Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

If the worst comes to the worst…

...and the BNP do achieve more electoral success over the weekend, with gains in the Europeans elections, then the discussion will inevitably begin over whose fault it is that they have triumphed and been provided with money to pursue their hate-filled, racist, sexist, anti-immigration, anti-freedom and lying agenda.

Many will point the finger at those who chose not to vote. I can't really defend not voting, except to say that if the other parties had put someone up worth voting for, then more people would have voted. And you can't even use the excuse of first-past-the-post when every vote counts in the Euro elections; although it may be that the location of the elections itself might be behind the apathy.

So that's certainly a factor. But I think there's another thing that's been going on for a while now, and that's a legitimisation of the BNP's agenda - whereby people who might claim to be staunch opponents of the BNP end up endorsing policies and lies which further their cause.

If someone said Britain had 'no border controls', for example, you'd think they were either incredibly ignorant or a liar - given that it's obvious that there are indeed border controls in Britain. But if the person saying it was Britain's number one political blogger, then ignorance must surely be ruled out.

If someone said that British protesters who happen to be Asian should be put 'on the first flight home', then you would assume the person saying it was a racist. But if the person saying it was one of Britain's most highly-paid journalists, whose byline picture regularly sits proudly above the masthead of their newspaper, you'd have to assume that the newspaper - at the very least tacitly - endorsed a racist worldview.

If someone said that second and third generation immigrants should not be counted as properly British, you might be forgiven for assuming that person was a racist and possibly someone who would endorse BNP views. But if that person was the home affairs editor of a national newspaper, you'd have to wonder about what that newspaper really felt about home affairs and race in Britain.

Let's not just single out the media in this, though. If someone said there was such a thing as an 'immigration industry'; linked immigration with unemployment; and spoke about 'influxes of immigration' and using genuine asylum seekers as a stick with which to beat his political opponents; then you'd have to wonder how sympathetic they were to the BNP.

That last person, of course, is Phil Woolas.

So who is it who has been legitimising the BNP's arguments? Yes, it's easy enough to blame the likes of Dale and Littlejohn, who dismiss the BNP on one hand and back it up on the other - and Melanie Phillips, too, who called the BNP 'odious' but who railed against those who would call racists racists in an article which has for one reason or another disappeared into the Mail's story graveyard - but let's look at Phil Woolas and New Labour too.

Is it really that in fearing the BNP, the mainstream feels the need to move further to the hard-right? Or should it be, as I maintain, that the BNP are wrong, and any attempt to placate them is a disgrace?

Either way, just one MEP for them on Sunday/Monday would be a national disgrace. Whose fault is it? The inquest will begin here. And it's a warning shot that those of us who do believe in freedom and diversity will need to work even harder to get our arguments across before the next round of elections. The hard work begins again.

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