Question Time - what's the worst that could happen tonight?

It's no longer about whether the BNP will appear on Question Time. It's about how they will appear on Question Time. For good or for ill, Nick Griffin will be on the panel tonight, and we need to ensure that, despite his presence, the programme is a good advert for the tolerant mainstream of British politics.

Clearly, the best possible outcome is for Griffin to be demolished in debate by the other panellists. From any reasonable perspective, his views range between the deeply offensive and the deeply laughable. (See this article from today's Independent for more information.) With any luck, he'll appear unelectable, devoid of any real answers for Britain, and exposed for the ugly racist he is.

Then again, Griffin is an experienced and slick public speaker. In his job, you'd have to be. He will be used to dealing with probing questions, and you can be sure that he will have worked out his answers, long in advance, to the very predictable things that he'll be asked. So this would appear to be the worst outcome for tonight's show: Griffin deflects the criticism, and maintains a façade of reasonableness that wins over yet more disenchanted voters to the BNP.

But there's an even worse possible outcome. Groups such as Unite Against Fascism have been encouraging their supporters to request tickets to the recording, and it's a fair bet that there will be plenty of anti-fascist campaigners in the studio audience. People who have no interest in arguing against the BNP, and are angry that the BNP has been invited along at all. The atmosphere will be confrontational, and Griffin's attempts to debate will be lost under a barrage of jeers and hisses. If that happens, then he will look like a martyr. As a supporter of a tolerant society, which headline would you rather read in tomorrow's papers? "Racist exposed on TV"? Or "Griffin shouted down by protesters"?

I can think of an outcome that is worse still. Perhaps the worst of all. Because the biggest danger is that tonight's Question Time will turn into a debate with no substance. Accusations of racism met with bare denials and counter-accusations: this will do nothing to tackle the very real problems which have led to the BNP's recent and upsetting electoral success.

We benefit hugely from living in a society where we are valued equally, whatever our ethnicity; we benefit hugely from living in a Britain where we are free to choose our religion, our style of dress, our cultural identity. And we benefit hugely from properly managed, legal immigration to our country. Despite this, a large number of Britons feel worried and alienated by the way in which our society is changing. If we want those people to vote for non-racist parties, we need to take their concerns seriously, understand them, and deal with them in a rather more nuanced way than simply venting our spleen at them.

The argument for tolerance is a complicated one. It needs to be made, and made with conviction. But the other panellists, already under fire for appearing on the programme, will be keen to distance themselves from the BNP as their first priority. If they spend most of the time simply shouting "Griffin is a racist, don't listen to him," the argument for tolerance will never be made at all. And for the political mainstream, that will be the biggest own goal of the evening.

Some brief thoughts on Lisbon

1. The Lisbon Treaty itself is not a problem. It's largely a tidying-up exercise, streamlining the way the EU works and getting rid of a few anomalies. Far from being a Brussels power grab, it gives citizens of EU countries a greater say, especially by increasing the role of the directly elected European Parliament.

2. The way in which the Treaty has been ratified is a major problem. If the Irish voters do indeed say yes to Lisbon today, the Treaty will have been brought into law in the most underhand fashion. Nothing shows more contempt for democracy than asking a country to keep holding referendums until it gets the "right" result.

There's a gulf of mistrust between EU citizens and EU leaders; even a relatively straightforward Treaty such as Lisbon immediately raises people's suspicions. And that's the Catch-22 for Europe - if almost every change to the EU's structure is seen by citizens as undemocratic skulduggery, it makes it impossible for the EU's leaders to reform the system and make it more transparent.

The bungled handling of both the Constitution and Lisbon certainly hasn't helped matters!

3. Is the Lisbon Treaty suitable referendum material anyway? It's all very well talking about democracy, but most people haven't read the Treaty. We aren't exactly going to have a mature national debate on the finer points of EC law (or EU law, as it will be renamed after Lisbon comes into force and abolishes the confusing "Three Pillars" system).

The Lib Dem position (last I checked) was that Treaties such as Lisbon are not suitable referendum topics - they should be negotiated and ratified directly by the government. Our membership of the EU, on the other hand, should be put to a public vote, so we can choose to keep or reject the whole package.

This seems sensible, but the cynic in me thinks it's a purely tactical policy. There's a serious risk of a no-vote if we had our own referendum on Lisbon, whereas a referendum on EU membership is vanishingly unlikely. The Lib Dem leadership obviously wouldn't like a no-vote on either issue.

Quite how this all squares with point 2 (above) is anybody's guess.

4. This can't go on. If Ireland ratifies Lisbon, and it goes into force, the EU will have scraped through this latest crisis - but for how long? The mistrust certainly won't go away, and we will simply be saving the problems and the resentment up for a future generation to deal with. The current ostrich tactics help nobody.

The EU urgently needs to reestablish its relationship with its own citizens - on a basis of trust and respect - or else it may as well not exist at all.

The most patronising political comment of the month ...

