Nick Griffin attacked by his own BNP supporters over Question Time
Posted by admin978 on October 25, 2009 · Leave a Comment
Party’s legal officer accuses leader of failing to press home his attack on ‘the sanctimonious, hypocritical middle classes’
THE OBSERVER, 25 Oct 2009: The leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin, found himself the victim of an extraordinary attack from his own supporters last night following his controversial appearance on the BBC’s Question Time.
As a public postmortem into one of the most divisive broadcasts in the corporation’s history attempted to gauge its impact on the party’s fortunes, Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal officer, accused Griffin of “failing to press the attack” during the televised debate, which was watched by a record 8 million people. Others sympathetic to the BNP’s views expressed dismay at Griffin’s flustered attempts to appeal to the mainstream.
The BNP’s critics were quick to use the comments as proof of deep divisions within the party’s membership over how it should position itself with the electorate. Griffin has claimed that he has dragged the party into the political mainstream. But the resulting backlash from those on his own side suggests many are uncomfortable with the BNP’s attempts to cloak itself in more moderate terms.