Arthur Kemp: Iran's nukes are no threat
Arthur Kemp, the BNP’s foreign affairs spokesman and chief ideologue, has said that accusations about Iran’s thermo-nuclear weapons programme come “direct from the lie-machine in Washington”.
Since the election of Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons as MEPs, the BNP have ratcheted up the volume on issues such as foreign affairs. The party used to be disinterested in foreign policy debates because it believed that such discussion had no relevance to its core voters.
Nick Griffin is desperate to shed the BNP’s image as a single issue party and would like to present to voters, now that it has political representation, that it is capable of holding its own in the political arena (hence why he spoke about Iran in his maiden speech to the European Parliament). Furthermore, BNP is attempting to mirror public concern on issues such as Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran by debating foreign and defence policy.
In recent years there have been a number of serious concerns about the Iranian regime and its thirty year attempt to obtain nuclear technology. Mr Kemp believes that the “allegations” made against Iran are “politically motivated and totally baseless” and “nothing short of a wicked lie” amplified by the “controlled media”.
Mr Kemp, however, appears to be more concerned about Iranian immigrants than about a nuclear armed Iran. On the issue of a potentially nuclear armed theocracy, Kemp said: “As long as nations such as Iran keep their excess population from swamping Britain, we have no interest in interfering in their internal affairs”.
It would be interesting to hear what Mr Kemp has to say about the evidence against Iran and its involvement in helping to ship “Explosively Formed Penetrators” (EFPs) into Afghanistan, which have claimed the lives or nearly 40 British soldiers? Or its kidnap of 15 British servicemen in the Persian Gulf in 2007?
Nobody wants an armed conflict with Iran, diplomacy would of course be more favourable. But Mr Kemp’s attempt to use the reasonable anxiety that people have over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to shirk away from responsibilty over the issue of a nuclear armed rogue state is negligent, deeply worrying and not in Britain’s long term national interest.
