Hopefully this post will be the last I need to say on the matter, as I’ll just add this little contribution to the debate: A while ago I was asked to compare the BNP and my experience dealing with the Front National.

Yesterday I was discussing the program with my friend Xavier Garcia, Spokesperson for the Parti Socialiste in the Alpes-Maritimes, who is also a university lecturer on politics in Nice. He wrote his doctoral thesis in Sheffield on the Labour Party of the 1980s.

The conclusion we came to was resolutely against No Platform (Who would have thought?) Here’s a summary of our conversation:

The rise of the BNP was impossible in the 80s and 90s because of the political landscape in Britain. Now, the Labour Party has become a middle class intellectual party and lost/losing its working class credentials (exactly like the PS), meanwhile, the Tory Party, which used to occupy the Right, has moved into the centre.

Most people think it is mainly old people who vote far right, in fact it’s very significantly young people from the working class (for reasons and fear that are discussed to death, like jobs and immigration) and so this space combined with far-rightists are why the BNP is “rising”.

On No Platform, the French parties boycotted the Front for years, and it grew and grew until it established a foothold, feeding and thriving from the notoriety and being “underground” from the mainstream parties.

Then No Platform ended, and the Front enjoyed a little boost (the same boost the BNP might experience after QT) but the FN has been in terminal decline ever since, further accelerated by Sarkozy poaching FN votes. Cameron’s Tories seem centrist, but only time will tell, they could erode the Far-Right electorate. If Labour gets its act together, the BNP will have nowhere left to go provided they are not given the No Platform lifeline of the protest-vote.

It’s incredibly short sighted to claim “told you so” from a 1% increase in the polls immediately after such a media spectacle. Which leads us to…

Tom Miller (a parliamentary candidate) has been asking me to respond to an article in the Guardian: “Ministers warn of poll boost for BNP after Question Time” who seems to have missed this quote from Darth Mandelson:

“In the short term, he [Griffin] may have done himself a favour. But in the long term he has done himself no good at all.”

Not to mention missing this (much better) piece from the UK Polling Report, YouGov verdict on BNP’s Question Time which highlights:

The topline voting intentions, with changes from the poll last weekend, are CON 40%(-1), LAB 27%(-3), LDEM 19%(+2), BNP 3%(+1). So while the BNP support is up, it is nothing significant. 2-3% has been pretty much the norm for their support over the last couple of months, and the most recent YouGov/Telegraph poll at the end of September also had them at 3%.

Then just as a side note:

What has changed was attitudes to the BBC’s decision to invite Griffin onto Question Time. At the weekend 63% thought it was right, 23% wrong. Now the balance of opinion has shifted further in favour of the BBC’s decision, 74% thinking it was right, and only 11% wrong.

I can’t believe anybody would think that the first appearance of the BNP on the Question Time would be a make-or-break situation and then we could all go home. This was the first battle in the war against the Far-Right, and we can choose to fight it, or regress to No Platform.

PS. I am in Britain this week, hoping to spend it with my girlfriend. Sorry Tom for not replying to your incredibly urgent Tweet until you mentioned it three times!

Once again, Twitter came into full force. According to @tweetminster there were up to 53.5K tweets with 12.49 tweets per second at close of #bbcqt.

Analysis of the debate will no doubt dominate the headlines and the blogosphere tomorrow and for several days to come.

However, I believe this is a maiden victory for the Coalition Against No Platform but the work is far from done.  Those STILL in favour of No Platform rightly ask “What about next time? What about the time after that?” because now the boycott is broken, we can avoid the mistake France made with the Front National, and hopefully start to deal with the BNP in a practical and not hysterical way.

Despite this, UAF protesters continued their typical activities, with a fleet of police officers required to prevent a riot. A caption on BBC News suggested that 3 police officers had been injured as protesters had attempted to storm the BBC. 6 people were arrested. I have said time and time again that I believe this method to be wholly counter-productive.

Question Time showed that Griffin’s views are as safe as sandcastles, and his backtracking and squirming was evident.

I am proud to have been able to contribute to the debate. I can only hope we can stop arguing with each other when we should be arguing with the BNP.

Hadleigh ROBERTS

Today I am pleased to publish a new page, the Coalition Against No Platform, a directory of bloggers and articles from all political parties.

We believe that the No Platform policy, where speakers refuse to participate in debates at which the BNP or other undesirables are present is foolish at best and counter-productive at worst.

With less than a week to go before Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party, appears on Question Time, the debate over the No Platform Policy is more relevant than ever before.

