The UK's equalities watchdog has begun legal action against the British National Party over concerns about ethnic restrictions on its membership.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said limiting membership to those of an "ethnic origin" described as "indigenous Caucasian" was illegal.

It has issued proceedings against BNP leader Nick Griffin and two officials.

The party called this a "pathetic attempt" by the commission to divert attention from its own problems.

But equality minister Harriet Harman said: "No party should be allowed to have an apartheid constitution in 21st Century Britain. I welcome the action."

The commission has issued county court proceedings against the BNP after voicing concerns in June.

The UK's equalities watchdog has begun legal action against the British National Party over concerns about ethnic restrictions on its membership.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission said limiting membership to those of an "ethnic origin" described as "indigenous Caucasian" was illegal.

It has issued proceedings against BNP leader Nick Griffin and two officials.

The party called this a "pathetic attempt" by the commission to divert attention from its own problems.

But equality minister Harriet Harman said: "No party should be allowed to have an apartheid constitution in 21st Century Britain. I welcome the action."

The commission has issued county court proceedings against the BNP after voicing concerns in June.

"The commission has a statutory duty to use our regulatory powers to enforce compliance with the law, so we have today issued county court proceedings against the BNP.

"However, the party still has an opportunity to resolve this quickly by giving the undertaking on its membership criteria that the commission requires."

The BNP's constitution - last framed in September 2008 - does not explicitly mention the word "white" when talking about restrictions on membership.

The term is only used in the section on the party's political objectives: "It is... committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white make-up of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948."

The BNP's constitution limits membership to a group it describes in this way: "The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of 'Indigenous Caucasian' consists of members of: i) the Anglo-Saxon folk community; ii) the Celtic Scottish folk community; iii) the Scots-Northern Irish folk community; iv) the Celtic Welsh folk community; v) the Celtic Irish folk community; vi) the Celtic Cornish folk community; vii) the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic folk community; viii) the Celtic-Norse folk community; ix) the Anglo-Saxon-Norse folk community; x) the Anglo-Saxon Indigenous European folk community; xi) members of these ethnic groups which reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them."

Lee Barnes, legal officer for the BNP, told the BBC: "We think that the commission has brought this action at the behest of the Labour Party.

"It is also a galvanising thing to focus the commission's attention away from its own problems and internal issues."

Six commissioners have have left the EHCR in recent months and there have been criticisms of the leadership of chairman Trevor Phillips.

The communities and local government committee is set to investigate how the watchdog is run later this year and may ask Mr Phillips to give evidence.

Mr Barnes said: "It has nothing to do with discrimination; it's all to do with internal politicking."

they shouldn't be given a platform to preach their policies of hate and division.

I'm off to the Notting Hill Carnival on Sunday for a great time mixing with people of different colours and creeds, there is a whole world of different people out there to meet and make you a richer person for meeting them.

In my experience, the level of reported crime is far below that which really happens, and the whole process is down-played for political reasons.]

Police are actively discouraged from making arrests by senior officers for fear of sparking a riot situation, and I have seen serious criminal offences taking place while we are powerless to act... There is a significant criminal minority who exploit it in the full knowledge that the police will tread extremely lightly... The record of the Carnival is pretty appalling.'

Organisers of the Notting Hill Carnival have finally agreed to an earlier starting time to avoid a repeat of last year's rioting.

Police and councils had threatened to refuse permission for the festival on 30 and 31 August unless strict new measures were introduced to reduce noise and violence.

They have insisted that the carnival begins at 9am and the last float is judged at 6.30pm so that the parade will have left the road by nightfall. Last year 50 police were injured in violence, with mobs throwing bricks and bottles while following a late-running float.

Organisers will also be forced to turn down the music after noise levels breached 140 decibels last year.

Sounds like a wasted effort, it's not like we have a constitution and they've declared the BNP unconstitutional.

they have as much right to a platform as any other political party in the country.

By all means, I think that we need strong free speech legislation in this country and that people should be able to hold and express any views that they like. If the practice of those beliefs is to the harm or disadvantage of anyone else, that is grounds for regulation. So specifically, the BNP as a registered political party is not allowed to restrict membership on the grounds of race, just as an employer isn't allowed to racially discriminate in hiring practices.

The Equality Minister defended plans to encourage firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minorities job candidates.

