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From Iain Dale, publisher of Total Politics
I regret to announce the resignation of Labour MP Denis MacShane from the Total Politics Editorial Board. Earlier today I informed the board that I would be conducting an IN CONVERSATION interview with the leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, for the next issue of the magazine. I wrote...
We have thought long and hard about the rights and wrongs of doing this interview, but feel that if we are a non partisan magazine we cannot afford to boycott the BNP, no matter how much we might like to. I’m going to approach the interview in exactly the same way as I would with any other politician. Let’s hope I produce an interview that delivers the goods and allows people to make up their own minds.
Denis sent an email to me which read as follows...
Iain,
Thanks for courtesy in letting me and other ed brd members know about Griffin TP interview . But I won't want to be linked to a journal that gives house room to an anti-semitic racist. I see close up the fear and hate BNP generates.
Shame as I think u have done a great job with TP and in all the Ashers furore I have said I have no problem with him as proprietor it is the politics of hague/cam's judgement and my own view that all outside money corrupts and corodes (Labour donors included) But I have spent my life fighting antisemitism and racism and long ago decided not to be on platforms etc with first the National front now the BNP. Won't bore you with arguments this is just a personal decision so grateful if you could take me off mast head.
He also released this statement to the press...
"Denis MacShane MP has resigned from the editorial board of "Total Politics" owned by Lord Ashcroft after its editor Iain Dale announced he would be giving space to Nick Griffin ahead of the election. Macshane said "the banalisation of the BNP's anti-semitic and racist politics is now a worrying phenomenom in current politics. Although I oppose Lord Ashcroft's occult role in Tory politics I consider Total Politics a fine and wide ranging monthly edited with the flair and energy Iain Dale brings to political publishing and writing. But Nick Griffin's record of Jew-hate, Islamaphobia and racism is clear. In a Q and A interview he will lie and swerve round hard questions and it is a major propaganda triumph for extreme right-wing racism and anti-semitism to obtain this kind of interview. So with regret I will stand down from the TP board."
I very much regret Denis's decision. He is a parliamentarian I have a lot of respect for and I know he feels strongly on these issues. I can't deny I am disappointed he reacted so quickly, without even seeing the interview but I am grateful for the words of tribute Denis pays to the magazine. However, I and my editorial colleagues deeply reject the inference that giving an elected politician an interview amounts to any sort of propaganda triumph. Whether we like it or not, the BNP has elected councillors and MEPs and may gain more than a million votes at the next election. To 'no platform' them is to hand them a propaganda triumph. In our view, their policies deserve proper scrutiny, and that is what I hope my interview will go some way to achieving.
Could I also point out that Lord Ashcroft does not own Total Politics - he is the owner of 25% of the shares, and I own 65%. Also, I am not the editor of the magazine, I am the publisher. Ben Duckworth is the editor.
23 comments
To censor Griffen is akin to outright negation of free speech however torrid it may be.
You bet McShane was bleating on about how awful it was to censor Adams the IRA leader back in the 80's
Thats why I cannot stand the hypocrite and it would seem many others feel the same and yet he is one of the media's darlings especially on the Daily Politics show but then that is the BBC and its infamous balance of judgement.
Glad he is gone!
It is our moral obligation to challenge extremism and racism. The dilemma is how do we oppose without pouring petrol on the flames.
I don't have a view on Iain's interview specifically since it's not written yet.But I would certainly support responsible challenges that hold Griffin to account for his revolting views and expose his ludicrous policies as a disaster for Britain, especially the white working class.
And this is increasingly the view of people who are serious about opposing the racism and extremism of the modern BNP.
Denis, we admire your brave stance against anti-Semitism and Islamism greatly, but you've made a wrong call on this one.
Iain, don't expect a round of applause for what you're doing but remember that the public, particularly young people, expect to see people like Griffin held to account and, our research shows, they cannot understand why mainstream politicians do not make the moral case against the BNP more clearly.
The BNP is not an illegal party - they should be entitled to the same treatment as any other party. The more the BNP are villified the more attractive they will seem. Human nature being what it is will make sure of that.
Macshane is no loss, he is one of the worst europhile MP's ever....
He also is good at lying on tv debates ref his statements on numbers of prostitutes shipped into the uk, and is therefore no loss to public life.
He got his come-uppance on Newsnight some weeks ago when he was asked where he got his amazing facts about the level of girl trafficking from eastern Europe.
"Er, the Daily Mirror", he said.
Paxo's response was pure Lady Bracknell.
"The Daily Mirror!"
The BNP deserve scrutiny like every other political party, i really can't understand why Mr MacShane has resigned over this.
Cannot believe he added anything by his presence on the masthead.
Perhaps there would not be any BNP MEPs if Labour had not rewritten the electoral system and done a better job of running the country, since - and this is something which Labour politician don't seem to want to face - the BNP seems to do well in Labour constituencies.
After all, Labour is the party that defined itself as the political wing of the British people, that has introduced eugenics, that has given the police more powers over us, that allows snoopers into our homes while not protecting those who need the Government's help, that has messed up our national security while at the same time passing more and more authoritarian laws, that has passed laws making us show ID cards to police officers, who can take our cameras away from us and arrest us for remembering our war dead at the Cenotaph or heckling Labour ministers, that has manipulated the electoral system to keep itself in office and that has put 1 million more people on the State payroll - and they call the BNP Fascist?
'British Jobs For British Workers' and all that.
I never spoken to/ nor met him, but his persona comes across as a very nasty little man.
Do you notice that every time a Labour person sneezes they say 'aaaa...ashcroft !'?
As a member to be of the BNP I have three questions for Mr Griffin.
1) What do you understand by the term 'Zionist'
2) Do you believe there is a Zionist conspiracy?
3) Do you understand that on the rare occasions when you use the word Zionist in a party speech it is read by anti-semites both within the party (and no doubt there are fewer in the BNP than the Liberal Democrats) and those around the party as a licence to begin activity on forums and try to groom new members and supporters against Jews?
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