BBC delays BNP expose until after election

This report suggests that BBC Wales has bottled an expose by the Week In Week Out documentary team about the racists behind the BNP campaign here in Wales. 

 It's unlikely the documentary isn't ready, as claimed, as they were filming in Wrexham some weeks ago.

THE BBC has been accused of “going soft” on the BNP by delaying the broadcast of a documentary until after next month’s European Parliament election.

Last week, the Western Mail revealed how one of the key figures involved in organising the distribution of 29 million BNP election leaflets across Britain from a warehouse in Welshpool was Arthur Kemp, a racial ideologue from South Africa (pictured)

The forthcoming BBC Wales programme is understood to focus on Mr Kemp.

His book, March of the Titans: A History of the White Race, praises the Nazi regime for taking action to ensure Germany’s economic recovery, and on the Holocaust states “certainly far fewer died that what is most often claimed”.

Anti-fascist group Searchlight, which has been co-operating with BBC Wales during the making of the documentary, said it was unhappy that it would not go out until after the election on June 4.

But a BBC spokesman said: “The BBC is not postponing or rescheduling the broadcast of this programme until after the European election. It is still in production and has not yet been scheduled for transmission on BBC One Wales.

“It will be broadcast as planned as part of BBC Wales current affairs series Week In Week Out next month.”

However, the Western Mail understands that at one point there had been a possibility of broadcasting the programme before the June 4 election and that one of the considerations involved in making a decision is not related to the legal requirement for broadcasters to be neutral during periods running up to an election.

Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price said: “I can’t understand why for one minute the BBC would want to be protecting a far-right party like the BNP during one of the most dangerous periods for the future of democracy we’ve seen in living memory. People are angry, and rightly so, with the establishment parties and the BNP is clearly seeking to exploit that.

“It’s vitally important that those of us who know the party that lies behind the mask of the BNP are allowed to demonstrate that so that the decent but disillusioned majority do not end up voting for a party whose values they would never share.”