The new Equalities Bill is also expected to force employers to disclose salary structures in a bid to make the pay gap between men and women more transparent.

Responding to criticism that the plans could discriminate against white men, Ms Harman said "you don't get progress if there isn't a bit of a push forward".

By all means, I think that we need strong free speech legislation in this country and that people should be able to hold and express any views that they like. If the practice of those beliefs is to the harm or disadvantage of anyone else, that is grounds for regulation. So specifically, the BNP as a registered political party is not allowed to restrict membership on the grounds of race, just as an employer isn't allowed to racially discriminate in hiring practices.

David Cameron has accepted a challenge to take part in a live television debate with Gordon Brown in the build up to the General Election.

Mr Cameron accepted after Sky News launched a national campaign inviting the Conservative leader, the Prime Minister and Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats to take part.

Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary, let slip in July that Mr Brown was planning to use his keynote conference speech in September to discuss the idea of live television debates taking place between the party leaders during next year's campaign. If they take place it would be the first time in British political history.

Lord Mandelson, effectively Mr Brown's deputy, claimed previously that the prime minister would come off best in a debate with Mr Cameron.

"I don't think Gordon would have a problem with that. While Cameron is good with words, he doesn't have the ideas or policies to back them. I think people would see through the smile," he said.

"The more the public sees of them, the more they'd realise that Gordon is the man with the substance."

At that point Mr Cameron made it known he would take part in the debate, writing to Mr Brown saying it "would help to energise our democratic process, engage the electorate and restore trust in politics.

"Your previous objection was that a televised debate was unnecessary as the issues were aired each week in parliament. But Prime Minister's Questions simply cannot compete with the accessibility of a prime time studio debate.

"I want the chance to set out the choice at the next election to many more people than those who watch on a Wednesday lunchtime."

John Ryley, the head of Sky News, said: "There is a chance here, not just to do something that has never been done, but to energise an electorate, to reconnect with the millions of people who have been alienated by politics and the way it is so often covered, to achieve something that is truly democratic."

At the last election, BBC Question Time staged a show in which each of the three main party leaders took part and answered questions from the audience, but they appeared one after another rather than on the stage together.

It's a good idea, and it'll be interesting to see how Cameron does. It'll make him or break him I think.

Labour has been forced to drop its policy of not sharing a platform with the BNP after the BBC confirmed that it is to invite Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time.

The party’s leader together with another BNP candidate were elected as MEPs at the European elections in June, leading to a rethink at the corporation about how much coverage to give the far-right party.

The BBC’s chief political adviser, Ric Bailey, said that the BNP had now “demonstrated evidence of electoral support at a national level” and this would be reflected in the amount of coverage the party received on BBC programmes such as Question Time.

“The BBC is obliged to treat all political parties registered with the Electoral Commission and operating within the law with due impartiality,” he claimed.

Although Gordon Brown is understood to have been angered by the decision, Downing Street made no comment yesterday. Instead it was left to Labour sources to confirm that the party would field a senior figure to appear alongside Mr Griffin.

Until now Labour has had a policy of refusing to share media platforms with the BNP. The Conservatives have made clear that they will field a senior representative for the edition of Question Time, which is expected to to be filmed this autumn in London.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, said that the BBC had taken the correct decision. “It is the right thing to do to use this opportunity to expose the BNP for what it is,” he said.

Martin Salter, a senior Labour MP and leading campaigner against the BNP, described the BBC’s decision as lamentable. But he said that it made little sense for Labour to boycott the programme. “We have to deal with the world as it is,” Mr Salter said.

Labour is formally committed only to holding a review of its position, but a source made clear that it would field a representative. He said: “We are not going to have an empty chair.”

The search is now on for which minister to send to the programme. Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, has already signalled that he is unwilling to appear. An ally defended Mr Johnson’s position, saying that his departmental responsibilities made sharing a platform particularly difficult. Shahid Malik, the Dewsbury MP and Communities Minister, also declined to say whether he would accept an invitation to appear alongside Mr Griffin.

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is a possible candidate. “Jack’s personal view is that he takes on all comers when doing public meetings, but it’s a decision that has to be taken collectively,” a friend said.

It is understood that Question Time delayed sending an invitation to Mr Griffin because it feared that it would be seen as a reward for the BNP’s showing in the European elections.

