A guest post by hippiepooter
Here is somefeedback we got to our email digest from a senior figure in UKIP 22nd April:
We constantly have problems with the BBC over first of all getting them to cover us, andthen when they do, they HAVE TO mention the BNP in the same breath! Or are very unprofessional in the way they slanttheir reports.
Here are four examples on BBC Online within 24 hours of the BBC linking UKIP with the BNP (hat tip to ‘BoBs’ on the open thread for the third):
UKIP is a legitimatedemocratic party. The BNP is a neo-Nazi Party. It is not possible to exaggerate how utterlyoffensive it is to link UKIP with the BNP . The worst aspect of this despicable bias isthat while it no doubt loses UKIP votes it also wins the BNP votes. In the minds of any otherwise non-racist voters angry aboutmulti-culturalism but wary of the BNP ,seeing the BBC link the BNP with a legitimate democratic party like UKIPmay very well persuade them that the BNP isn’t racist and Nazi after all.
In ademocracy, a broadcaster with a duty to impartiality has a democratic duty ofbias against subversive parties to expose their totalitarian agenda. The biased treatment the BNP receives should be exactly the same as partieslike Respect / SWP receives. We knowthat’s not the case. The bias that the BBC displays against the BNP is very often not a democratic one, but a left-wing one. They try to establish in the public mind thatpolicies against immigration and multi-culturalism are racist and fascist perse rather than expose the BNP ’sdesire to exploit people’s legitimate grievances over these issues to implementthe racial hatred of their Nazi ideology. When it is more important for the BBC to attack the BNP from itssubversive agenda on the Left to stigmatise democratic parties for addressingpeople’s legitimate concerns, is it any wonder that support for the BNP is growing? If the BBC really were animpartial broadcaster serving democracy it would scrupulously keep thedemocratic fold separate from the totalitarian fold.
When it comesto directly associating UKIP with the BNP the trick the BBC use is to take BNP policies on immigration, multi-culturalism andthe EU on face value rather than examine the road that the BNP are coming from in order to link them with UKIPwhose policies on these issues do bear objective similarities (as do to alesser extent the policies of Labour and the Tories!). The BBC would no doubt reel off their ‘duty to impartiality’ under the Election Act,but the only time they ever do show impartiality with the BNP is when it’s a means to link them with UKIP,which seems to be happening increasingly often as voting approaches. At the end of the day the BBC and the BNP are opposite extremes who meet full circle. Sheesh, being willing to aid and abett British Nazism to lose UKIPvotes. What more needs to be said aboutthe depravity of the BBC ?