UK NEWS

GRIFFIN: QUESTION TIME WAS A LYNCH MOB

Friday October 23 2009 byJulia White for Express.co.uk

BNP leader Nick Griffin complained today that he had been the victim of a “lynch mob” following his controversial appearance on the BBC’s Question Time.

After his performance was widely panned in the press, he denounced the “unfairness” of the way the programme was produced and called on the BBC to give him a second chance to appear, talking about the issue of the day.

He said: “The British public are aghast at the display of bias from the BBC, the venom form the political class, and the sheer unfairness.

VOTE: HAVE YOUR SAY ON GRIFFIN'S QUESTION TIME APPEARANCE...

“That was not a genuine Question Time, that was a lynch mob.”

Mr Griffin said that the BBC had deliberately changed the format of the programme to concentrate on him and his policies.

The BBC has come under attack for allowing the BNP leader on the show

And he said that the party was now making a formal complaint to the BBC over the way in which the programme had been “twisted”.

He added: “People wanted to see me and hear me talking about things such as the postal strike. One or two questions about what a wicked man I am, fair enough, but the whole programme - it was absurd. Lets do it again but do it properly this time.

Mr Griffin insisted that the programme should have been filmed somewhere else because London was “not my country any more”.

That was not a genuine Question Time, that was a lynch mob

Nick Griffin

He said: “That audience was taken from a city that is no longer British ...

“That was not my country any more. Why not come down and do it in Thurrock, do it in Stoke, do it in Burnley?

“Do it somewhere where there are still significant numbers of English and British people liv(ing), and they haven’t been ethnically cleansed from their own country.”

He also said that he wanted to challenge Justice Secretary Jack Straw to a one-on-one debate on the issues of the day, and called on Tory leader David Cameron to disassociate himself from the protests outside BBC Television Centre where the programme was recorded.

More than eight million people tuned in to watch Griffin on the panel last night - around three times the usual number of viewers.

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The BBC has defended the BNP leader’s appearance, in which he gave a twitchy performance and described homosexuals as “creepy”.

Hundreds of angry protesters massed outside Television Centre in west London last night as Mr Griffin also denied he was a Nazi and said the Ku Klux Klan were “almost totally non-violent”.

The BBC came under fire from critics who accused it of legitimising the BNP’s “racist” policies by inviting Mr Griffin on to the show.

Today Mark Byford, deputy director general of the BBC, defended the broadcaster's decision. He said: “Over eight million people watched Question Time last night.

“This very large audience clearly demonstrates the public’s interest in seeing elected politicians being scrutinised by the public themselves.

“The agenda of the programme was set by the audience’s own questions.

“The BBC is firm in its belief that it was appropriate for Mr Griffin to appear as a member of the panel and the BBC fulfilled its duty to uphold due impartiality by inviting him on the programme.”

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain - who campaigned for many years against Apartheid and who had made a last-ditch appeal to the BBC to drop the BNP leader - bitterly denounced the broadcast.

He said: “The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history.

“Our black, Muslim and Jewish citizens will sleep much less easily now the BBC has legitimised the BNP by treating its racist poison as the views of just another mainstream political party when it is so uniquely evil and dangerous.”

However Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who was also on the Question Time panel, insisted that it had been a “catastrophic” week for the BNP, which had seen Mr Griffin exposed as a “fantasising conspiracy theorist”.

“For the first time the views of the BNP have been properly scrutinised,” he said.

Mr Byford insisted it had been “appropriate” to invite Mr Griffin to appear given the level of support his party achieved in the last European elections.

“Members of the audience asked the kind of tough questions that mark Question Time out as the premier television programme where the public put the panellists on the spot,” he said.

“We remain firmly of the view that it was appropriate to invite Nick Griffin on to the Question Time panel this evening in the context of the BBC meeting its obligation of due impartiality.”

Following the programme, Mr Griffin acknowledged his appearance would “polarise normal opinion” but expressed confidence that it would have an impact.

“A huge swathe of British people will remember some of the things I said and say to themselves they’ve never heard anyone on Question Time say that before and millions of people will think that man speaks what I feel,” he said.

“People will see the extraordinary hostility shown to me from the people representing the three old parties. It’s still a matter of the main political parties being against the outsider and that is what it is about.”

During the show Mr Griffin sought to defend his record, insisting that his views had been widely misrepresented and that the BNP had changed under his leadership.

He said: “I am not a Nazi and never have been."