Masthead
One of my photos
← Its a free world Is Gordon our Steve McLaren? →

Griffin and Irving in Oxford

November 28th, 2007 · Posted by Skuds in Politics · 2 Comments

I suspect I am out of line with most of the UAF, and with Antonia, but I am not in favour of the attempts to prevent David Irving and Nick Griffin speak at the Oxford Union. 

It would have been far better if the idiots there had not invited them along in the first place, but once they had been invited I think they will have got a lot more publicity out of the attempts to prevent them than they could ever get from anything they would say.  They could have said the most objectionable and offensive things in the debate (and I'm sure they did) but they would only have been heard by a handful of people, and hardly reported at all.

Instead they have been given the one thing they enjoy more than publicity on its own: martydom and publicity.

I know the argument that the BNP will now put in their literature "we must be a proper mainstream party because we were invited to speak at the Oxford Union" but once invited they could have put that in even if the invitation was cancelled - and they could have then enjoyed the irony of being denied the right to speak in a debate on free speech.

So although the best thing would be for them to have not been invited (there was no need for them to have been invited was there?) once that happened all the protests were just playing into their hands.

I would have let them speak for two reasons: firstly the Voltaire "I disagree with what you say" reason, and secondly because there is every chance of them letting their wonky mask of respectability slip and saying something so awful it would be worth a dozen sets of UAF leaflets.

Having said that… thumbs up to Dr Julian Lewis for being a Tory MP with a conscience. 

Tags: ·

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Ash // Nov 28, 2007 at 5:46 am

    This just shows what sort of people join outfits like the UAF - any organisation that believes in using violence to silence dissenting views surely has no place in modern society

  • 2 Danivon // Nov 28, 2007 at 7:20 pm

    I don’t think that the UAF as an organisation does believe violence. I certainly don’t think that it’s an appropriate way to deal with fascists.

    Skuds, the problem was that Irving and Griffen appear to have been given a relatively easy ride by the students at the debate, and so it wasn’t really a way to repudiate their views either.

Leave a Comment

*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.
Click to hear an audio file of the anti-spam word

 

 
Comments Policy:

  • Comments from anyone who is unknown (ie who has not commented before) will go into a moderation queue to be approved. This is to prevent spam/advertising comments and there may be a delay before such comments appear.
  • As far as possible I will not reject moderated comments or delete published comments, even if I disagree with them or if they are criticising me.
  • I intend only to delete/reject comments which are offensive, racist, homophobic, sexist or similar or if they are in any way illegal/libellous.
  • If you think a comment meets those criteria and I might have missed it, let me know.
  • Although technically I am able to edit comments I will not do so unless it is to remove embedded code which is causing problems.
  • If it is ever necessary to edit a comment it will be made clear that it has been edited.
  • Certain words in comments will cause the whole comment to be automatically consigned to the dustbin (Aavaisha, hmmegatest, cognitive, phentermine, xanax, pharmacy, viagra, vicodin, casino, ultram, tamiflu, valium, tramadol, levitra, carisoprodol) for obvious reasons.