Though Griffin’s QT appearance may suggest that the argument has already ended, there are still many hearts and minds left to convince.

We believe that the main political parties and all their activists are united in their approach to tackling the BNP and challenging them directly.

The classic arguments are well worn, and we can go round and round debating about debating, but at the end of it all we have to make a decision, and it’s far better for us to mobilise and argue with those we want to defeat than those with whom we share the same goals.

See the list here.

I’m glad you start your reply (to my reply of your reply to my article) by acknowledging that “this topic arouses passions.” As you will have noticed, it is a topic that not just arouses passions but makes my blood begin to boil, mainly out of sheer frustration that I’m not getting through.

I’m not going to go over  my arguments once again by combing through your article point-by-point, as we are now moving far away from the central issue, which is that the Labour party must renounce its No Platform Policy. I will make a few general comments though based on my reaction to reading your post.

As for some preliminary remarks, I find it nothing more than a little cheeky that you begin by talking about yourself, then proceed to bemoan the fact that I am the one “playing the man rather than the ball” while continuously crying foul and on top of that getting in some digs of your own! I don’t know who you are apart from what I’ve heard on the Internet (about Draper and all that), and you have probably never heard of me because there’s nothing to hear (as far as I am aware) so I think ad hominem attack claims (certainly sounds like you went to Debating Society!) are quite a stretch of the imagination.

I found it especially amusing when you went so far as to call me naive (though I did slate your patronising tendencies, so mud is mud) but I think my favourite “man-not-ball” line goes to “I find this argument quite incoherent I’m afraid.”  Which I may have misinterpreted, it might actually have been a faulty argument, until you finish the paragraph with “That hardly sounds like Einstein.” Thanks for insulting my intelligence there! Bath may not be Manchester, and Modern Languages may not be Law with Politics, but please don’t treat me the way you treat the average voter! “Call me patronising as much as you want.” I will, particularly when I feel like I’m being patronised like when you tell me “You can do better than that.”

One final thing, “No, it’s your ‘realisation’, i.e. your appreciation. Your subjective opinion. It’s an opinion which has been catching on, especially with what seems to be a LabourList campaign to ditch the policy.” One, thanks for reminding me what my opinion is, having only spent about 3000 words on it the past 2 days or so. Two, the “LabourList campaign” is paranoia, because I suspect you are more intelligent than you are leading us to believe, and have actually figured out that we’ve already won (more on that later). If it is an opinion which is catching on, that might suggest that people who used to be in favour of No Platform have realised it is wrong and have changed their mind. It also means that if Anti-No Platformers (Not Pro Platform, note) are writing in, that just reflects the majority opinion and should not be stifled, I’ve already talked about how I perceive your views on democracy, so no need to go into that again. There is no campaign, though I’d gladly set one up, but calling cheat is one of the last resorts for people who are in the wrong and find themselves more and more isolated.

Moving on to arguments now. (You don’t need to worry yourself the above rant, it’s just my impatience).

I said I’m not going to pick apart your points again, mainly because the comments on your articles do it for me, incontrast to the comments on my pieces, which are almost exclusively supportive. There seems to be a democratic majority/minority divide reoccurring.

From “Madasafish”:

Tom said “I’m saying this because I’ve traipsed all over university campuses delivering leaflets in support of this policy”

What have university students to do with Labour voters voting BNP.

Students live a different life from working people and are totally unrepresentative. No wonder your policy is so out of touch with reality in my view.

The Aneurin adds:

A very good question indeed. I’d have thought that spending one’s time traipsing around council estates would be more productive in the fight against the BNP.

Says it all really. In fact, it allows me to bring in a another personal anecdote. In may 2007 the leader of the Youth BNP was a student at Bath, who invited Nick Griffin to speak. Instead of the SU taking a stand either way, for or against No Platform, Griffin was not allowed to speak because “it would disrupt exam time”. The result was that Griffin sat in a pub in town chatting to anybody who cared to listen, instead of just smart-arsed students hurling loaded questions at him.

In a very reactionary way, the following year the SU tried to introduce a No Platform Policy. In a referendum, Bath Students voted AGAINST No Platform in a ratio of 3:1. Voila democracy. Anyway, No Platform at Uni is totally removed from Labour Party No Platform. So let’s have that argument another day.

From Monkeybot 5000:

We are adults. We are your intellectual equals and in many cases your superiors. We do not need you to protect us from the likes of the BNP just in case we’re too stupid to make the right choice when it comes to cast our ballot.

