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.