Outrage at Griffin’s Copenhagen role about four months too late

The news that Nick Griffin will represent the European Parliament at the Copenhagen Summit next week should come as no surprise to readers of this blog. Four months ago Left Foot Forward reported the BNP leader’s appointment to the Parliament’s environment committee – a story overlooked by the mainstream media at the time.

Mr Griffin’s membership of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) committee has, belatedly, been brought to wider attention following the news. Of equal concern is his colleague Andrew Brons’s seat on the Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) committee, which is responsible for “the institutional aspects of the European integration process” and “the implementation of the EU Treaty” – both fervently opposed by the BNP.

It is also worth recalling the British National Party leader’s remarks on climate change in October, reported by Left Foot Forward, when he told the European Parliament:

“The global warming fixation is a classic example of how the political class here is out of touch with the little people who have to pay the bills. While the EU backs the Copenhagen proposals to further the deindustrialisation of the West and the corporate domination of the Third World, a growing majority of ordinary people regard climate change as an elite scam – an excuse to tax and control us and to impose internationalist dogma and global government at the expense of the nation state. “Can you not see the danger in this growing gulf? It is time to look at the facts. Man made global warming is an unproven

theory based on manipulative statistics. The so called consensus on the issue is the product not of debate but of the suppression of expert dissent.

It appears, however, that Mr Griffin’s committe may not be as influential as he thinks. Speaking to the Independent, Green party leader Caroline Lucas said:

“The parliament sadly doesn’t get the right to really influence decisions at all.

“So this idea that Nick Griffin is going to have influence on what happens in Copenhagen is a myth.”