LONDON -- To the outrage of many Britons, a white-supremacist fringe party that recently upped its vote share in elections is about to have a platform on prime-time TV.
The Labour-led government says it is appalled that the British National Party will get such exposure, while the BBC says as a publicly funded broadcaster it is obliged to cover all political parties that have a national presence.
The BNP opposes immigration and says it fights for "indigenous" Britons. It has sought, with mixed results, to shed a thuggish image and enter the political mainstream.
Earlier this year the party won two seats in the European Parliament, and leader Nick Griffin is scheduled to appear Thursday on the BBC's political debate show "Question Time" — a first for the BNP.
A senior Cabinet minister, Justice Secretary Jack Straw, is also supposed to be on the same show, where panelists are questioned on current affairs by a studio audience.
Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has called on the BBC to drop Griffin from the program, saying the party is "an unlawful body" because historically it has not allow nonwhite people to be members.
Last week the BNP agreed to change its constitution to accept nonwhite members after it was taken to court by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It said it would not allow any new members to join until the change is made.
In a letter to Hain, BBC director-general Mark Thompson said "it remains the BBC's obligation to scrutinize and hold to account all elected representatives and to do so with due impartiality."
Retired senior British military commanders, meanwhile, accused the far right, including the British National Party, of hijacking military symbols for "their own dubious ends."
The Times newspaper on Tuesday published parts of a letter from four generals saying extremists and racists "are fundamentally at odds with the values of the modern British military" and calling on "all those who seek to hijack the good name of Britain's military for their own advantage to cease and desist."
The letter was signed by former army chiefs Gen. Mike Jackson and Gen. Richard Dannatt and two others.
The white-supremacist BNP has used military symbols such as a Spitfire fighter plane and wartime leader Winston Churchill in campaign literature.
Jackson, who led the British army from 2003 to 2006, acknowledged there had been racial tensions within the armed forces in the past but said he hoped that was "absolutely in the past."
Asked on BBC radio if he thought there was support for the BNP among ordinary soldiers, he said: "I sincerely hope not."
Some public bodies, including the police, ban their staff from joining the BNP.
Britain's defense ministry said there is no bar on troops joining political parties, including the BNP, but all military personnel are prohibited from actively campaigning or attending party events.
On Tuesday, a Web site published what it said was the BNP's membership list. The list, posted on the Wikileaks site, contains names, addresses and telephone numbers of about 11,000 people.
The BNP said it could not confirm that the list was genuine.
Last year another membership list for the party was leaked and posted on the Internet. The BNP confirmed that list, of 12,000 names, which included teachers, police officers and children, was genuine. A former party member was arrested and fined over the leak.
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