Nick Griffin attacked by his own BNP supporters over Question Time.

Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time has been the subject of much controversy. I was shocked yesterday to find that some members of the public felt that he was badly treated by the BBC and that this has resulted in a surge of support for him and his party.

Now, it transpires that members of his own party are attacking him for "failing to press the attack" during the TV debate. Lee Barnes, the BNP's legal officer, is leading the charge against Griffin:

Barnes complained on his personal website that Griffin "should have stood up to these whining, middle-class hypocrites that use the race card for self-enrichment – and thrown the truth right back into their fat, sanctimonious, hypocritical, self-serving faces". He accused his party's leader of "failing to press the attack" on the "ethnic middle class" for "taking up the best jobs while still playing the bogus race card for every opportunity". And in a move that is likely to reinforce concerns that Griffin's appearance will spark violence, Barnes used his personal website to suggest that "perhaps there needs to be a few 'white riots' around the country a la the Brixton riots of the 1980s before the idiot white liberal middle class and their ethnic middle-class fellow travellers wake up".

A spokesman for the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight said: "This strips away once and for all Nick Griffin's pretence that the BNP is a non-violent organisation. Lee Barnes is not just another BNP member, he is the organisation's legal officer, and here he is talking about riots in the streets. The BNP hoped the Question Time appearance would mark their entry to the political mainstream, but instead they have pushed themselves back to the violent, extremist political fringe where they belong."

Those people who felt pity for Griffin should reconsider and remember that these words are being spoken by the BNP's legal officer. If that's how their legal officer feels one can only imagine the words being spoken amongst their rank and file.

In the far right Internet chat rooms, the mood was one of a missed opportunity:

"I'm starting to think this appealing to the mainstream approach is the wrong direction. I would rather have seen George Lincoln Rockwell [founder of the American Nazi party] on the panel, there would have been a riot."

They do seem obsessed with riots don't they, for a party which now claims to be non-violent?

But, the one thing I can say about this disgust at Griffin's performance by certain members of the BNP, is that it does at least accord with what I thought I saw. I saw someone hideously out of his depth, where some saw a man being picked on.

I saw a racist being confronted with some of his own quotations and squirming because he now wants to pretend that he is, somehow, mainstream. At least the BNP members appear to have seen the same thing.

"Griffin carries too much baggage to act as spokesman for the BNP," one said. "I lost count of the number of times past quotes came back to haunt him."

The people who felt sorrow or sympathy for Griffin are ignoring the fact that those quotations are what he actually believes. He wasn't being mugged, he was being asked to explain whether or not he still believes in the many foul things which he has said in public.

His squirming might have made uncomfortable viewing, but that was only because this man is now attempting to make himself appear much more mainstream than he actually is.

Any sympathy for this man and his views is utterly misplaced.

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Tags: Nick Griffin, Question Time, BNP