The BBC has made clear internally that it wants the edition to be as routine as possible, with no changes to a format in which panellists answer questions on a wide range of topics.

It will almost certainly be filmed in London after managers voiced fears that it could become a focus for unrest if recorded near BNP strongholds in the Midlands and North West. The programme will vet the audience in the normal way.

The issue of the political mainstream’s relations with the BNP first surfaced this summer after Richard Barnbrook, a London Assembly member, was invited to a Buckingham Palace garden party.

oh let them have their little spotlight because all it does is show up the evil racists they truely are - just make sure it's the bloke off the today programme doing the control of the programme and have him stuff them up!

So the BBC have had a "Rethink" over coverage for the BNP. Is this the same BBC that have had Nick Griffin on many a show? The same BBC that showed a Party Election Broadcast for the BNP? What does the "rethink" include that they previously didn't anyway?

but the only way to defeat twats like Nick Griffin is to engage them in serious debate in the most public forum possible and show them up for the useless, ignorant cunts that they are.

Gordon Brown declined to put formal pressure on Libya to get compensation for IRA victims, No 10 has confirmed.

The victims say Libya should pay compensation because it supplied the IRA with explosives used in atrocities.

Mr Brown told a victims' lawyer it was not "appropriate" to discuss the claims, but aides have denied he was trying to protect oil deals with Libya.

Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson said the PM had done far less for victims than US leaders had.

Mr Brown's office released a letter written by the prime minister to IRA victims' lawyer Jason McCue last October in which Mr Brown wrote that the government did not "consider it appropriate to enter into a bilateral discussion with Libya on this matter".

He added that Libya would be "strongly opposed to reopening the issue."

In an earlier letter dating from last September, the prime minister told Mr McCue that Libya was now an "essential partner" in the fight against terrorism and it was in the UK's interests for that co-operation to continue.

Mr McCue has been lobbying the government to raise the matter of compensation at the highest levels of the Libyan government.

His campaign follows out-of-court deals agreed by Libya with three American victims of IRA atrocities.

More than 100 UK IRA victims, who had been pursuing similar claims through the American courts, had been excluded from those deals.

Mr Donaldson told the BBC that the US government had "held the Libyans' feet to the fire" in order to win a multi-million pound settlement for its nationals.

"I want to know - and the victims are entitled to know - why Gordon Brown does not have the same desire to stand up for the victims of IRA terrorism as George Bush showed standing up for American victims," he said.

"He got a multi-million dollar deal in terms of compensation from the Libyans."

Mr Donaldson is part of a cross-party group of MPs preparing to travel to Tripoli for talks about compensation.

The victims' campaign has been boosted by the Scottish government's decision to free Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi on compassionate grounds.

The victims argue Libya should show similar compassion regarding their demands.

Colin Parry's 13-year-old son Tim was killed in Warrington in 1993 by an IRA bomb thought to be made from Libyan Semtex.

"It does make Britain look very, very weak and insignificant if, for reasons of worrying about oil deals or other economic considerations, this government of ours is prepared to disregard all the pain of the thousands of victims of IRA terrorist campaigns," he said.

"It isn't about the money. It's about Libya saying, 'We now want to be a normal state.'

"If that's the case then they've got to address the sins they committed in the past. The only way they can do that... is financially - to compensate those people their actions hurt so badly."

A Downing Street spokesman said the government had raised the issue of compensation with Libya informally but it was felt that formal negotiations stood little chance of success.

The Conservatives said the public needed to know "on what basis" the government had reached its decision not to press for compensation.

Shadow foreign secretary William Hague told Sky News: "These latest revelations are part of an ever-expanding farce, with more revelations really every day about how the government have conducted themselves.

"These latest revelations greatly strengthen the case we have made for an independent inquiry."