... courtesy of Unite Against Fascism. Complaining about the BBC's proposal to invite a BNP representative to appear on Question Time, UAF wrote:

"As a publicly funded body, the BBC in particular has a duty to oppose racism. Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people pay the licence fee too."

Yes, because all Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people agree with your (failed) tactic of refusing to challenge the BNP in debate, do they? And because Black, Asian, Jewish and LGBT people care more about combating bigotry than everyone else? (So much for uniting against facism.)

Well done UAF, you've just patronised the vast majority of tolerant people in the entire country.

Rape laws punishing the innocent, and failing to tackle the guilty

On my way to Chester two days ago, I gave up on trying to listen to my iPod above the racket of the train wheels, and picked up a free copy of The Metro from the seat opposite. The front-page story was entitled "Child rape" teen is saved by Bebo.

It's a story about a 15-year-old by who had sex with an 11-year-old girl whom he thought was the same age as himself. He was charged with rape, although the girl had in fact agreed to sex (if you can really say that an 11-year-old has the capacity to agree to sex, which is a moot point). He was spared a jail sentence; the court accepted his story after learning that the girl had posted explicit photos of herself on Bebo. He still has a criminal record for underage sex, though, and has to sign the sex offenders' register for two years.

It got me thinking about the complete mess Labour has made of our rape law. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 was promoted as a vital modernisation of our outdated laws; an important way of protecting vulnerable women and children. In fact, it’s created more problems than it's solved.

Usually, to convict someone of rape, you need to prove that the victim didn't consent, and the defendant knew that (or, if he made a mistake about consent, you have to prove it was an unreasonable mistake).

However, the 2003 Act introduces a new offence: rape of a child under 13. To be convicted under this section, all you need to do is have sex with an under-13-year-old. Even if she consented, and even if she lied about her age, it's still rape. The logic behind this was that no 12-year-old could possibly consent to sex. It would be unfair and harrowing for child victims to have to go on the witness stand and be grilled by a barrister about whether they’d agreed to it or not.

That's entirely correct in the case of a 12-year-old girl forced to have sex by an older paedophile. But what if she's having sex consensually with her 13-year-old boyfriend? The boyfriend is technically guilty of rape, and he can get a conviction which will go on record and destroy his life. Which, for an Act supposed to protect children, is pretty perverse. (This has actually happened, by the way.)

Not that I'm for a minute suggesting it's a good idea for 12 and 13-year-olds to have sex. But if they do, should they really be dragged through the courts? Surely this is a matter for the family, the community, the school? We do need to deal with children who have sex far too young. But giving them a lifetime record for the second most serious crime is wildly out of proportion, and it completely defeats the object of child protection!

The 15-year-old in the Metro is lucky to have got away with a lesser conviction for straightforward underage sex, rather than rape (which he was technically guilty of, regardless of the Bebo photos). But I was struck by what the judge said to him when releasing him on probation: "I hope you realise this conduct has got you into serious trouble indeed. The maximum penalty for this is ten years' imprisonment."

A boy in his mid teens, having sex with a girl whom he thought was in her mid teens too? Carrying a ten-year jail sentence? My God, half my mates would still be in prison today …

The fundamental problem with our rape law (and the criminal law in many other areas) is that Labour seems to believe you can solve most things if you introduce tough enough laws. It's a case of a lazy government, going for the soft option of shuffling paper around to "make a statement", rather than taking practical action to solve problems.

It's a sad fact, but you'll never get as high a conviction rate for rape as for other crimes. It usually takes place in private, between people who know each other, with no independent witnesses and inconclusive forensics. But we could improve convictions drastically by, say, having 24/7 rapid response cars visiting rape victims, collecting vital forensic evidence as soon as they get the phonecall. Instead, we just re-write the definition of rape, to make it tougher for alleged rapists to defend themselves in court, and in the process, we not only create unfair loopholes that ruin the lives of innocent people; we also miss the chance to do something constructive to protect vulnerable people against the most horrendous crime short of murder.

Aside from lazy governmental thinking, the main culprit is the lobby-group mentality in UK politics. There's a loud and organised women's rights lobby (typefied by Harriet Harman), clamouring for higher rape conviction rates at whatever the cost. There's no equivalent lobby group to represent men charged with rape and demanding a fair trial - and if there was, it wouldn't get very far. Add this to a so-called children's rights lobby that thinks it's acceptable to drag inappropriately-young lovers through the Crown Court, and you have a recipe for injustice.


In other news - I'm moving to London this week, ahead of my final year of legal studies. I don't suppose anyone in the political blogosphere has any advice on how to survive in the big city? ;-)

Jewish students on BNP website

Since I blogged about the issue yesterday, the British National Party has published a statement condemning the recent court decision regarding admissions policy at the London Jewish school, JFS.

This isn't because the intolerant, racist BNP has any great love or respect for the Jewish community, most of whom they would cheerfully see deported to some random shtetl in eastern Europe. It's because the story gives them the excuse to spout out a load of the usual far-right claptrap: ethnic identity being attacked by the great liberal conspiracy, etc etc.

