BNP frontman Barnbrook writes on Telegraph website…

Last week, I was amazed to discover that top BNP official Richard Barnbrook is allowed to maintain his own blog on My Telegraph, the paper’s blogging platform aimed at Telegraph readers.

Now, I don’t have a problem with Barnbrook blogging at The Telegraph. Strangely, my gut reaction at the moment says that I may have a problem with Barnbrook blogging at a popular tabloid, such as The Sun. Is this fear at all rational? What do you think? Let me know.

When I first heard about Barnbrook’s blog, I could sense a rage boiling inside me. Outrage! Totally unacceptable! Doubtless, my younger self would have continued on this track. I would have been writing furious emails to The Telegraph lambasting them for hosting someone with such views.

An anti-BNP rally in Liverpool. Photo by Pete Carr

But I didn’t send any angry emails. I’m happy to let Barnbrook air his crazed views on My Telegraph. Perhaps, I wondered, I have become like many My Telegraph users, a free speech evangelist. Shane Richmond, Online Communities Editor at the Daily Telegraph, tells me that users have the noble conviction that anyone should be allowed to say what they like, as long as it’s within the law.

But have I really become a free speech afficianado? Or is this tolerance of Barnbrook simply because I think he will gain no more support through blog at The Telegraph?

Barnbrook set up his blog in order to write under the banner of a mainstream title. He perhaps wanted to gain a veneer of respectability, and perhaps attract a few Telegraph readers. (My Telegraph’s user base is, as intended, mainly Telegraph readers).

But most Telegraph readers are not going to warm to Barnbrook’s rantings about immigrants the threat immigrants pose to supposedly “indigenous” British people. (see this blog post). He clearly doesn’t have many fans. The odd one or two crackpots occasionally voice their support (probably from outside). A fair few heckle him. Most just ignore him, or don’t even know he’s there.

So, Barnbrook blogging on My Telegraph is pretty harmless. But what if the mass circulation tabloids had a similar platform – would I think it acceptable for Barnbrook to blog in The Sun?

Now, things get tricky. Why? Well, despite The Sun’s frequent denunciations of the BNP, it can occasionally produce a not very considered, xenophobic line. While not as bad as poor-selling titles like The Express, The Sun has been known to bash immigrants, ethnic or religious minorities, and especially asylum seekers. And it has occasionally done so in a particularly aggressive manner.

Witness The Sun’s famous “Swan Bake” story, alleging that asylum seekers were eating swans. It’s now been taken off because it’s totally untrue. (See here on Press Gazette) Or, last Christmas, the expression of festive goodwill to all men in “O come all ye asylum seekers”. The article features the sympathetic caption “asylum seeker scoffs free dinner”, and makes sure it gripes about Muslims. Alternatively, look at today’s Sun leader, The Enemy Within, which contains the incendiary line… “Nobody knows how many Muslims here today are plotting mayhem”.

Now, I am in no way saying that The Sun is a fascist paper, or that its editorial views are close to the BNP. Just that, occasionally, its articles tread a dangerous line. So, Barnbrook could make some headway here.

Take Barnbrook’s tirade “Blame The Immigrants.” Am I wrong to be worried that a few Sun readers may believe his ridiculous assertion that “most knife crime is committed by immigrants and the sons of immigrants”

Often, he chooses his words carefully, and does not openly state his white supremacist goals. Instead, he codes it with insidious (and technically nonsensical) rhetoric about threat to the “indigenous” population. Am I wrong for thinking that, with a bit of thought, Barnbrook could make inroads if he hosted his blog on a Sun site aimed at Sun readers?

What do you think of Barnbrook’s Telegraph blog? Should it be there? And would you worry if he had a blog on a tabloid?? Let me know.

Richard Barnbrook’s Crazy World

Barnbrook says… Blame The Immigrants

“Yes….It is the immigrants…. The real crime is on the streets, and it is the young people who are being attacked every day now by knives and guns. Most of it is being done by immigrants or by the sons of immigrants who have been protected by a despicable government desperate for the Ethnic Block-Vote.”

In the same article, Barnbrook says it is apt that the word therapist can be split into ‘the rapist’

“But our British young people are a resilient lot. They [victims of knife crime] will get over it and the best thing they can do is supress it and move on. The last thing they should do is start going to those disgusting lefty therapists for counselling to relive the trauma. Look at that word “therapist” the rapist….and that is what they do….the rape of the mind.”

I kid you not. He said that. Check it if you don’t believe me.