Defending the rights of the obnoxious

Yesterday, two members of the right wing, racist British National Party (B.N.P), Nick Griffin, its leader, and Mark Collett were cleared of inciting racial hatred. The charges against them stemmed from a secret film of the pair made by the BBC at a private B.N.P. meeting in Yorkshire in 2005 where the phrases 'Islam is a wicked,vicious faith' and 'Muslims are turning Britain into a multi-racial hell-hole' were used.




Although I dislike intensely the whole ethos of the B.N.P. I found myself compelled to applaud the verdicts - and then begin to worry about the reaction to them from the British Government.

We have a new Racial and Religious Hatred Act under which these charges were brought and, as with many other well intentioned pieces of legislation, I fear that one of the consequences will be the annulment of the right to hold an opinion and express it in public if the government considers that opinion to be unacceptable. This is a dangerous road for any government in a free democratic society.

Let me examine the circumstances in which the purported offences took place, the nature of the purported offences themselves, and the involvement of the State.

First of all the circumstances. The speeches were made to an invited audience of BNP supporters in a private room of a pub in Keighley, Yorkshire. These were supporters and sympathisers. It was not, by my perception, a public venue where passing Muslims could hear, and be antagonised by, the nature of the remarks.

In fact the remarks would never have come to light had it not been for a BBC camera crew passing themselves off as supporters and secretly filming Griffin and Collett as part of the fashionable trait of undercover journalism. While I accept that much of this work is good in exposing immigrant smugglers, slave traders etc I am concerned if it is going to be used to sneak around the country spying on those with whom the authorities have political differences and in order to make secret film which can then be used in prosecutions. This is too much like the KGB for me. I felt the whole justification for this case was shabby, as it appears, did the jurors.

Now the remarks themselves. The comments Griffin made are the kind of remarks people make in pub discussions, not solely about Islam but about any issue about which they hold passionate opinions. I have heard strong opinions on Catholicism, on Arabs, on Germans (mainly by those old enough to have fought in the last war) but we don't have a religious or cultural war on our hands as a result. Good Lord we even burn the Pope in effigy on Nov 5th every year!

It would be a different matter had Griffin and Collett advocated beating up Muslims or damaging their property. Had comments been made which were specifically aimed at persuading those at the meeting to go out and perform aggressive and violent acts I would have supported the criminal prosecution. No matter how much I disagree with and dislike the tenor of the remarks they did NOT suggest that and do not for me constitute grounds for criminal prosecution - and again the jury agreed.

Now, and for me the biggest source of concern, the British Government. What has been their response to the verdict yesterday? "OK, we need to be a little more judicious in the way we choose these prosecutions?" No of course not! Instead our presumed next Prime Minister talks about tightening up the Racial Hatred Act so that we get them next time and our Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, Lord Falconer has spoken of 'ensuring comments like this are legally outlawed as we want to send a positive message to young Muslims'.

Frankly I find this attitude quite disturbing. It is, in essence, saying 'We have a tinderbox on our doorstep and we are frightened to death of it. Therefore in the interests of damping down unrest, we have to make sure that Muslims who might be offended and thus resort to violence are not given any excuse'



Well I think that's pathetic. I don't want to offend Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Jews or any other faith but at the same time I believe we are in danger of sacrificing a fundamental right to freedom of opinion simply as an expedient to preventing violence by one section of our society. Lord Falconer may be right in believing that Muslims think they are singled out for criticism but there are many reasons for that and many solutions to it - but not an excuse, in my opinion,to stifle personal opinion using repressive legislation.

I am quite in agreement with stopping hate mongers who advocate violence screaming out their demands on a public platform but we are in danger of blurring the distinction between genuine incitement and personal opinion, no matter how obnoxious many might find that opinion to be. I am not being naive here. I think the B.N.P., under Griffin's leadership has become a lot smarter politically in what it says - and that was evidenced by yesterday's verdict. I don't think the Party has become any more benign in its intentions towards immigrants than it ever was. However, in a democratic fair society no government must be allowed to manipulate the law to get the result it wants - and that includes acting against neo-nazi organisations.

Down this road of ever more repressive - and worse, manipulated - legislation lies the authoritarian state - and whatever our personal views of the B.N.P., the machinery used to inhibit them might have consequences more far reaching than we can envisage.