The British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin has been arrested by West Yorkshire police on suspicion of incitement to racial hatred. The founder of the BNP and former leader of the National Front, John Tyndall, was arrested a couple of days ago for the same offence. The arrests are the result of police investigations following a BBC documentary shown in July. Griffin has been convicted of a similar offence before and received a two year suspended jail sentence.
I wrote about Griffin and the danger he and his ilk pose earlier this year and don’t see or feel the need to repeat what I said then. No doubt his spokespersons will soon be bleating about being denied their right to freedom of speech, a freedom his party’s supporters often deny to others by beating them up when they try to speak.
Griffin has now been released on police bail1. After his release he is said to have said The police have nothing to do with this. The CPS, David Blunkett, John Prescott, Tony Blair are having a go at a dangerous political rival.
by which I assume he means that the government see him as a threat to their chances at the polls. More likely though is that they see him, and the rabble he leads, as simply dangerous. Not to mention that they also suspect him of having committed a serious criminal offence.
1 I rather hope they left him to find his own way home. It’s a long way from West Yorkshire to his mountainside home in Wales.
Posted 14 December 2004, 15:38 GMT
