I don’t think the BBC had much choice in the matter – they made a very good point by hosting this to show the Government it is the job of Ofcom to decide what is acceptable on the broadcast media, not for the BBC to make the judgement.
The BNP are not a particularly fierce threat – what is a threat is the increasing number of angry young men being inspired to join the various “direct action” right wing groups who are prepared to take the fight to the street.
I know of several lads from the rave scene in both SE England and East Anglia who have been successfully groomed by the extreme right – usually it happens when they are becoming disillusioned with drugs and parties, to the point they deliberately try and start racial incidents at certain parties as well as becoming increasingly involved in street violence when drinking.
When Thatcho denied Sinn Fein publicity during the 1980s it resulted in many more IRA bomb attacks (including an escalation of attacks on the British mainland) and could well have prolonged the conflict by a decade.
There’s a consensus to ignore a lot of the environmental campaigners on mainstream media, and this is resulting in escalations of their direct action campaigns to the point they are actively trying to damage Britain’s power infrastructure and doing nobody any favours.
Unfortunately also all mainstream parties and people (including ethnic minorities already present in this country) are trying to become harder on immigration, because of the recession and this won’t change until we have better economic times..