They are talking about me in the House of Commons. Well, a bloke who works in the House of Commons is talking about me, possibly whilst in the House of Commons. Tom Harris MP has written this blog calling for me to be on Question Time with my Hitler moustache, if, as they most surely must, allow Nick Griffin to go on the programme. It's an interesting proposition, though I am not sure I have the necessary knowledge or gravitas to pull it off. But I certainly think that Question Time should have Nick Griffin on their show. Not only was he democratically elected by the idiotic British public, but by silencing him one only shrouds him in mystery and makes him appear like some speaking maverick whose words are so scintillating that they can not be heard. Let him get up there and say whatever is in his tiny head, because if it's anything like anything else that the BNP have ever said it will be palpable, laughable nonsense and he can only make himself look like a prick. I have doubtless said this before but generally when people are silenced by a government or the church it is because what they are saying is true - Galileo springs to mind, as do the political prisoners around the world who are incarcerated for daring to criticise oppressive regimes or propose democracy. But the BNP have no such worthy or truthful purpose. Let them speak. What they say is wrong and their arguments fall apart under the smallest amount of examination. Are we worried that people might be stupid enough to be seduced by these lies? Perhaps they will be, but if you want democracy then you have to let stupid people have an equal say. It is up to the less feckless individuals to do their part and stop the fascists in their tracks. But we should let them speak or they gain a cachet that they don't deserve.

Freedom of speech allows all of us to have our say, providing we are not transgressing into the criminal and I think Nick Griffin should be questioned over and over again about his odious beliefs, on camera, if necessary sitting next to a man with a Hitler moustache, heiling everything he says.

For the moment, of course, I am moustacheless anyway. And now with a week's worth of stubble and beginning to look like myself again, which is a relief. If only a temporary one.

I've said it a million times, but the only way to defeat twats like Nick Griffin is to engage them in serious debate in the most public forum possible and show them up for the useless, ignorant cunts that they are.

I think one of the good things to come out of the BNP getting some airtime is the idea that perhaps the so-called legitimate politicians will be forced to answer some of the questions on immigration, Europe and human rights as well.

We all know that the BNP are never going to be major players when it comes to UK politics, but we can at least hope that their involvement will ensure that some real questions get put to these fools we have in charge at present.

just out of curiosity are you a bnp voter harry?

I think one of the good things to come out of the BNP getting some airtime is the idea that perhaps the so-called legitimate politicians will be forced to answer some of the questions on immigration, Europe and human rights as well.

Have you never watched Question Time?

Indeed I have.

That's the show that forces legitimate politicians to answer questions on immigration, Europe and human rights every week.

Really? You think that the BNP will face the same level of grilling that your typical Labour politician usually gets?

I'm hoping that the questions they put to the BNP will then lead to the other guests being asked more pressing questions, not the usual shit.

Be honest now. Have you really ever seen Question Time? The show where Labour politicians in particular get a thorough grilling on the toughest issues of the day, week after week. It's about as tough as it gets without turning into some Jeremy Kyle uncivilised mess.

On Question Time do they have to stick to current affairs or can they question a particular guest? I'd love someone to bring up Nick Griffins comments like these... "Some unfortunate people suffer from homosexuality so we will just have to tolerate them." and in homage to the upcoming gay pride parades "I call it gay shame, a freak show, revolting." So I hope one of these "AIDS Monkeys" or "bum bandits" (as the BNP Director of Publicity so delightfully called homosexuals) calls him on these comments and watch him squirm in his seat.

On Question Time do they have to stick to current affairs or can they question a particular guest? I'd love someone to bring up Nick Griffins comments like these... "Some unfortunate people suffer from homosexuality so we will just have to tolerate them." and in homage to the upcoming gay pride parades "I call it gay shame, a freak show, revolting." So I hope one of these "AIDS Monkeys" or "bum bandits" (as the BNP Director of Publicity so delightfully called homosexuals) calls him on these comments and watch him squirm in his seat.

Chances are Nick will just be heckled every time he attempts to speak.

Best case scenario is that the fence sitters and protest voters will finally get to see him for the cretin that he is and worst case he his singled out so much and given so little chance to speak that people will see him as some sort of victim.

I won't say that i'm an "avid" viewer, but i've seen it on more than a few occasions.

I still stick by my prediction that the knives will be particularly sharp when the BNP come to town.

I'm just saying that I would hope that their fellow guests will be met with the same level of questioning.

Nick Griffin is a lunatic racist scumbag. He deserves a far greater degree of aggressive questioning because his policies, attitudes, public statements, aims and goals are either inhuman, wrong or both.

I have to agree with harry on this.

At the end of the day if we cannot act in a civilised manner and allow even a cretin like Nick to have his say (he was elected in a democratic election plain and simple) then we have no moral high ground at all and will just end up giving ammo to likes of Nick and his ilk.