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BNP attacks non-white Question Time panellists
Ross Lydall and Peter Dominiczak19.10.09
THE BNP has attacked the two non-white panellists due to appear alongside Nick Griffin on the BBC's Question Time on Thursday.
The far-Right party's website contains an article describing Baroness Warsi, the Conservative shadow minister for community cohesion, as "another product of Tory affirmative action" because she entered Parliament as a life peer after failing to be elected as an MP.
The article also describes Bonnie Greer, the American writer and cultural commentator, as a "black history fabricator", apparently because she made a radio programme called In Search Of The Black Madonna, a religious icon considered more powerful than the white-faced Madonna.
The controversy came as Welsh Secretary and longstanding anti-apartheid campaigner Peter Hain warned the BBC that it could face legal action unless it scrapped the Question Time appearance of Mr Griffin, one of two BNP members elected to the European Parliament in June.
Mr Hain has written to BBC director general Mark Thompson demanding he suspend the "abhorrent" inclusion of the BNP leader on the flagship political debate show.
He argued that the BNP was at present "an unlawful body" after the party told a court last week it would amend its whites-only membership rules to meet discrimination legislation.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission issued county court proceedings because the membership criteria were restrictive to those within certain ethnic groups. In his letter, Mr Hain said: "Now that the BNP have accepted they are at present an unlawful body, it would be perverse of you to maintain that they are just like any other democratically elected party. On their own admission, at present, they are not.
"If you do not review the decision you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge in addition to the moral objections that I make. In my view, your approach is unreasonable, irrational and unlawful.
"You are giving the BNP a legitimacy even they dare not claim in their current unlawful status."
Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne are also due to appear on the programme. This has led to splits within the Government, with Home Secretary Alan Johnson saying he would never share a platform with "fascists".
Protests are expected outside Television Centre in Wood Lane, west London, with concerns about the scale of the cost of policing the event. The BBC says Mr Griffin's inclusion is based on obligations resulting from the party's success in getting two MEPs elected. The programme is due to be broadcast at 10.35pm on BBC1.
A BBC spokesman said: "Our understanding is that, if there was an election tomorrow, the BNP would be able to stand. Our audiences, and the electorate, will make up their own minds about the different policies offered by elected politicians."
An opinion poll at the weekend found voters backed the BBC by 63 per cent to 23 per cent.