I looked at the BNP's website today, and noticed they'd put up a picture of some JFS students - the school's Head Boy and Head Girl teams. If I were one of those kids, or their parents, I'd be pretty uncomfortable with that photo on display on a far-right website - more on grounds of safety than anything else. And whilst I will support to the end of the earth the BNP's right to engage in lawful political debate, I wouldn't for a second blame JFS for taking every legitimate legal step possible to have that photo taken down. Copyright infringement, breach of privacy, they'd all help.

Interesting to note that the picture's gone up just before the Jewish Sabbath, so presumably it'll be Sunday at the earliest before the kids and their families can start to do anything about it.

If you're reading this and have any connection to JFS or to the students involved, do please draw it to their attention.

JFS: the court got it right

First of all, apologies for not blogging in several months (again). In my defence, I had exams, more exams, and then scary pupillage interviews.

Secondly, what I am about to say is very likely to annoy a lot of my fellow Jews who might be reading this. So again, apologies in advance. Take it in the spirit of healthy debate; it's certainly not meant as an attack on Jewish schools or Jewish identity.

But in a nutshell: I think the court got it right this week, when they ruled that a Jewish school's admissions policy was unlawful. Having said that, I'm not quite convinced I agree with their logic; I would come to the same answer for different reasons.

JFS, a Jewish school in London, had refused to admit a boy on the grounds that he "wasn't Jewish". The boy practised the Jewish religion, but from the perspective of orthodox Judaism, that isn't enough. To be considered Jewish, either you must be the child of a Jewish mother, or you must undergo the orthodox Jewish conversion process. The boy's mother had converted to Judaism in a progressive ceremony, not an orthodox one. Through orthodox eyes, this meant that she wasn't really Jewish - and therefore, neither was her son.

The Court of Appeal decided that this was racial discrimination - he was being denied a place because of his parentage. That doesn't entirely ring true, because you don't have to belong to a particular ethnicity to be Jewish. Anyone, of any racial background, can join the Jewish religion, and the worldwide Jewish community is very ethnically diverse.

My real objection to the JFS is that they were applying the orthodox criteria for Jewish status, when they should really have focused on the boy's own religious beliefs. JFS is a publicly-funded Jewish school, and should therefore be prepared to take anyone who practises Judaism, in any branch of the faith, whether orthodox or progressive. Orthodox Jews are quite entitled to decide who can be a member of their synagogues, and take part in their worship. However, no one grouping within British Jewry should have the right to set the legal standard for Jewish status in the British courts.

There is a wider debate about whether we should allow faith schools at all; I don't want to get into that minefield right now. I would simply argue that if we are going to allow schools to prioritise students of a certain religion, the sole criteria should be the student's own religious beliefs, and not the criteria set by a particular religious authority (such as the United Synagogue) - because that would mean giving away control of admissions policy to an unaccountable religious grouping with its own agenda. Admissions policy should be a public matter.

(Incidentally, I blogged about this issue last time it was in the courts a year ago: you can read my original article here.)

Ian Tomlinson death: has the Met moved on from Menezes?

The Guardian today has footage of the attack on Ian Tomlinson, who died from a heart attack shortly after being bludgeoned to the floor by a police officer as he tried to walk home from work during the G20 protests.

The news is shocking. I sincerely hope that whichever officer did it is hauled before a court. Depending on what evidence is available, it may be possible to charge him with manslaughter, and perhaps even murder. It's harder, though, to work out what this case tells us about the police. For example, what about the other police officers that went to help Tomlinson when he collapsed? They formed a human shield to protect him from bottle-throwing protesters. With examples of the very good and the appallingly bad within the space of minutes, what do we learn about the Met?

The answer, perhaps, can be found in the Met's own response on the night of Tomlinson's death. Their spokesman appeared to gloss over the avoidable death of an innocent man, preferring to talk about the professionalism of those officers who went to his aid. We need to be cautious - the true extent of the story, including the damaging footage, has only just emerged, and the police may not have had time to formulate a proper response yet. But if they choose to brush this one off, it will tell us something very sinister: that whilst there may be a great deal of bravery and dedication to service on the front line, there is a very cavalier attitude amonst the top brass.

When Jean Charles de Menezes was shot, the upper echelons of the police, together with Ken Livingstone, closed ranks to pretend that it wasn't their fault, and that we should blame the terrorists who created an atmosphere of fear - conveniently forgetting the criminally negligent series of intelligence screw-ups that led to an innocent man being mistaken for a suicide bomber. They compounded that failure by telling lies, and claiming that Menezes had behaved suspiciously: he hadn't. The Menezes case illustrated the gulf of responsibility between front-line officers and policy-makers. You couldn't really blame the men who shot Menezes, because they had been told comprehensively that he was a bomber. Responsibility had to lie with those in the command chain who made grave mistakes, and then lied to protect themselves.

The real test of how the police has moved on from Menezes will be how they handle these shocking events. If we see an open and cooperative attitude towards finding the truth, something vaguely good might have come out of all this. If we see a repeat, where the Met ducks justice, hiding behind the immunity of being a public servant, then we will have got precisely nowhere.