The Prime Minister-in-waiting has given his verdict on the recent court case involving BNP leader Nick Griffin: he has called for changes to the law.

Griffin and co-defendant Mark Collett were charged in 2005 with inciting racial hatred following the broadcast of secretly-filmed footage of the pair by the BBC. After the first trial failed to reach a verdict, the fresh retrial has found the men not guilty.

Nick Griffin and his party are odious fear-mongers. Most British people agree that they are odious fear-mongers and, aside from a few pockets of discontent, their party receives very little support. Much of the support they do receive has been generated on the back of the publicity surrounding the trial.

So would a new law have made things any better? I doubt it. Incarcerating Nick Griffin for his views is exactly what the BNP would want; it would give a real boost to their claim that the current government is repressing the BNP's views, and would make valuable propaganda. Not only that, but there comes a point at which we have to accept that some people simply have odious views which we can do nothing about. Brown's exact quote is revealing:

"Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country.

"We have got to do whatever we can to root it out from whatever quarter it comes.

"And if that means we have got to look at the laws again, we will have to do so."

He's right to say that preaching of hate offends mainstream opinion. It certainly offends mine. But is that a justification for a law against it? I'm not convinced. I do, of course, have to recognise that I am not the target of Nick Griffin's hatred and, if I were, I might feel differently. But even that consideration leaves plenty of unanswered questions. Can we ever criminalise 'hatred'? I'm really not sure that we can, and that the use of the law to control hatred may be a mistake. Hatred is a state of mind, not a practice. It cannot be outlawed like smoking, or fox-hunting. A society demonstrates its willingness to confront hatred in other ways than by passing laws. In particular, we can defeat Nick Griffin's ideology by voting against it at the ballot box.

What's more, Brown is giving credence to the idea that any crackpot demagogue can become a real threat to the lives and liberties of British citizens purely on the basis of their ethnicity. Britain ought to be a country made of better stuff than to allow such a thing to happen. We should not need to silence Nick Griffin by force of law; let him say what he wants, and be publicly rejected for it. If we want to guarantee the liberty of British citizens, we could start by promoting those liberties and protecting them in law - that would be a better guarantee of protection against a future fascist government than trying to criminalise those who fantasise about such a government's rise.

Brown's views seem to build on the 'managerialist' view of government (take a browse through Chris Dillow's many excellent posts on the subject); that every problem must be rectified by government action, whether the passing of laws, the changing of tax structures or the spending of money. His policy suggestions are based on using the law to control individuals, rather than on strengthening society and institutions necessary to tackle the problem. If the problem is disenfranchised white communities voting BNP, the solution is to address the genuine causes of discontent in those communities. If the problem is fear amongst ethnic minorities, the solution is to strengthen and guarantee their rights as British citizens, so that no amount of 'send them back' rhetoric from the BNP can ever be taken seriously. I'd prefer to see a Britain where ethnic minority Britons are able to laugh in the face of the BNP and where no community feels so excluded from society as to fall prey to demagogues. That is the real goal, not the temporary silencing of uncomfortable or offensive views.

Via Voting TaKtiX, from the esteemed organ of the local press, Pendle Today:

TWO Pendle men have appeared before Pennine magistrates accused of having "a master plan" after what is believed to be a record haul of chemicals used in making home-made bombs was found in Colne.
Robert Cottage (49), of Talbot Street, Colne, and David Bolus Jackson (62), of Trent Road, Nelson, made separate appearances before the court charged with being in possession of an explosive substance for an unlawful purpose. The offences are under the Explosive Substances Act 1883.
Both men were remanded in custody to appear at Burnley Crown Court on October 23rd. Cottage was arrested at his home on Thursday, while retired dentist Jackson was arrested in the Lancaster area on Friday, the same day as he left a dental practice in Grange-over-Sands.

Given the negative publicity the police have had in recent months for carrying out anti-terror raids and failing to find anything resembling explosives, one would expect them to be trumpeting this great success. And yet there is not a word from the major news outlets. Not a single damn thing.

Compare this with the numerous terrorism scares we've had in the last few years, where even a hint of a bomb plot has been transformed into a media frenzy for days on end, provoking the usual round of 'can we really trust Muslims in our midst?' paranoia from the far-right press and vast amounts of both print and airtime devoted to examining the 'what ifs' of the plot scenario.

It's not as if there is likely to be any innocent explanation for such a large quantity of potentially lethal material:

Cottage is an ex-BNP member who stood as a candidate in the Pendle Council elections in May.
Mrs Christiana Buchanan, who appeared for the prosecution in Jackson's case, alleged the pair had "some kind of masterplan".
She said a search of Jackson's home had uncovered rocket launchers, chemicals, BNP literature and a nuclear biological suit.
Police raided Cottage's Talbot Street home on Thursday of last week. The house was taped off while forensics officers searched the premises. Neighbours were told to stay in their homes for their own safety. Mr Cottage's car was also taken away for examination.

In fact, this case ticks almost all of the boxes for full-on media hype: bomb materials, rocket launchers and any journalist who can't make a 'dirty bomb' story out of a nuclear biosuit being found isn't worthy of the name. They even appear to have had political hate literature on the premises. So where has this story gone wrong? I am loathe to leap to conclusions, but the obvious one here is that they simply have the wrong sort of reading materials. Replace 'BNP literature' with 'copies of the Koran' and I think we'd be hearing a fair bit more about this story, don't you? Leon at Pickled Politics raises exactly this point.

If the media were simply observing silence on this matter because the fascist far-right are loathsome, despicable people who do not deserve the oxygen of publicity, then I would understand their decision. Perhaps they might not want to inflame tensions or stoke up fear amongst the general public and the ethnic minorities who would have reason to fear the possibility of bombs in the hands of fascists. But if that's really the view that they're taking, how about they take the same view the next time we hear about a violent plot involving Islamic-linked terrorists?