Brown gives backing to BNP Question Time

Gordon Brown has given his backing to this week's Question Time after a Cabinet minister said including the British National party on the panel would be illegal.

Welsh secretary Peter Hain has written to the BBC saying that following a court ruling last week, the BNP is now an 'unlawful body'.

But Mr Brown said the programme on Thursday was an important opportunity to expose the BNP.

The prime minister's spokesman said: 'People have strong views about these issues and it is important they are able to express them. [Mr Brown] thinks it's about exposing what any individual party may be about.'

Last week BNP chairman Nick Griffin, due to appear on the Question Time panel, pledged to change his party's manifesto to allow non-whites to join in a case launched by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

Antiapartheid activist Mr Hain said that until the BNP, which won two seats in the European parliament elections this year, complied with the Race Relations Act it should not be given a national platform.

'Now that the BNP have accepted they are at present an unlawful body, it would be perverse of you to maintain that they are just like any other democratically-elected party,' the Cabinet minister said in a letter to BBC director general Mark Thompson. 'On their own admission, at present, they are not.

'If you do not review the decision you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge in addition to the moral objections that I make.

'In my view, your approach is unreasonable, irrational and unlawful.'

Mr Hain added that Mr Thompson had 'no choice' but to rescind the invitation to the BNP leader and only permit them pending a final decision from the high court.

'You are giving the BNP a legitimacy even they dare not claim in their current unlawful status,' he added.

Meanwhile, the BNP has begun smearing Mr Griffin's opponents on the Question Time panel, dubbing black playwright Bonnie Greer a 'black history fabricator' and Conservative peer Baroness Warsi a 'product of Tory affirmative action'.

Justice secretary Jack Straw and Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesperson Chris Huhne complete the panel.

No 10 said Mr Brown had 'no problem' with Mr Straw taking on Mr Griffin, adding that the PM was 'not afraid of debating with anybody'.

On Mr Hain's comments the prime minister's spokesman added: 'This is an important issue and individuals have strong views about political parties such as the BNP.

'Peter Hain has expressed his view. The secretary of state has a long and distinguished history of anti-racism [and] antiapartheid [campaigning] and it is therefore not surprising he feels very strongly about it.'