As a result of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, the girlfriend and I had a pretty heated debate about whether or not he should have even been allowed on the programme and given a platform on which to express his racist views to a national, prime-time audience.
She was firmly of the belief that he should never have been given the opportunity to even be on the programme, because he is racist, and because his political party is racist. She said that to be racist is a crime in the United Kingdom, which it isn’t*, but I can see where she is coming from.
I fully disagreed, saying that you have to give a political party a voice, no matter how much you disagree with it. In a modern, liberal, democratic society, the only way to defeat views is to prove them wrong through debate and reason; censorship is not the answer.
To provide a bit of context, the girlfriend grew up in 80s and 90s Zimbabwe, as a white person, and so has experienced racism against herself personally. This doesn’t mean that she is automatically prejudiced against non-whites (far from it, I couldn’t imagine a more inclusive person than her), but she knows how it is to see racism up close and personal.
I think this was her driving force behind stating that racists of the BNP ilk should be neither seen nor heard in mainstream political coverage, no matter how many actual votes they garner. To be racist, in her view, is to forgo such political niceties as equal coverage with normal parties, and in fact it is to forgo coverage altogether.
My view is that you cannot deny a voice to these people, no matter how foul we find their opinions, especially when nearly a million people have voted for them in the last round of elections. It doesn’t matter that they are racist, communist, fascist, liberal or illiberal, they must be allowed to be heard.
I said that we can defeat these opinions by proving their falsehood, whereas the girlfriend believes that by giving them a platform their message is going to be heard further and wider. I can understand that, but at the same time it is also clear that the BNP is able to defeat itself by its appearances on this kind of programme.
We don’t need to censor the BNP when it does a perfectly good job of hoisting itself by its own petard.
Both of us became pretty heated in voicing the opinions and reasons behind our viewpoints, and I think we both came out of it appreciating why the other felt the way they did. I really enjoy having political debates, but it takes some kind of extremity/extremist to get me thoroughly worked up and giving my opinions room to breathe.
- It’s a crime to incite violence based on race, and racial motives are an aggravating factor in any crime when it comes to sentencing, but to be racist or spout racist views is not a crime.
