Eggs won't make fascists go away

I think Nick Griffin is an odious little fascist who expresses opinions that have no place in a civilised society as I said in this post yesterday

Several bloggers, including Charlotte who agrees with me that no platforming the BNP is not helping and James, who used the term scum and idiots where I used thugs and the alienated angry. They pretty much mean the same thing, though!

Today the vile Griffin was pelted with eggs as he held a press conference outside Parliament. However old (and smelly) or foreign (the irony) the eggs might have been, all that sort of stunt does is make him into a hero in the eyes of the more thuggish elements of his followers. Even if he were pelted with every egg or rotten vegetable in the country every time he stepped outside his front door, it's not going to make him go away and it just gives him potentially sympathetic publicity. If you actually let him stand there and speak, sooner or later he's going to take the rope that's offered and hang himself.

It's fine to protest against him, but ugly, violent confrontational scenes are simply not going to help. Unfortunately, it's not just the fascists who have thugs on their side. I remember being spat at by an angry Trot at an NUS conference once because she took exception to something I said.


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