The Question Time British National Party controversy''' occurred in September and October 2009, due to an invitation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to Nick Griffin, leader of the far-right British National Party (BNP), to be a panelist on Question Time, one of its flagship television programmes on current affairs.
The decision to have the BNP represented on the programme for the first time sparked public and political debate in the United Kingdom. At the heart of the matter was the BBC's public broadcasting mandate, requiring it to give equal prominence to political parties above a given level of electoral representation. Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC, defended the BBC's decision to invite Griffin, stating, "the BNP has demonstrated a level of support that would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on Question Time. It is for that reason – not for some misguided desire to be controversial, but for that reason alone – that the invitation has been extended."
A late appeal was made to the BBC Trust, the BBC's governing body, by the Secretary of State for Wales Peter Hain, to have the appearance blocked, which ultimately failed. Griffin appeared on the edition which aired on 22 October 2009. As the programme was due to go on air, public protests took place at BBC Television Centre in London. The pre-recorded programme featured Griffin alongside the Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw; the Conservative peer and Shadow Minister for Community Cohesion Sayeeda Warsi, Baroness Warsi; the Liberal Democrats' Home Affairs spokesperson Chris Huhne; and the writer/playwright Bonnie Greer. The edition was watched by over 8 million people – over half the total audience share – and more than double the previous record high for Question Time.
BackgroundQuestion Time is the flagship BBC Television political panel show, which began in 1979. The weekly show, then hosted by David Dimbleby since 1994, takes place at locations around the country. Questions from a local audience are directed to a panel of invited guests, usually consisting of British politicians, alongside other public figures. The topics for debate during the programme are loosely defined by "set-piece" questions from pre-selected audience members. For each topic, the question is answered by each panel member in turn, followed by supplementary questions on the topic, time permitting. The show is pre-recorded a few hours before being broadcast, and it is stressed by Dimbleby as the programme starts, that the panellists have no previous knowledge of the content of the questions.
The British National Party (BNP) is a far right minority party in Britain founded by John Tyndall in 1982. The leader of the party at the time was Nick Griffin, elected as one of the eight MEPs in the North West England constituency, although he has since resigned as party leader. At the time of the programme, the BNP won 943,598 votes and two seats in the UK's 2009 European Parliament elections in June, where a total of 72 seats were contested. The BNP polled 6.26% of the national vote of 15,625,823 (from an electorate of 45,315,669), making it the sixth ranked party, behind the Conservatives (27.7%), UK Independence Party (16.5%), Labour (15.7%), Liberal Democrats (13.7%) and the Green Party (8.6%). The result represented a 1.3 percentage point increase on its previous performance. Since then, support for the party has declined significantly, allegedly due "to internal splits and the rise of UKIP".
At the time of the programme the BNP held one seat on the London Assembly and council seats in four London boroughs; it was the second party in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham.
BBC policy
Coverage of the BNP Nick Griffin had already appeared on other BBC shows, including The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One and The World at One on BBC Radio 4. No BNP representative had ever appeared on Question Time before, but following the European election performance, this stance was reviewed. The possibility of an appearance on Question Time by Griffin was publicly announced by the BBC in early September. That month, James Macintyre of the New Statesman who was a former Question Time producer, said that Mentorn, the independent production company responsible for Question Time, had been proposing an appearance by Griffin over the previous two years. The Independent gave credit to the BBC for resisting "the naïve showbiz instincts" of executives at Mentorn, who may have wanted "what Peter Hain calls a 'beanfest' for reasons well removed from the BBC's charter obligations."
On 21 October, the day before the broadcast, the BBC Director-General, Mark Thompson, wrote an article for The Guardian entitled "Keeping Nick Griffin off air is a job for parliament, not the BBC". He said that those arguing for the BNP to be excluded from the programme were making the case for censorship. He explained the BBC's decision: Question Time is an opportunity for the British public to put questions to politicians of every ideological hue. Politicians from the UK's biggest parties appear most frequently, but from time to time representatives of parties with many fewer supporters – from the Scottish Socialists and Respect to the Green party – also take their seats on the stage. Question Time is the most prominent programme of its kind on British television, and we carefully study the support gained in elections by each of the parties, large and small, before deciding who to invite and how frequently they should appear. It is a straightforward matter of fact that, with some 6% of the vote and the election of two MEPs in this spring's European elections – and with some success in local elections as well – the BNP has demonstrated a level of support that would normally lead to an occasional invitation to join the panel on Question Time. It is for that reason – not for some misguided desire to be controversial, but for that reason alone – that the invitation has been extended.
