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British National Party leader Nick Griffin used his appearance on BBC's Question Time last night to attack Muslims and gays.
Eight million people tuned in to watch the show, in which he was repeatedly jeered and pilloried.
He said Islam was incompatible with life in Britain, while he described homosexuals as "creepy".
The broadcast featured Griffin, the Conservative peer Baroness Warsi, American-born academic Bonnie Greer, justice secretary Jack Straw and Lib Dem home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne.
Griffin also used the occasion to label white people the "aborigines" of Britain, but denied he was racist or a Nazi.
"I am not a not Nazi and never have been. I am the most loathed man in Britain in the eyes of British Nazis," he said.
"They loathe me because I have brought the British National Party from being an anti-Semitic and racist organisation to being the only party which stood full square behind Israel's right to deal with Hamas terrorists."
The audience reacted with boos and jeers when he tried to claim: "skin colour is irrelevant."
Griffin said US white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan was a predominantly non-violent organisation.
Jack Straw spoke out about Griffin's alleged Holocaust denial.
Griffin said he had "never been prosecuted" for denying the Holocaust.
Straw described the BNP leader as "the Dr Strangelove of British politics".
He described him as "a fantasising conspiracy theorist and the British people will have nothing to do with it."
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, columnist Andrew Gimson said Griffin had exposed his limitations as a performer and ultimately damaged himself through his own "absurdities and evasions".
The Times' Matthew Parris said the "star of the show" was shadow communities minister Baroness Warsi.
"She was cool, she was measured, and spoke with quiet passion. She sounded sincere and avoided fireworks," he said.
"Jack Straw tried too hard. He looked anxious, sounded forced, and seemed to have practised many of his lines, losing his audience as he banged on about the past."
Sun columnist Kelvin MacKenzie said of Griffin: "He emerged as the lying piece of work you always suspected."
Article Comments
The audience makes these shows.
Not the politicians.
robin driscoll
7th Jan 2011 at 9:22 am
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