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Hamza Khan posted on 1256661101|%A: %d %B, %Y|agohover
British National Party leader Nick Griffin has used his Question Time appearance to criticise Islam and defend a past head of the Ku Klux Klan.
He also told a largely hostile audience that Winston Churchill would be a BNP supporter if he were alive, and insisted: "I am not a Nazi".
Anti-fascist protesters scuffled with police outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show was filmed.
More than eight million people watched the show, triple its typical audience.
At its peak, 8.2 million people tuned into the BBC1 show.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain said the BBC had legitimised the BNP's "racist poison" by inviting its leader onto the show but the corporation defended the move, saying it had a duty to be impartial.
One of the panellists, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, said it had been a "catastrophic week for the BNP because for the first time the views of the BNP have been properly scrutinised".
And following the programme, other panellists said Mr Griffin had been exposed.
Baroness Warsi, the Conservative peer and shadow communities minister, said "he does not have any political views other than a hatred for certain groups of people".
British National Party leader Nick Griffin has used his Question Time appearance to criticise Islam and defend a past head of the Ku Klux Klan.
He also told a largely hostile audience that Winston Churchill would be a BNP supporter if he were alive, and insisted: "I am not a Nazi".
Anti-fascist protesters scuffled with police outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show was filmed.
More than eight million people watched the show, triple its typical audience.
At its peak, 8.2 million people tuned into the BBC1 show.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain said the BBC had legitimised the BNP's "racist poison" by inviting its leader onto the show but the corporation defended the move, saying it had a duty to be impartial.
One of the panellists, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, said it had been a "catastrophic week for the BNP because for the first time the views of the BNP have been properly scrutinised".
And following the programme, other panellists said Mr Griffin had been exposed.
Baroness Warsi, the Conservative peer and shadow communities minister, said "he does not have any political views other than a hatred for certain groups of people".
His references to Britain's "indigenous people" prompted other members of the panel to challenge him to say he meant white people.
Mr Griffin said the colour was "irrelevant" and said Mr Straw would not dare go to New Zealand and tell a Maori he was not "indigenous". "We are the aborigines here," he claimed.
Mr Straw said what distinguished the BNP from other parties was that other parties "have a moral compass… Nazism didn't and neither I'm afraid does the BNP."
The BNP leader insisted his views had been widely misrepresented in the media and denied a string of statements attributed to him, including a quote from 2006 in which he said "Adolf went a bit too far".
"I am not a Nazi and never have been," he said, adding: "I am the most loathed man in Britain in the eyes of Britain's Nazis."
He admitted sharing a platform with former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke - but described him as "always totally non-violent".
He said he had been trying to win over "youngsters" Duke was trying to "lead astray".
Challenged on his views on civil partnership, he said: "I said that a lot of people find the sight of two grown men kissing in public really creepy. I understand that homosexuals don't understand that but that's how a lot of us feel, Christians feel that way, Muslims, all sorts of people."
Audience challenge
Asked about a quote attributed to him in which he equated six million deaths in the Holocaust with the flat earth theory he replied that "European law" stopped him explaining.
"I can't tell you why I used to say those things anymore than I can tell you why I have changed my mind," he said.
The justice secretary said when anybody put a specific quotation to Mr Griffin he tried to "wriggle out of it".
Asked whether immigration policy had fuelled the BNP, Mr Straw said he did not think it had and said he thought the BNP had been boosted by discontent with the main parties over issues like expenses.
But Baroness Warsi said politicians had a responsibility to take on the BNP on the issue of immigration: "Many people who vote for the BNP are not racist and therefore what we have to do is go out and say to these people as mainstream political parties we are prepared to listen."
Mr Griffin blamed the "political elite" for imposing "an enormous multicultural experiment on the British people".
But Mr Griffin was challenged by several black and Asian members of the audience.
One man asked Mr Griffin: "Where do you want me to go? I love this country, I'm part of this country."
Protests
While the programme was being recorded the anti-BNP protest continued. The Metropolitan Police say six protesters were arrested and three police officers injured in the protests.
Mr Griffin accused the protesters of "attacking the rights of millions of people to listen to what I've got to say and listen to me being called to account by other politicians".
But Weyman Bennett from Unite Against Fascism accused the BBC of "rolling out the red carpet" to Mr Griffin and said his appearance on the flagship discussion programme "will lead to the growth of a fascist party" and promote violence against ethnic minorities.
About 25 people managed to get through the gates and run towards the BBC building when security guards opened them to let in a car. A few minutes later they were led, dragged or carried back outside.
There were also protests outside BBC buildings in Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham, Glasgow and Belfast.
Welsh Secretary Mr Hain, who had tried to stop the broadcast, said: "The BBC should be ashamed of single-handedly doing a racist, fascist party the biggest favour in its grubby history."
BBC Deputy Director General Mark Byford said it had been "appropriate" to invite Mr Griffin to appear given the support the BNP received in the last European elections when it gained its first Euro MPs.
He said: "He was scrutinised and challenged along with the other panellists heavily by the audience, that was right in our view.
"It would have been quite wrong for the BBC to have said 'yes, you are allowed to stand in elections, yes you have a level of support that now meets the threshold but the BBC doesn't think that you should be on'."
