BNP claims big recruitment boost after Question Time

but leader of far-right party still plans to make complaint to bbc

By David Perry

Published:

SMILE PLEASE: Nick Griffin, left, is asked for a photograph by a market trader in Grays, Essex, after his appearance on Question Time on Thursday night.

The far-right British National Party claimed last night that its leader’s appearance on the BBC’s Question Time programme had delivered the “single biggest recruitment night” in its history.

But Nick Griffin still plans to make a formal complaint to the BBC over his treatment during the show after he was jeered by the audience and his performance was panned in the press.

He claims the format of the corporation’s flagship current affairs programme had been deliberately “twisted” to focus on him and his party’s policies, leaving him to face a “lynch mob”.

BNP HQ claimed “no fewer than 3,000” new people registered to be signed up as members. A statement on its website said: “This figure represents the single largest block of new-membership expressions of interest ever, and will, once formally signed up, have boosted party membership by nearly 30%.”

The claim has not been verified but is in line with what happened in France when Jean Marie Le Pen’s far-right Front National was given TV time in 1984. His support doubled overnight and he became a leading challenger for the French presidency.

Mr Le Pen said last night: “All political groups started as marginal before becoming important.”

Meanwhile, Mr Griffin demanded “another go” after being ridiculed during the show, claiming he had received “unfair treatment”.

A BBC Question Time spokesman said it was “not the job of the BBC to comment on the BNP’s publicity material” and defended giving air time to those elected as MEPs.

The BBC did reveal its normal two to three million audience for the programme had soared to eight million.

Mr Griffin called a press conference at Thurrock, a constituency in the depressed Thames Estuary area of Essex where he plans to stand as a UK Parliament candidate at next year’s general election.

He complained the show was staged in an area of London changed beyond recognition by uncontrolled immigration which “many ancestral Londoners have left over the last 20 years because they can no longer call it home”.

He said: “We know from the floods of e-mails and numerous telephone calls we have had that the programme was not shown in its normal format. They deliberately changed the whole format of Question Time in order to deal with me.

“I wanted to appear on Question Time to be talking about the postal strike, the fact that our boys are coming back from Afghanistan in body bags or with no legs, or to talk about the banks.”

He spoke out as arguments raged between those who said the BBC should not have given him air time and those who feared it was inevitable in a democracy after he was elected a member of the European Parliament representing the north-west of England.

Aberdeen South Labour MP Anne Begg said of his plea for another hearing: “He has had his chance. I think he has got a cheek.”

She said many people were “appalled” at the views he spouted during an “evasive” performance, but she feared others may have felt he was being picked on and might support “the underdog”.

But she added: “As an elected MEP I do not think we should be in the business of censoring what he has to say.”

Angus SNP MP Mike Weir said Mr Griffin failed to answer questions, especially about his Holocaust denial – a view of history that insists the massacre of millions of Jews by German Nazis never happened – and the whole affair became “a media circus”.

He said: “Hopefully people will have seen through the respectable veneer the BNP are trying to portray to the racist policies behind it.

“The danger is that the huge amount of publicity has given the BNP a boost.”

Liberal Democrat Scottish affairs spokesman and Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael said the programme had enabled the BNP and Mr Griffin to be exposed as a party without coherent solutions to the everyday problems people face.

He said any progress the “exceptionally dangerous” party made resulted from a failure of mainstream politicians to engage with voters and the programme showed they could be taken on and beaten.

Aberdeen North MP Frank Doran said: “I don’t think Mr Griffin did himself any favours. I was concerned the show focused completely on him and gave the appearance of one man being attacked from all sides.

“I wanted to hear if the BNP have any coherent ideals about issues like climate change and the economy.”

The BNP website said the BBC had changed the format of the show “to allow a hand-picked mob to use up the entire hour to relentlessly attack Mr Griffin”, who was going to submit a formal complaint and a freedom of information request for the preparatory papers for the show to be exposed.

London mayor Boris Johnson said Mr Griffin was right that London was not his city – because “it is a welcoming, tolerant, cosmopolitan capital which thrives on its diversity” and “had no place for the BNP”.

Media regulator Ofcom said it was considering “a small number” of complaints. The BBC said it had received more than 350, the bulk of which – more than 240 – accused the show of being biased against the BNP and Mr Griffin.

But more than 100 were about Mr Griffin being allowed to appear on Question Time at all. The BBC said the Question Time viewing audience was second only to EastEnders on the night.