Supporters of the racist philosophies of the British National party should be banned from taking communion because their beliefs conflict with key tenets of the Christian faith, the head of Britain’s race watchdog said yesterday.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, used a speech to church leaders to criticise their silence over the BNP’s depiction of itself as a Christian-based party. Mr Phillips told the Temple Address, a high-profile interdenominational gathering, that the BNP’s policies against people of other races and other religions using the cloak of Christianity demanded a robust response from established churches.

Referring to BNP leader Nick Griffin’s acquittal last week on charges of inciting racial hatred, Mr Phillips said the church should have framed its own response. “If ever there was a moment for hellfire and damnation, this is it. At the very least, every pulpit this Sunday should have been ringing with denunciation, ministers and priests crying ‘Not in our name’ … the far right should not be able to claim Christ to their cause. But they will do if we let them.”

He added: “I feel rage that my church might expect me to be in communion with such as Nick Griffin. This is where Christ puts us to the test. In the end it is Christians who decide who shares their fellowship, and who is excluded.”

Mr Phillips said church leaders faced a choice. “Will the churches support any priest or minister who says I will not administer the sacrament to someone who blatantly rejects Christ’s teachings? Are we ready to use weapons of faith to turn these people into pariahs and outsiders?”

Guardian, 16 November 2006

Anti-fascist campaigners reacted with outrage on Friday of last week as Nick Griffin, leader of the British National Party (BNP), and his sidekick Mark Collett were cleared of charges of incitement to racial hatred.

Griffin and Collett had been prosecuted over speeches at a BNP meeting in Keighley, West Yorkshire, that was secretly filmed by the BBC.

Griffin claimed that gangs of Asian men were drugging and raping white girls as part of an Islamic plot to take over Britain. He spoke of “Muslim thugs and perverts”, “young paki street thugs” and Britain being “mongrelised out of existence”. Collett made similar allegations about “gangs of Asian males”.

In court Griffin argued that his comments were intended as criticism of Islam, rather than being directed at Asians in general. “This isn’t a racial thing. It’s not an Asian thing. It’s a cultural and religious thing,” he said.

His defence team argued that Griffin’s views on Islam, expressed in 2004, had since become more acceptable. They cited recent comments by Jack Straw and other senior politicians to argue that such views were now legitimate public debate. These kind of arguments regularly appear in both the right wing press and its “liberal” counterpart. They have directly fuelled the atmosphere of anti-Muslim racism around this case.

Jon Cruddas, Labour MP for Dagenham, east London, was quite right to say that the government’s “tough” stance on race and Muslims had played into the hands of the BNP. He said, “We have to be honest in saying that the debate over the veil, talking tough on immigration and race or the language used in the ‘war on terror’ does not reassure people but actually makes the situation worse.”

Weyman Bennett, joint national secretary of Unite Against Fascism, said it was “tragic that a fascist organisation can hide behind free speech”. But the verdict highlighted the need to build a united grassroots movement against the BNP that could challenge the fascists politically, he added. “We need to be campaigning against the fascists in our workplaces and communities. The vast majority of people are opposed to the BNP – and we need to mobilise that force against them.”

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