Nick Griffin’s Use of Language on Question Time

By Luke Thompson

Question Time - Thursday 22nd October 2009

“If you put (getting rid of black people) as your primary aim, you won’t get very far. Instead talk about identity, we use sailable words: freedom, security, democracy – nobody can come and attack you on those terms.”

This quote reveals the BNP’s secretive technique of couching their words to gain an air of credibility and the votes of the majority, without changing their fundamental controversial party policies.
Instead of talking openly about the mass deportations and ethnic cleansing that they really want to perform, they talk about the positives of British society, something most people would agree on and support. By saying British national identity is being threatened, they get people on side while they can select a scapegoat to channel all the dissatisfaction onto. This scapegoat is of course racial minorities and immigrants, the people they want to get rid of not because they truly believe are damaging the British national identity, but because they are opposed to them racially. In short, they subtly spread their hate to other potential supporters and build their membership based on deception and the spread of hateful ideas.

When asked about his previous denial of the Holocaust, “I have changed my mind, mostly about figures, but I cannot explain why or how or the extent of the change as my freedom of speech is threatened"

In this quote, Nick Griffin plays the victim of censorship and a contravention of his right to freedom of speech. In actual fact, when the European Union wide anti-racism xenophobia law in 2001 was announced, the UK didn’t accept it, saying the voicing of racist views, although unpleasant, could not be banned in a country with freedom of speech. The reason for Nick Griffin’s refusal to answer the question was to avoid admitting he did and still does deny the Holocaust, an extremely controversial viewpoint bound to lose him many supporters and thus something he would not risk. By playing the victim in this area, he dodges revealing his views that would be detrimental to his party, deflects the conversation onto the nature of free speech and takes a stab at the current government for imposing this fictional contravention of free speech.

“In the Daily Mail I was misquoted saying black people walk like monkeys.” – In response to whether a quote attributed to him was true.

This is another attempt to deflect a question and get support by using terms nobody can disagree with. He cites an example where it is highly likely he has been misquoted in order to play the victim of regular misquotation. The above quote is an obvious over-the-top racist quote that is easy to deny because of its childish nature, but although he may not have said it, that doesn’t stop him from being correctly quoted a lot of the time. Just because he has been misquoted, doesn’t mean everything he has purportedly said is misquoted. In fact, this assumption of continuous misquotation allows him to say whatever he wants and if challenged on it later, he can chalk it up to a misquotation.