It may be a relatively rare event but Jacqui Smith, our beloved Home Secretary, was entirely right to deny entry to Britain to Dutch MP Geert 'Mozart' Wilders. His prescence has been deemed, "a threat to public order", although it is unlikely to have prompted riots around the House of Lords where he was due to show his hateful anti-Muslim film, Fitna.In reality, the Government was stating clearly there are limits to freedom of speech. Although as a nation we are generally tolerant of a very wide range of political views, Wilders extremist claptrap goes way beyond what is acceptable. A ban on entry to the country is always a difficult judgement to make for a Minister, as it necesarily involves a degree of subjectivity. But Wilders's egomania and rampant self-publicism made it in an easy choice for Ms Smith in the end.
It is of no surpise to learn Wilders established his own political party (PVV) somewhat predictatably called the Freedom Party (reminiscent of fellow fascist and now dead drink-driver, Austrian MP Jorg Haider). There is no way a political loon like Wilders could fit in the structure of a mainstream political party, like many political extremists he could not stomach anyone's leadership but his own.
His film Fitna, is an Arabic term for "division between peoples" which appears to be his life's ambition. The case put by Wilders in his 17-minute short is no different from Al-Quaida - the Koran is a complete justification of terorist violence. It is not subtle, it is not remotely persuasive it is just polemic for the sake of it. His production of the film has stirred state lawyers in Netherlands to begin a prosecution against him for inciting hatred. He made it easy for them when he said, "I don't hate Moslems, I hate Islam".
The Dutch Prosecutors responded, "in a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to draw a clear line... the court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders."
His manifesto contains such wacko ideas, Lord Sutch would have struggled to accommodate Wilders in the MRLP. His idea of prison reform is forcing five prisoners to every cell - public media output should be restricted to one channel presumably showing pictures of the glorious leader holding Aryan babies together with some stirring classical music.
Naturally, Wilders also wants to ban the Koran. So much for his advocacy of freedom of speech.
