom of speech and says what you can and can't have an opinion on.

I'd rather let the nutballs vent their spleen, but also have others explaining why their thinking is inherantly flawed. Trying to censor them didn't stop the IRA and it won't stop the BNP or religious extremists (regardless of flavour).

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Funny how he faces charges when other and far more controversial people inciting racial hatred against your common garden white skinned Englishman who do not subcribe to the same religious beliefs do not even get charged.

Fair? Certainly not. If Griffin faces charges, then so should they. But oh wait, they are a "minority" and it could enrage their followers and it will be considered as racist, so lets just ignore and pretend they don't exist and are not damaging this country's integrity.

OllyK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4616968.stm Cough!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I was about to add that it would be interesting to see how this trial against Hamza compares.

Bear in mind some of Abu Hamza's charges date back to before 2002 (edit: as far back 1999 - probably much further).

And there are others.

Leslie

Free speech is vitally important to us all, but incitement to violence etc is a different matter.

Les

OllyK

But you can't have selective feedom of speech, with the good comes some bad, but I'd rather have that than be looking over my shoulder everytime I open my mouth in case the censorship police are there waiting to haul me away.

Dracoro

Is TB saying to our soldiers to go and do stuff in Iraq incitement to violence as well?

What is incitement? What can you say isn't incitement and what is? Is someone in the pub saying 'lets nuke iran' to be arrested and locked up as he is inciting violence?

OllyK

Of course not, nobody would take them seriously. However, a Muslim in a pub (an odd occurence anyway) wearing a rucksack and saying let's bomb London and everybody's going to have sense of humour failure.

Like so many of these damn laws they are subjective.

Reality

If prison officers aren't allowed to call scumbags "cons" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/4617292.stm) then your man in the pub saying let's nuke Iran could well be in trouble next.

Provided the incitement rules are applied equally to white supremacists and muslim radicals there's no problem. The first muslim radical that bleats about human rights to shout death to the west should fall victim to the shoot-to-kill-Brazillians policy !

Brendan Hughes

I think that's incitement to suicide, at least on his/her part.

OllyK

Ahh but that would be "I'm going to..." by the use of "Let's" or "Let us" it suggests they are inviting others, Muslim or otherwise to don rucksacks and head for London.

RichWalk

So, one could argue that The Old Testament should be banned then

Holy Ghost

**

nail. head. hit.

appears some speech is more free than others. i don't think we need to be told what is acceptable and what is not. our society has a built-in knack of accepting the reasonable and ridiculing that which isn't.

OllyK

Absolutely

Holy Ghost

... and organised religion as well. professor richard dawkins absolutely rocks.

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Hmm, tough one this, whilst the BNP are indeed nutters, they are also members of the community and as such have a right to free speech, people need to make up there own minds in possesion of all the facts.

lozgti

Whats all this with one in four considering voting for him? Wonder if the trial helped?

Mind you,Cameron asking me to take the bus once a week won't get my vote.Its getting hard to decide who to vote for with the main three parties being a bit rubbish

KiwiGTI

The way I heard it was that this was white people in "economically deprived areas" such a some parts of North England and East London, where immigrants have been placed and overloaded all the social services or appeared to be treated preferentially.

Also said that people don't necessarily support BNP but would vote for them in a protest vote.

The Zohan

Blimey this thread is a blast from the not so distant past

Cameron is looking like being new-new labour or another reincarnation of them. He needs to get sorted and differenciate himself and his party from Labour.

At the moment i am not sure who to vote for. A vote for the BNP could be a real wake up call to the main three parties but i am not sure i could or would vote this way just to make the point.

I am not suprised that the BNP are gaining popularity, Immigration ands intergration are real issues in the UK, the gov't has mishandled it and is giving the likes of Griffing all the ammo they need.

I watched the last twenty minutes cop robbers and videotape last night, the main two gangs i saw where Bosnian and another eastern european gang of illegals robbing and thieving. When one of them told she was going to be deported she stated to cry - what did she really expect.

