Glyn Ford sets out his reasons for boycotting debate in Bath
The people of Bath can be reassurred, my refusal to debate the neo-fascist BNP is not due to cowardice but principle. The Bath Royal Literary & Scientific Institution, who I've addressed in the past, is playing into the hands of the BNP who want to pedal a line they're just another party just like all the others. They are in contrast, men and women with convictions for racial attacks, grevious bodily harm and terrorism. It was 10 years ago last month that David Copeland set off a bomb in the Admiral Duncan Pub in Old Compton Street and killed three people because he didn't approve of their sexual orientation.
Who are the BNP travelling with in Europe? Jean-Marie Le Pen the leader of the French National Front recently claimed that the Nazi occupation of France was essentially benign, forgetting 77,000 Jews, Communist and Trade Unionists went to the Concentration Camps and only 7,000 returned. Five years ago Le Pen came to the UK to do fund-raising dinners for Nick Griffin and the BNP.
We now have in the European Parliament Roberto Fiore who recently replaced Alessandra Mussolini - the grand-daughter. For many years, Fiore was in London to avoid arrest for his role in the Bologna bombing which killed 85 people in August 1980. Although he was cleared of direct involvement in the atrocity, he was convicted of subversive association and jailed for nine years. When he was in hiding in London in the eighties he was a close friend of Nick Griffin. One could go on and on.
Finally let it be clear the likes of the BNP don't support the idea of democratic debate. When I was in Marsailles in the 1990's the only way I was able to hold a press conference was with the assistance of the French Riot Police as Front National demonstrators tried to stop it happening, encouraged by Le Pen's urge to stop by all means possible the work of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into the Growth of Racism and Fascism in Europe. I can only congratulate the Liberals and Greens for making the same decision and wonder why we haven't been joined by Cameron's Tories.
Glyn Ford MEP (Labour, South West England)
