The BNP horror show

Following BNP leader Nick Griffin's appearance on BBC's Question Time last month we conducted a readers' poll to see whether you thought the BNP would receive a boost in popularity from all the attention: 34 per cent of you thought YES, whereas 66 per cent thought NO. I was in the NO camp. I supported the decision of the BBC to invite Griffin as I'm of the view that that the brighter the spotlight you shine on these people, the more ridiculous and half-witted they are shown to be. Nevertheless, I was disappointed and disturbed by the show.

Biking to my tube station the next morning I took a moment to imagine what life must look like through the eyes of Nick Griffin. Given that my local tube is Bethnal Green and my bike ride is through the heart of one of the most culturally diverse areas in the world, let alone in the UK, the scene, I imagined, would be one that would make Mr Griffin recoil.

For here before me lay the consequences of untrammelled immigration: Asian mothers in colourful garb walking young girls to school with heads veiled; a meeting hall for Muslim youth between Turkish kebab houses and a Chinese takeaway; a young black boy on a BMX tailing along behind a teenage white girl (heaven help us if they were to hold hands!); and yes, a classroom of schools kids on an outing and only three white faces – the horror!

Making my way to work that morning I was truck by the absurdity and sadness of Mr Griffin’s worldview. I live on the border of two of Britain’s poorest and most diverse boroughs: Hackney and Tower Hamlets. These are boroughs that are always in the top five worst lists for all the important indicators of health, wealth and happiness. Yet they are places that have an extraordinary richness and vibrancy that has arisen because of - not despite of - their cultural diversity.

The Britain I live in and have made my home – for I am one of this country’s many immigrants – is so distant from the Britain that Mr Griffin sees that they bare no comparison: It is Africa to Mr Griffin’s Antarctica. My Britain is one where people from many different places and yes, races, live together, perhaps not in idealised peace and harmony, but in a muddled together pragmatic acceptance, or in other words, in tolerance. Tolerance is at the heart of liberalism and as such is intrinsically British. Fascism is not. Liberalism opens the door to difference and tries to understand it. Needless to say, fascism does not.

It is for these reasons that I was disappointed and disturbed by Mr Griffin’s appearance on Question Time. Not because I objected to Mr Griffin being invited but because nobody on the panel, least of all the lamentable Jack Straw, made the argument for immigration as a source of richness, both cultural and economic. I was disappointed because no one stood up and said modern Britain is wealthy, rich and wonderful and is so because it has opened its arms to its old empire and embraced diversity. Instead, all the arguments were founded on the negative - that immigration is a harm that must be controlled rather than a good that should be managed. And until our politicians have the courage to start making the argument that diversity is a good in and of itself as it makes our lives richer, I believe the BNP will continue to prosper. That would be the true horror show.

In memorium

Four years ago today I was on a bus heading past Kings Cross. Glancing up from my paper I saw that something was not right. People in their dozens were pouring out of the entrance to the tube. It was, however, not the first time that I'd witnessed an evacuation of the station and I assumed that it was yet another false alarm. I continued on my journey to my office in Bloomsbury, turned on the kettle and computer and sat down at my desk. Then the sound waves from the No. 30 bus exploding in Tavistock Square shook the windows. Suicide bombing and the bloody misery that accompanies the phenomenon had arrived on our shores.

The terrorist attacks in London on the 7th July 2005 sent shock-waves through British society. Speeches were made, questions were asked. And for all those working in public policy, community cohesion was thrown to the top of the list of priorities. After all, the bombers were home grown; the products of our society; Leeds born and bred. That they would set off one morning to murder their fellow citizens required answers. 

Four years on and the community cohesion agenda has slipped off the radar. In the face of a brutal recession the issue seems less urgent. Seemingly, there is always something more important for our leaders to be doing. But cohesion - or the lack of it - is a live issue. The British National Party's substantial gains in England's local and European elections cannot simply be explained by the unpopularity of the Labour government, the public's anger over MPs' expenses or the recession. Those people who voted for the BNP could have voted for other fringe parties; instead they chose to support a brutish organisation which, for all its protestations, remains a divisive, polarising excuse for a political party. That is an issue that we must confront.

The 7/7 bombings were a tragic wake-up call, violently exposing the cracks in society. The BNP's recent success is another. Those working to build bridges between the UK's diverse communities need our support today, just as they did the panicked weeks that followed 7th July 2005. The families attending the unveiling of the memorial to the 7/7 victims deserve no less.