It was not simply that the broadcast provides the BNP with an opportunity to promote their racist propaganda, but that getting a political broadcast on mainstream television is likely to give them more credibility. It gave them access to a mainstream audience to promote their views without challenge or question.
Though of course, the BNP would never agree to take part in an open debate about what they really stand for. They know they wouldn't stand up to scrutiny.
The BBC may claim it has to be "neutral" between different political parties, but in this instance it is being politically stupid. No other party has race hate as the bedrock of its existence, nor does any other party, as policy, wish to deny freedom of speech to others.
Last autumn, one of their number stamped into the independent bookshop on Bold Street in Liverpool and threatened to burn it down. It seems he didn't appreciate the kind of books it sells, which includes ones on feminism, gay rights, Black history and the various strands of socialism. It might be baffling to some, that somebody could have political objections to what other people read, but this authoritarian attitude is typical of the BNP. It makes joke of their own bleatings about being entitled to freedom of speech.
For anyone who wants to do something practical to oppose the neo nazis, (and who doesn't have an objection to voting in itself) campaigners will be meeting at 7.30 in the morning on Friday 29th May outside Victoria, Oxford Road and Piccadilly stations to hand out leaflets to commuters to encourage them to vote against the BNP. The aim is, if there is a big enough turnout for the EU election on 4th June, the BNP will not win a high enough percentage of the vote to get their own MEP elected.