Alun Lloyd:

No platform is the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting “I’m not listening, lalala!!”. You give them a mystique and aura they don’t deserve. They develop a persecuted persona to wheedle their way in. We need to stand them up in front of everyone and make them say out loud what they believe. Not let them whisper invidiously in corners.

Political Scrapbook:

“The BNP have a right to free speech, but nobody is under any obligation to provide them the means to use it effectively”. Erm, apart from the BBC, who are legally bound obligated to provide political balance. In the 1999 Euro elections UKIP gained three seats – one less than the BNP have now. If the BBC had decided to ‘no platform’ UKIP then they could have had John Birt up in court.

No Platform is an article of faith for many on the left. It’s sad to see people clutching at straws when it is clear that – as a strategy – it isn’t working. The game has changed!

Tristan Pithers:

I can totally understand your anger at the BNP and I share your belief that we have a ‘moral obligation’ to fight against them and their ideology of hate but No Platform is not the way to go. It is regressive and as much the start of a dangerous slippery slope as the election of Brons and Griffin.

Jules Wright:

No it doesn’t tom. prohibition of any sort always fails. i suspect that you simply lack the bottle to take them to task.

Ricki Lake:

Burying our head in the sand wont make the bnp go away , look at it from a voters view , the bnp come on and make a statement witch is riddled with lies ( i know this could apply to all 3 main parties) and no one challenges them then the voter thinks its true and falls under the spell of bnp .

We must ( all parties) debate with them and show the voters the type of nasty and racist party they are .

Hugh Pettit opens another compelling case:

But they’re going to be on TV whether you refuse to share a platform with them or not since they now hold office, as you admit. The only difference with following your logic is that there will be no one there to actually point out that they are a racist party and their policies are underpinned by bigotry.

It links back to my earlier “more on this later” statement. I think the argument is over because the BNP will get their place on Question Time. We might not like it, but if we can’t win through argument then  it says more about us than it does about them.

We should now stop digging this hole because the debate is now a forgone conclusion. Labour can either swallow its pride and get with the program as the Tories and Lib Dems have done, or we can stay sitting at home (much like our voters probably will) while they have the debates without us.

What will you do come the election if the BNP fields a candidate in Woking? Will you take them on as your electorate watches or will you let them forget you exist?

We are baying at the gates Tom. Will you let us eat cake?

PS I think it’s painfully obvious that neither of us is going to back down so we had better end our feud with the non-progressive ”agree to disagree.” If you want to say something else, it would be better if you posted it as a comment here, or better yet send me a message via my contact form. That way we can stop spamming LabourList and LabourHome with our debate that seems to have gone rapidly off topic.

Shortly afterwards, fellow Labour Colleagues came forward with their own pieces agreeing with me, including Bryony King, Adam Connell, James Alexander and Olly Deed. (Each name links to each post)

Even on the Right, it won support from Working Class Tory.

In the name of debate, I’ll also present to you those who are still in favour No Platform; a piece by Ellie Levenson and then Tom Miller.

Normally I avoid the practice of Fisking (definition) because I find it a rather vulgar and ugly form of rebuttal, but I think it’s right that we have this debate within the Party, and it’s an important one to win. I hope you’ll permit me to take the gloves off this one time.

A lot of the debate was sparked by the suggestion that the BNP is to be invited on to Question Time. Imagine that Tom Miller and I are sitting next to each other on such a panel, he is arguing in favour of No Platform and I am arguing against.

If you don’t want the point-by-point reconstruction, skip to the second image for general comments.

Having framed the debate, Miller begins his piece by quoting the comedian Mark Steele:

“There’s something touchingly innocent about the argument put forward by many people that the BNP should be allowed space in the mainstream media as this will “expose their ignorant ideas”. Because history doesn’t necessarily prove this to be the case. I don’t suppose that, in 1941, many people thought: “You see, this is all working to plan. Now he’s invaded Russia everyone will see just what an idiot this Hitler really is.”

That’s completely inappropriate. First, it totally misrepresents our approach; abandoning No Platform does not mean we roll out the red carpet for the BNP, and we’re not giving them rope in the hopes they will hang themselves by “exposing their ideas”. If we let them loose with their own TV spots (to which they are legally entitled in the form of Party Political Broadcasts) then they are not going to be stupid enough to say “We support fairer taxes, safe streets, oh and also the immediate deportation of anyone with thick lips.” They will hide their racist agenda if left to their own devices. We’re arguing that we should lead the charge against the BNP, not sounding the retreat and leaving the door open for them.

