CounterpointStimulating debate with the British Council

In 2009 the Equalities and Human Rights Commission decided to take the British National Party to court over its whites-only membership policy.

The EHRC was also criticised by minority groups, saying the win was "hollow" because there was no clamour at all among minorities to join the BNP.

Earlier this year the BNP finally voted to change its membership rules to allow non-whites into the party, after sufficiently squeezing publicity from the court case.

Including highlights of our work in early 2010 and details of our summer and autumn plans, it's a bumper edition of Counterpoint news. Roll up Roll up....

As I said recently, various people have called for the new Muslim fundamentalist group Muslims Against the Crusades to be banned.

But under what pretense?

An Indian Muslim preacher has been banned from entering the UK for his "unacceptable behaviour", the home secretary told the BBC today.

The move is significant because it is the first ban by the new government and it signals that their approach is going to remain broadly similar to that of the previous administration.

A new radical Muslim group has sprung up on the scene calling themselves 'Muslims Against the Crusades' or MAC, as they sometimes refer to themselves.

It's likely that MAC are the latest incarnation of Anjem Choudhary's 'Islam4UK' which was banned under the previous government. This time however, he is nowhere to be seen.

With an air of inevitablity, Nick Griffin today posted a statement to the British National Party's website saying that he was planning to step down... in 2013.

There's no doubt that the BNP leader was under pressure to leave: the party had a disastrous showing at the General Election. This is infact contrary to the mainland European experience where increased immigration and recession has led to more support for the far-right.

After Counterpoint's screening of Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma's Disco & Atomic War at the Curzon Soho, Jaak fielded questions about the film from Ivo Gormley and the inquisitive audience. Read a transcript of the open conversation that resulted here. Notable subjects touched on include: competing personal realities; the non-existence of Leonid Brezhnev; Knightrider; culture as an epidemic; history, fiction and documentary; Emanuelle.

Access to culture opens you up to the possibility of internal transformations, of knowing your mind, of changing your mind--and the possibility of changing your self as a result. This is what makes it precious and revolutionary. Crucial and, for some, at times, as Jaak Kilmi’s film reminds us, threatening.

Last night we hosted a screening of Jaak Kilmi’s fantastic film ‘Disco and Atomic War’. We hired one of the Curzon screens, sent out invites and hoped that people would be as intrigued as we’d been by the title..