Denis MacShane is furious that Iain Dale reckons the BNP can be compared to the Conservative Party. In an interview with BNP leader “Nasty” Nick Griffin in Total Politics, the right-wing blogger says the BNP is “a national political party with elected representatives in the same way that the Conservative Party is”. Mr Dale is extremely close to the Tories – he’s a former chief of staff to former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis and stood as a Conservative candidate in 2005 – and is widely regarded as one of the most effective Tory propagandists in the blogosphere.
“Mr Dale has gone a step too far in casually elevating the BNP to the same status as the Conservative Party – thus fulfilling a key ambition of Nick Griffin to be taken seriously as a national mainstream leader of an accepted political party”, said Mr MacShane. “In the European Parliament there are reports of Conservative MEPs voting the same way as the two BNP MEPs and laughing and joking with them instead of shunning these representatives of anti-Jewish and racist politics in Britain.”
The Rotherham Labour MP resigned from the editorial board of Total Politics, which is funded by Lord Cashcroft, in protest at the decision to boost Griffin’s national status with a major interview treating him as a party political leader.