I want to dismiss the historical example out of hand because it’s so ridiculous, but I can’t help myself. I don’t suppose in 1941, many people thought “You see, this is all working to plan, we should carry on ignoring Hitler’s invasion of Europe and it will just fizzle out.” Chamberlain appeased and appeased, not confronting the problem as it grew and grew. By the time we decided to fight them on the beaches Hitler was a lot more powerful than he might have been.

They are only on Question Time because they hold office, and their immediate goal is to hold office. More of it. If we concentrate only on fighting the effects of this, a spilling over and legitimisation of racism in public discourse, and the social discord which goes with that, then we are lost.

I don’t quite understand your sentence because it’s quite convoluted and doesn’t seem very clear to me. Just to pick up your point about the “legitimisation of racism in public discourse” though, it’s only legitimised if it goes unchallenged by other parties, and it’s not likely that the general public are going to continue nonchalantly sipping their tea and think, “Oh, we can use that word again? Jolly good.” Olly Deed made an excellent point when he said “Surely the election of two MEPs and nearly a million votes at a European election suggests that they are a legitimate political party. Legitimacy is not an emotive term; I would argue it is an empirical term that shouldn’t be bounded about willy nilly.”

Bearing in mind that many of those who vote for the BNP, particularly as a protest against the other parties, often know little of their policies full stop, imagine how many people would see the BNP for the first time in their life on such a TV performance? Even if the BNP are roundly defeated in debate, this number will be such a large one that the percentage of people who find themselves agreeing with them will almost definitely outstrip the number who would support them without having seen question time.

I’m trying to be reasonable, but that’s just nonsense. Simultaneously you claim that people vote BNP without knowing their policies yet that knowing about their policies will get more people to vote for them.

If voters are informed then it is their democratic right to be able to vote BNP, that’s not negotiable. If they are uninformed then they could be making a mistake, having only hearsay and gossip to consider, which links to the question of martyrism and protest voting.

More alarming than your assault on Democracy, Tom, is your assault on the Working Class. I believe it to be very patronising, and you write them off as racist and stupid. The mother of a friend of mine was prepared to vote BNP because they seemed like a genuine alternative. He had to explain their racist policies to her to change her mind, but sometimes people won’t believe what they hear because the No Platform line comes across as fear mongering because you don’t want them to vote BNP.

In other words, while it is satisfying for politicians to look forward to ‘winning the argument’ against people who are already seen even by many of those who vote for them (let alone Labour MPs) as profoundly illogical, that means very little if it boosts their vote.

You’re suggesting that people knowingly vote BNP because they are illogical! Again it shows your pathological distrust of voters by suggesting that people will see BNP claims being exposed as false but will still vote for them regardless. Not to put words in your mouth, but it seems like we might as well restrict suffrage to those with a degree in political science.

The argument that the No Platform policy has failed has been fashionable lately. But it has been treated lazily and accepted with little question. The fact is that with regards to the BNP, it is one of the only parts of mainstream politics which still works.

It’s not fashionable, it’s a realisation. As one of the commenters brilliantly puts it, “Well if 2 MEPs for the BNP means the policy is working, I hate to see it fail.” The fact is that with a growing base (that erodes our own, I may add) the equation has changed and we need to up our game, which we can’t do if we tie our hands behind our backs.

That’s my rebuttal Tom, I hope you’ll have found me reasonable, now allow me to make some of my own points:

When it comes to the BNP, I’ve seen the whites of their eyes. It gave me a chill down my spine but I didn’t blink and I didn’t flinch because I knew I was doing what was right. Similarly, I’ve also gone face to face with the much more powerful Front National. For years and years in France, the FN was No Platformed, yet it grew and grew feeding and thriving on its victim status until it was too big to continue ignoring, which was also the point where it became too big to extinguish.

You will perhaps recall that Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen beat the Socialist Lionel Jospin in the presidential race of 2002 and went head-to-head with Jacques Chirac. The shock was similar to the one we felt on June the 4th, but the lesson is that you have to have faith in democracy and in people, because a week later 80% of the French people went out and voted for Chirac, or rather, against Le Pen.

We in Labour have a unique opportunity to learn from this mistake and prevent a similar event happening in our country.

The “utopian stuff about the messianic power of debate” as you describe it suggests you have a much bigger problem with democracy than you do with the BNP.

