Twitter urged to ban Nick Griffin over ‘lockdown concentration camp’ post

Twitter has been urged to ban former BNP leader Nick Griffin, after he tweeted about a “lockdown concentration camp”.

Griffin shared an anti-coronavirus lockdown post on social media this week, depicting Health Secretary Matt Hancock signing the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of commitment, with the phrase, “Science can set us free”.

The term is an adaption of the Nazis’ ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ slogan, meaning “Work sets you free”, written on the gates of Auschwitz.

His post read: “Science can set us free” – Matt Hancock. There’s a slogan to put over the main gate into the lockdown concentration camp as the doctors experiment on the inmates.”

Twitter said the post did not violate its rules, and reiterated its commitment to tackling hate crime online, while working with the Jewish community to fight antisemitism. 

Lord John Mann, the government’s independent antisemitism adviser, called for the social media giant to take action. He told Jewish News: “Twitter should deal with these has-been nobodies desperately seeking attention by their crass outrages, by giving them a long Twitter-free life away from the drug of social media. That’s what any decent company would do. If you pay for adverts on Twitter then you own part of this.”

 A spokesperson for the Holocaust Educational Trust said: “This is truly disgusting”.

Griffin was BNP leader from 1999 until 2014 and served as a member of the European Parliament for North West England. In 1997 he was filmed undercover saying it was “nonsense about gas chambers” calling the Holocaust a “total lie”. He had also called it the “Holohoax”. 

On 6 December, he shared a post on Twitter supporting convicted German Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck, calling on other far-right figures in Britain to “defend free speech in Germany.”