It was great that the BNP was so heavily defeated at the last general election. Rightly, immigration and emigration will always cause concerns worthy of debate, but the rabid hidden agenda and scapegoat policies offered by the BNP have no place in that debate.
It is a great shame that the leader of the BNP has been invited to attend a royal garden party. The palace is not gifted in PR. In a BBC web site report a Buckingham Palace spokesman is quoted: “Nick Griffin is automatically eligible for a garden party ticket as he is an elected Member of the European Parliament.”
So what if he is automatically eligible. Lets look at it another way. If during the height of the troubles in Ireland, a member of a political wing of a terrorist organisation had been elected to the European Parliament, would they have been ‘automatically invited’? I think not.
The Palace is an increasingly weak institution. By giving legitimacy by association to the BNP and handing them a PR gift horse, they are again putting themselves at odds with the UK population that decidedly rejected the BNP.
Not inviting the BNP leader would have still given him a PR opportunity to exploit, but it would not allow him the legitimacy by association scoop he aims to enjoy.
Adrian Maguire, Partner, Ainsworth Maguire Public Relations
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Update: Just read that the palace has withdrawn the invite – common sense prevails.