If the BNP are continuously allowed to spout out their hate-filled rubbish and it goes unanswered, then I put it to you that it is this that actually legitimises their claims more than anything else because it doesn’t hold them to account.

No Platform on the grounds of one of their policies makes us look cowardly, not just on the subject of racism (where I would hope we have the better side of the argument!) but also on all the other policies. If we can’t defend our own policy on immigration and so on then we look desperately shifty.

No Platform ultimately comes down to a question of trust in the electorate. If we don’t trust voters enough to make the choice for themselves and treat them with contempt as if they are stupid, even those Labour voters who disagree with the BNP will not turn out for us at the polling stations if they continue to see “their” party as patronising and willing to act undemocratically.

We in the Labour party have an obligation to engage with the public. If the public, especially the working classes, are turning to the BNP to be their voice then we need to engage with the BNP and show that they do not hold the answers. You are wrong to blame New Labour, and “triangulation” for the disillusionment of the ‘core’ vote; the Labour Party must make a choice between the authoritarian approach of No Platform or the democratic one of enfranchisement.

I appreciate that the BNP strikes fear into the hearts of many Labour members, but remember, we are at our best when at our boldest.

Those in favour of the ‘No Platform’ policy see engaging with the BNP as tantamount to “legitimising them.” As if a number of councillors, a London Assembly member and two MEPs were not enough to prove the BNP’s electoral support it also arrogantly supposes that Labour is the only organisation which can decide whether other parties are legitimate or not. If we do not trust voters enough to make their own choices, then we have a far greater problem with democracy than we do with the BNP.

Positive change requires action; the only change without action is decay. ‘No Platform’ can work only when there is no platform on which the BNP can stand. The Tories and the Liberal Democrats do not share our practice of collective deafness and thus render ‘No Platform’ completely ineffective. On the contrary, the struggle against extremism is given yet more credibility with Labour taking a leading role in a united front.

Being the only major party refusing to participate in a debate always comes across as cowardice, always. Regardless of the principles that may lie behind the decision, refusing to enter into a debate projects a lack of confidence in our own abilities. Our values are invincible and so we must use them to full capacity. We cannot take the moral high ground in battles of fascism against democracy if our means are suppressive instead of progressive.

Our strategy must change from ‘crushing the vermin’ to ‘catching flies with honey’. The BNP will exist as long as there is racism and nationalism. Instead of trying to eradicate the party like continuously trying to stamp on a cockroach, our cause is so much more powerful if we use the strangely democratic means of persuading the persuadable. If there are some who cannot be reasoned with then yelling “Nazi Scum” will not change their mind but rather make them ever more determined.

Assuming that all BNP voters are racist is also to presume that core Labour voters are racist, if polling research is to be believed; the main reason people are likely to consider voting BNP is fear. They are fearful for their jobs, families and homes in a time of unprecedented economic instability and this fear is so easily exploited by the far-right against the easy target of immigration. Their success at the EU Parliament Elections (regardless of the electoral system), showed that people have turned to them as a non-mainstream party alternative, then combined with the MPs Expenses scandal it showed that voters feel more disconnected that ever. Surely this is sufficient enough to demonstrate that Labour needs to act quickly and decisively.

In reforming our approach, the policy of demonising the BNP as fascists and Nazis needs to stop. Despite whether the accusations are true or not, it plays into their own hands and illustrates the worst features of the “loony left” that descends to the same level of the BNP. All too often the questions of martyrdom and freedom of speech are classic features of the debate, though make no mistake, Griffin is no champion of Free Speech and to use such an argument is to do a disservice to one of our most precious and fundamental rights. They are not worthy of such a title.

In my personal experiences with the BNP the behaviour and conduct of those who chase the BNP in the name of freedom and democracy has been far worse than that of the BNP themselves. No matter how noble a cause, little has disappointed me more than a gang of young UAF protestors (their faces hidden by scarves) tripping up a poor elderly man with a cane who was trying to take part in the democratic process. It was more horrific than seeing some protestors with anarchist symbols and others running around with flags of the Soviet Union in the name of anti-fascism. To see a (now-former) Labour MEP standing alongside them was all the more painful.

Sitting on ivory towers refusing to get our hands dirty leaves an open goal for those who already feel disconnected. It astounds me that Labour’s predominant method of re-engaging with voters has been explicitly to avoid listening to them.

It is time to stop sounding the retreat and start taking back lost ground. We must not shy away from the challenges ahead; for the worst of enemies require the best of weapons.

A word of thanks to Bryony and Adam who played the role of Editor and provided some very useful feedback.