THE CHAIRMAN of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, has said he made a complaint to gardaí in Dublin about protests that are believed to have led to the withdrawal of his invitation to speak to students at Trinity College last month.
He had been due to address a meeting of the Philosophical Society but, ahead of the planned visit, about 30 protesters disrupted another society debate as part of a campaign against his invitation. At the time, the college said that following “careful review of operational and safety issues”, both it and the Philosophical Society were not satisfied the general safety and wellbeing of staff and students could be guaranteed.
The college insisted it encouraged balanced debate and freedom of speech and that it respected the autonomy afforded to student societies.
In an interview to be broadcast today, however, Mr Griffin, an MEP for northwest England, said the college clearly did not encourage “balanced debate and free speech”. He will speak to DCUfm, a station run by students at Dublin City University, on the afternoon Newswire programme.
The interview was recorded last week.
“Clearly, in fact, the college [TCD] don’t encourage balanced debate and free speech because when they came under a bit of pressure, they simply said to me, ‘well, don’t come’,” Mr Griffin said. He said there was “no democratic opposition” in alleged threats by protesters against his visit.
“That’s not democratic, that’s a form of left-wing fascism,” he said.
He did not blame either the Philosophical Society or Trinity College, he said. “They are under pressure. The people at fault here are the police for not upholding the law.” He said he had sent a complaint to gardaí in Dublin immediately after the event, saying there was “very clear” evidence, to his mind, that the people who had tried to “organise that trouble” had broken the law.
“And the police need to come down on that and make sure that people stay within the law. That means they can object to me, they can object to my message but they need to come along and talk about it, and not threaten people.”
A Garda spokesman said he was not in a position to discuss complaints relating to named individuals.
In the interview, Mr Griffin said he did not accept the label “far-right” and that, in fact, his party’s views on such issues as bank bailouts put it on the left. “So we don’t really fit on the spectrum anyway.”
He classified his own views as genuinely “in the middle”.