HAVING watched Nick Griffin on BBC’s Question Time, I think he might be right. As an ethnic Celt, I think we should send them all back to where they came from – the Romans, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans.

Give the country back to us, the Welsh-speaking indigenous Celts. Give us back our lovely native language, widespread in Britain as late as the 10th Century, instead of that Germanic mongrel tongue called English. Give us our wonderful rituals displaced by that strange Middle Eastern belief system called Christianity.

Or am I just being really stupid? Perhaps without the contribution of immigrants we just wouldn’t have any culture at all to speak of; this amazing time capsule of a land, its castles, cathedrals, landscapes and, yes, mosques, temples and incredibly diverse food cultures, just wouldn’t have been created without the ebb and flow of peoples across centuries.

The “indigenous English” idea is a myth, but one Mr Griffin is willing to peddle to wrap his race hatred in a cloak that has some emotional attraction.

Luckily, his unpleasantness was matched on Question Time by his ineptitude. As a result, infighting in the BNP looks likely, rather than the political mainstream he hoped for.

Peter Roberts, Darlington.

THE BBC said it had invited to Question Time a cross-section of political opinion, but apparently there were no BNP supporters there – how democratic is that?

I would not vote for a BNP prospective MP, but – as with all political parties – not everything the party advocates is wrong.

The establishment, these shadowy figures who really run this country, always need a scapegoat.

In more recent times it was Tony Benn or Arthur Scargill to name but two, and now Nick Griffin fills that role admirably.

I must confess he is not a particularly impressive figure and if the BNP wishes to grow it needs a new leader.

For those who are disillusioned with the three mainstream parties, surely they should support the UK Independence Party, not the BNP.

It is clear to me that it is not the economy that will dominate debate in the coming months, but immigration and it will be interesting to see how the main parties intend to control the continuing flood of economic migrants and asylum-seekers.

Failure to do so will only result in more support for the BNP.

Hugh Pender, Darlington.