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Source: Reuters -
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A British minister warned the BBC it could face legal action over its invitation to the leader of the far-right British National Party to appear for the first time on one of its current affairs television shows.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain, a leading anti-apartheid campaigner before entering parliament, told the publicly funded broadcaster in a letter that its action was "unreasonable, irrational and unlawful".
The BBC has said BNP leader Nick Griffin will appear this Friday on Question Time, a panel show where politicians from the main parties and commentators discuss issues of the day in front of a studio audience.
The invitation has caused a political storm in Britain, where mainstream parties have previously refused to share a public platform with the BNP to avoid giving it credibility.
The BNP, which campaigns for a halt to immigration, voluntary repatriation of immigrants and Britain's withdrawal from the European Union, has no seats in parliament.
But its popularity has grown in recent years and it now has a number of local councillors. In June it won two seats to the European Parliament.
A BBC spokesman said the corporation had invited the BNP in accordance with its public broadcast obligation to offer all political parties "due impartiality".
"Our assessment was that, following the European elections, (the BNP) had established a level of electoral support which meant it was appropriate to invite a representative onto an edition of Question Time," he said.
Hain said that, as a result of a court agreement last week, the BNP had accepted it was an "unlawfully constituted party".
He urged BBC Director General Mark Thompson to suspend the invitation until after a final court hearing in January.
"If you do not review the decision, you may run the very serious risk of legal challenge, in addition to the moral objections that I make," Hain wrote.
The BNP agreed on October 15 to ask its members to amend its constitution to allow non-whites to join, in response to a legal challenge from equality campaigners arguing that its exclusion of potential members on ethnic grounds broke race equality laws.
BNP deputy leader Simon Darby said Hain had been misinformed. "At no time did we agree we were an illegal organisation," he told Reuters.
He said Hain was desperate to prevent the BNP appearing on Question Time, which regularly attracts three million viewers.
"We are entitled to put our case to the public," Darby said. "Hain is denying the right of millions of people to listen to an alternative point of view."