Yes i know we do have home grown criminals but we already had enough to begin with with neither the police rescourses or the punishments or prisons to deal with them effectively. We do have a PC lobby that is all to happy to fight for their so called rights however

at least 600,000 illegals in the uk is the best guess by NL!

People are concerned about this country and see little being done by the main parties.

Whilst this continues the BNP will gain strength and votes and in popularity.

Not suprise they are getting support

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

I think David davis would have been the best choice for leader for the conservatives.Cameron's middle of the road policies do not appeal to me.

All sides of media seem set out to destroy the BNP ,but Whilst they have a few undesirable members (which party doesnt ) a lot of their policies make sense. Its just a shame the media take some of the more extreme ones and turn the Bnp into the new *****, although by look of things people are starting to see through this.

Mungo

It happened in Germany in the '30s. I bet at the beginning it was just Germans voting for German rights, led by somebody who was passionate about his country. I bet they never foresaw where it would lead, in the way that people who may consider voting for the BNP now wouldn't.

However, there is a non-racist alternative, at least in England - http://www.englishdemocrats.org.uk/

Petem95

Far-right parties are gaining support all across Europe, and have been for some years now;

Netherlands - Pim Fortyns party, anti-muslim - very popular
Belgium - Vlans Blok (sp?) - get something like 35% of votes in some parts
France - Le Pen is bound to do extremely well again after muslims went on the rampage in France over the winter
Austria - far-right freedom party was/is in power

etc etc

WTF dont mainstream parties tackle issues like immigration which are clearly a massive concern to people?!

Suresh

What planet are you on? The BNP are a bunch of neo-**** thugs masquerading as a political party.

"A few undesirable members" LMFAO.

• Nick Griffin was convicted, in 1998, of violating section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to incitement to racial hatred. He received a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was fined £2,300.
• Tony Lecomber was jailed for possessing explosives in 1985, after a nail bomb exploded while he was carrying it near the offices of the Workers' Revolutionary Party; and for assault in 1991, when he almost killed a man on the London Underground. He was Nick Griffin's key deputy in the party from 1999 until January 2006. (See article on Lecomber for details.)
• Kevin Scott, the BNP's North East regional organiser[40], has two convictions for assault and using threatening words and behaviour.[41]
• Joe Owens, a BNP candidate in Merseyside and former bodyguard to Nick Griffin, has served eight months in prison for sending razor blades in the post to Jewish people and another term for carrying CS gas and knuckledusters.[42]
• Tony Wentworth, BNP student organiser, was convicted alongside Mr Owens for assaulting demonstrators at an anti-BNP event in 2003.[43]
• Jason Douglas, a BNP candidate in the 2004 London local elections, is a convicted football hooligan.[44]
• Mick Treacy, the Oldham organiser has five convictions for violence, theft, and handling stolen goods [45]
• Colin Smith, BNP South East London organiser has 17 convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars, possession of drugs and assaulting a police officer[46]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party

Then again, as more dim Tory supporters turn to the racist party, the chances of NL winning another term get bigger..

Suresh

Rabid

Griffin, his supporters and people who sympathise with his views are racist filth.
Therefore I don't care if an unjust law is used to lay him low, I'd like to see him and his ilk rot in prison for the rest of their lives not just a few years.

Suresh

Not really. The LPF's share of the vote has slumped to a negligible percentage. Somewhat ironically the vote shifted to the PvDA (old labour) in recent 2006 local elections.

KiwiGTI

And your point is?

Two examples :
Ariel Sharon
Nelson Mandela

KiwiGTI

Nothing is ever so black and white (sorry) So you are saying if you sympathise with them that there is an immigration problem then you are filth?

kingofturds

iTrader: (1)

Dont forget tony blairTruth is labour have some of the biggest criminals and thugs going in their party .Two fists prescott anyone? dodgy loans and going ons are a daily occurance at new labour.

douglasb

Looks like it's dim Labour voters that will be turning to the BNP this time.