Ken Livingstone is wrong about whether Nick Griffin should be on Question Time

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There's been a lot of noise about the BBC's decision to invite the leader of the BNP onto the Question Time panel.

On this morning's Today Programme on Radio 4, Ken Livingstone argued that there is an increase in the number incidents of racial violence following media coverage of the BNP, and that therefore the BNP should not be allowed any media exposure over and above the bare minimum dictated by law.

But this argument ignores a couple of key points. Whether or not I, or Ken Livingstone, or anyone else, likes it, the BNP is a force in UK politics. Around a million people voted for them in the last European elections. They have two MEPs. By those measures, the BNP is about as representative as the Green Party.

The BNP is a racist party. Its mission statement and constitution are pretty unambiguous about that. And a million British people voted for them: around 3% of the population or 6% of the turnout.

So it seems to me that the real problem isn't that the BNP is racist. The real problem is that a significant number of people in Britain are either racist as well, or ignorant of the true nature of the BNP. Such ignorance is plausible, since the BNP manifesto for the European election is light on topics of race, choosing to focus on subjects like EU withdrawal, keeping the pound, support for the armed forces and keeping Post Offices open. These are things that people support, so it's easy to see how you get to "I voted for the BNP, but I'm not racist".

I don't see that suppressing media coverage of the BNP addresses that problem. In fact, it does the opposite. What is needed is lots of exposure and reasoned debate so that people can understand that there is no ambiguity in the BNP. Its views and policies are fundamentally racist. If you vote for the BNP, you are voting in favour of those racist views.

The BBC are to be saluted for doing the right thing.