Question Time Reaction II

Here is a very mature contribution to the debate by Will J, left in the comments of this Spectator post:

So we all agree (or most of us do anyway) that Britishness is not defined by ethnicity. And that is surely true, since no nation has ever been racially pure, least of all ours. What I'm interested in, though, is what role people think ethnicity should play in national identity. The very idea of a nation is of course birth related (root: natal), and even immigrants seem to think that those who have been here for longer and were born here have more rights over the country's resources than those who just managed to stow themselves away on a lorry.

So while we're generally agreed that British citizenship should not have any narrowly ethnic meaning, does this mean we no longer believe that the resident and historic population (of whatever racial mixture) does not in some sense own its country? If so, doesn't that cause big problems for the whole idea of statehood, since by what right then do those of us here keep out those who are not? And why do we generally recognise the historic rights of indigenous peoples in former colonies? While the BNP's political philosophy of ethnicity is clearly wrong, our own seems very confused at present. Would we not be in a better position to oppose them if we had a clear (and popular) alternative?

Question Time Reaction

OK, I watched Question Time this evening and there are a few things I need to get off my chest.

1. Griffin didn't come across particularly well, he looked nervous throughout, however, I thought Jack Straw looked equally terrified and stumbled all through his first answer.

2. The way the whole show was about the BNP was a huge mistake in my opinion, why was he given that amount of attention?

3. The general tone of the programme was how outraged most of the people were at the BNP's views, especially the panel. I fail to see how that can be called debate or a constructive attempt to understand why one million people voted BNP.

4. Why is no one willing to accept that the one million BNP voters are racist? maybe they are, I would guess that there are far more than one million people in Britain who hold racist views. If you believe in the values of a multi cultural Britain you need to argue your case with the people who matter, not the educated political elites and ethnic minority audiences in a BBC studio.

5. Which leads me to my final point. Many people hold racist views and for a variety of reasons, there is no point demonising those people since that won't change anything, there needs to first be a willingness to accept that racism exists and to calmly try and reduce it. I think Question Time provided further evidence that most people are still in denial and therefore the problem will continue to grow. In which case, a victory for Nick Griffin.

Implications of Creation

Preparing some thoughts on the implication of creation. All contributions welcome.