BNP

...for members of the Oxford Union to vote tonight in favour of upholding the invitation to neo-nazis David Irving and Nick Griffin to speak next week comes with the news that Des Browne, Dennis McShane and Chris Bryant have said they will boycott future events at the Union if Monday's debate goes ahead with those two participating.

Me, I'm not a member so it's not my decision, and I am in two minds, having caught the bug and objected strongly when Irving was last invited in 2001 and I was on the City Council. On that occasion it was cancelled the night before when it became clear that events outside the union might make the city centre unsafe for ordinary folk going about their lawful business and leisure as Irving's supporters and Anti-Nazi League demonstrators promised to fight it out in the street outside and the police decided that it would be a public order problem.

My preference is for open and free debate - though I suspect that the two main protagonists on Monday do not really share that preference, and in a private member's club it should not be for anyone else to dictate who they have to speak to them. In a private member's club moreover made up of some of the most intelligent people in the land one would expect those members to be as well qualified as anyone to make up their own minds about the views of two of the country's most obnoxious people.

But if it's going to prove again, as I suspect, to be a threat to public order outside the Union, out of earshot from the privileged membership supping with the devils in their hallowed debating chamber and bars, they need to be told and not go ahead.

As mentioned on ConservativeHome today, all credit must go to Welsh Tory leader Nick Bourne for sticking to his guns after complaints were made about a blog post in which he unashamedly attacks the BNP:

"One worrying feature about the Assembly election campaign was the increase in votes for the BNP.

"Whilst the turn out in the Assembly elections went up slightly on 2003, it was still woefully low, particularly if one compares it to the sort of turnout achieved in the French Presidential elections of 85%, the 44% that was achieved in Wales seems derisory in comparison.

"The growth in votes for the BNP is, however, worrying. The message of racial division, which they put forward anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and anti those Britain’s who are of immigrant descent, is rightly something which the four main parties abhor and condemned on Equality Day during the election campaign. "

However, I can't help but remember this piece also on ConservativeHome a few months ago, showing that 12% of Tory voters ranked the BNP as their second choice party. Are they sure that "99% of those 180 complaints were from BNP activists?"

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