The BBC Deputy Director General, Mark Byford, also defended the decision on the day of the programme, saying: "[The BNP] should have the right to be heard, be challenged, and for the public who take part in Question Time and the viewers to make up their own minds about the views of the BNP. It's not for the BBC to censor and say they can't be on". The BBC's chief political adviser, Ric Bailey, stated after the failed appeal that the BBC "would have been breaking its charter if it had not treated the BNP with impartiality ... We absolutely stand by that judgement, even though there's obviously been a lot of controversy about it". A senior BBC presenter, John Humphrys, said the decision was "absolutely right". He said: "Why should we be afraid of what they have to say? Free speech is the issue here, and the BBC's obligations." However, broadcasting unions said some of its members would protest at the invitation.
Appeal to the BBC Trust A late attempt to stop the programme came from the Labour Secretary of State for Wales, Peter Hain, who accused the BBC of being "apologists" for the BNP and making "one of the biggest mistakes in its proud history". After failing to persuade the BBC Director General Mark Thompson to stop the appearance, Hain appealed to the BBC Trust. The BNP's constitution restricting membership of the party to "indigenous Caucasian" people, namely "indigenous British ethnic groups" including the "Anglo-Saxon folk community" and the "Celtic Scottish folk community" was declared illegal on 15 October 2009 under the Race Relations Act, after a challenge by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Hain argued that the appearance might be illegal in light of the ruling.
On the night of Tuesday 20 October, the Trust announced it was forming an emergency committee, comprising three trustees chaired by Richard Tait, to examine the appeals. Late on 21 October, the day before the programme was due to be made, the Trust cleared Griffin to appear on the show. It also ruled that, given the pre-recorded nature of the show, many of the concerns were hypothetical and premature. The Trust declined further comment, in case of an appeal of the decision after the show:
Opinions prior to broadcast
Nick Griffin
In preparation for his appearance on Question Time, Griffin researched the first appearance of Sinn Féin's Gerry Adams.Sen, Jack (20 March 2016). "Nick Griffin – A conversation with Jack Sen – Part 1". British Renaissance. 11:00–17:45 In an e-mail to BNP supporters, Griffin said "Never before have we had the chance to present our patriotic, common sense solutions to Britain's nightmare situation to the public at large in such prominent fashion ... I am relishing this opportunity, and I know that ... the ordinary members, supporters and voters of the BNP will be in the studio with me as I take on the corrupt, treacherous swine destroying our beautiful island nation." Contrasting to Griffin's earlier 2001 appearance on HARDtalk and later appearances on Newsnight with Jeremy Paxman, Griffin claimed that he was non-combative in his Question Time appearance in order to gain sympathy from the viewers via a "root-for-the-underdog mentality". He had expected to salvage his reputation by appearing as a panellist on future editions of the programme, which did not materialise. However, he also stated in a letter on the BNP website: "I will, no doubt, be interrupted, shouted down, slandered, put on the spot, and subjected to a scrutiny that would be a thousand times more intense than anything directed at other panellists. It will, in other words, be political blood sport. But I am relishing this opportunity."
Griffin told The Times: "I thank the political class and their allies for being so stupid." He went on to say that his invitation on the programme "clearly gives us a whole new level of public recognition." Griffin said of his fellow Question Time panellists before the show that Bonnie Greer was "the joker in the pack... [who]... knows how to look after herself and may be more of a handful than the others", that Menzies Campbell "would have been more daunting" than Chris Huhne, that Jack Straw is "a very effective advocate". He said that the appearance of Baroness Warsi for the Conservatives was a typical "tokenist" stunt. In the run-up to the programme, the BNP website displayed a prominent countdown to Question Time.
UK parliamentary parties The policy of the Labour Party never to share a platform with the BNP was changed following the BBC's invitation to Griffin. Labour said that future appearances were to be on a "case by case" basis. On 27 September 2009, the Secretary of State for Justice, Jack Straw, announced he would appear on the programme, following the announcement that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats would take part in any edition of Question Time that included the BNP. Straw said he would be delighted to make the argument for people against the BNP: Wherever we have had BNP problems in my area and when we have fought them hard, we've pulled back and won the seats back.
Speaking on the Question Time episode the week before the expected appearance by Griffin, the Home Secretary Alan Johnson condemned the decision of the BBC: There isn't a constitutional obligation to appear on Question Time. That gives [the BNP] a legitimacy they do not deserve. These people believe in the things that the fascists believed in the Second World War, they believe in what the National Front believe in. They believe in the purity of the Aryan race. It is a foul and despicable party.