Nick Griffin attacks "pathetic" police but welcomes publicity gained for BNP by Oxford Union debate

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Comments

[Tony Makara]

The attempts to stop this debate run counter to all the claims that we have free speech in this country. Whatever people think of the BNP or historical revisionism it is important that debate is allowed and that ideas are heard and challenged. The mobocracy displayed by those protesters trying to stop the debate had all the hallmarks of the socialist workers party and other left-wing agitators. I am not a supporter of the BNP but I defend their right to free speech.

[Tim Roll-Pickering]

I have never been invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Have I been denied my freedom of speech?

Of course not. There is a major difference between suppressing a person's right to speak and giving them and their views the aura of respectibility by providing them with a prestigious platform that enhances their standing (although whether a student debating society is such a prestigious platform is another matter for, erm, debate). If Griffin and Irving had never been invited in the first place would they have been denied freedom of speech? Of course not.

[Tony Makara]

Tim Roll-pickering, this issue goes beyond the BNP, Mr Irving and the Oxford Union. It is about free-speech, the freedom to debate unmolested. I support the right of assembly and lawful protest, but the scenes last night were violent. If the guest speakers had been opponents of the BNP and BNP members had turned up to heckle, violently obstruct, spit etc there would have been uproar against the protestors.

As much as people dislike the politics of the BNP they have to accept and understand that the BNP is a political party, it is not a criminal organization. So long as the BNP, or any other group, works within the laws of our land they should be allowed to express their opinions. Freedom can disappear by degrees as we have already seen over the last ten years under the Labour government.

[Andrew Roocroft]

Tim Roll-Pickering;

"I have never been invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Have I been denied my freedom of speech?"

No. But suppose you had been invited, with a resounding democratic endorsement by its members (voting 2 to 1 in favour of Irving/Griffin's attendance), and leftist protesters blocked the gates, refused access to legitimate ticket holders and invaded the property to prevent the debate from going ahead? That would clearly be an attempt to stifle your freedom of speech, and, indeed, the freedom of the members of the Union to listen to illiberal speech by bad people. Incidentally, I attended the debate yesterday (after much disruption), and was pleasantly surprised that Nick Griffin, when he kept on the subject of free speech, was in the tradition of Voltaire and Mill, comparing the illiberal measures taken to silence political and historical dissidents, such as himself and David Irving, to the Spanish Inquisition and the dogma of Aristotelianism.

To paraphrase Niemoller, first they came for the nationalists and the historical revisionists, but I did not speak out. And so on, down the road of servitude and totalitarianism. There can be no compromise on the exercise of one's inalienable right to express one's views, no matter how odious or collectivist.

[anonymous]

The Oxford Union debate only makes sense if seen in context. Basically, after a huge amount of provocation, the university debating societies have had enough of being told that they can't invite Griffin. Here is some background:

Three of the main university debating societies (Oxford, cambridge and St Andrews) have been inviting Nick Griffin for years, because they recon that he is is a political force in the country. But they also invite and listen to the most prominent left wingers (all the time).
However, every time griffin is invited the police tell the debating societies that the cannot guarantee the safety of the students from leftwing positive activists, which is something that they never say about anything else, and the university hierarchy always put huge pressure on the debating societies to cancel.
In St Andrews three years ago, the principal was so petrified of the university looking "right wing" that he barred the debating union from a chamber that they have been using for 200 years, for the griffin debate. Left wing activists sent e-mails to student union officers threatening to harm students if the debate went ahead. Eventually, because the police refused to guarantee student safety(no doubt because they do not want to been seen as "protecting griffin" in front of this labour government even if it means allowing the protesters to break several laws - trespass, verbal assault, breach of the peace, attempted ABH ... ), the debate was cancelled and instead the presidents of Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews debating society held a new debate on the day the griffin debate was due. This was in St Andrews in the student union (and not the debating chamber, Lower Parliament Hall, which was still barred to them even though griffin was not going to be there). They lined up against various personalities and thrashed them by gaining almost all the votes.
Unlike the Oxford debating society, in St Andrews all students are automatically members at no cost and so it can be used to gage general student sentiment on the subject.
The running battle between the debating societies and the left wing activists had already been going on for several years by this point. Griffin had had to cancel numerous invitations to the oxford and cambridge unions for similar reasons. And in the last three years nothing has changed. It is just that this time one of the debating presidents has had enough of being told what to do by violent activists, and held the debate anyway, regardless of the pressure and danger to students from left wing activists.

[anonymous]

The Oxford Union debate only makes sense if seen in context. Basically, after a huge amount of provocation, the university debating societies have had enough of being told that they can't invite Griffin. Here is some background:

Three of the main university debating societies (Oxford, cambridge and St Andrews) have been inviting Nick Griffin for years, because they recon that he is is a political force in the country. But they also invite and listen to the most prominent left wingers (all the time).
However, every time griffin is invited the police tell the debating societies that the cannot guarantee the safety of the students from leftwing positive activists, which is something that they never say about anything else, and the university hierarchy always put huge pressure on the debating societies to cancel.
In St Andrews three years ago, the principal was so petrified of the university looking "right wing" that he barred the debating union from a chamber that they have been using for 200 years, for the griffin debate. Left wing activists sent e-mails to student union officers threatening to harm students if the debate went ahead. Eventually, because the police refused to guarantee student safety(no doubt because they do not want to been seen as "protecting griffin" in front of this labour government even if it means allowing the protesters to break several laws - trespass, verbal assault, breach of the peace, attempted ABH ... ), the debate was cancelled and instead the presidents of Oxford, Cambridge and St Andrews debating society held a new debate on the day the griffin debate was due. This was in St Andrews in the student union (and not the debating chamber, Lower Parliament Hall, which was still barred to them even though griffin was not going to be there). They lined up against various personalities and thrashed them by gaining almost all the votes.
Unlike the Oxford debating society, in St Andrews all students are automatically members at no cost and so it can be used to gage general student sentiment on the subject.
The running battle between the debating societies and the left wing activists had already been going on for several years by this point. Griffin had had to cancel numerous invitations to the oxford and cambridge unions for similar reasons. And in the last three years nothing has changed. It is just that this time one of the debating presidents has had enough of being told what to do by violent activists, and held the debate anyway, regardless of the pressure and danger to students from left wing activists.

[Peter Hatchet]

It is worth noting that the Oxford Union has a history of holding thought-provoking and contentious debates, with contentious people.

And so it should.

In the 1930s (1935?) during the height of Nazi power in Germany it held a debate on the motion; "This house would under no circumstances fight for King and Country."

And the motion was carried..

Very provactive. Particularly back then as Germany was rearming. But it raised some important issues on the national stage. It made an impact.

That is what the Oxford Union is for, that is what makes it different.