The BBC was last night dragged into a race row after it broadcast claims by the British National Party blaming Muslim immigrants for the country’s hard drugs problems.
The comments were made during a debate on multiculturalism on BBC2’s Newsnight, which examined the results of a survey for the channel’s White season – a series of documentaries on what it means to be white and working class in Britain today.
When informed the poll showed that white working class Britons were more concerned about drug and drink culture than immigration, the BNP leader Nick Griffin responded with an attack on Pakistani immigrants. He said: “You can’t possibly separate the hard drugs trade from the question of Islam and particularly Pakistani immigration. Any working class area of Britain – in a multiracial area – the hard drugs problem is related to Islam and Pakistan.”