In many ways, it would be quite wrong to suggest that Nick Griffin, the BNP leader who was cleared of using words intended to stir up hatred in Leeds yesterday, doesn’t know what he is doing.
He is a classic example of a calculating narcissist whose lack of talent and charisma has led him to use crass shock tactics in order to gain notoriety. You generally find that people like Griffin are quite happy to accept hatred as well as adoration, so desperate are they for any kind of fame and attention.
But calling yesterday’s failure of the courts to bang him up a “tremendous victory for freedom”, might just be the kind of statement that ultimately shoots his career and the aims of his play-pen Nazi party in the proverbial foot.
You see it’s the very freedom that Nick was banging on about that attracts people to this country. So, in essence Nick has become a poster boy for immigration, celebrating the very virtues sought by those he would keep at bay.
I have a very firm view on freedom of speech. As the legal interpretation moves dangerously close to fluidity, I consider it absolute, with obvious legal exceptions like slander. In which case, yes I would have freed Griffin yesterday too. I would however make it easier for people to bring private prosecutions against people like Abu Hamza and Nick Griffin if, for example, a member of their family had fallen victim to a race hate crime or a terrorist attack. That way, their right to say what they want remains but responsibility for how their words impact on the world is placed firmly at their own doorsteps.
Griffin faces more charges in the coming weeks along with Mark Collett, his pathetic mini-me. I am looking forward to seeing the clueless fannies embarrass themselves even further.
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