Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day015.04 Last-Modified: 2000/07/20 MR RAMPTON: There might be a problem if you have had an immigration officer newly brought from, let us say, the north west provinces of China who did not speak English. Beyond that I simply do not understand what you are saying, I am afraid. A. I think I have explained it relatively well. On the balance of probabilities at the time that I am talking about, these people have not been born in England. You were referring specifically to these people, these people that you have referred to. They have not been born in England, but they have been granted jobs in the Customs and Immigration service, and we find that they are checking our right to come back into the country in which we have been born, which strikes me as being paradoxical. This is what I am trying to convey to the readers. Q. Do you have any idea, Mr Irving? I do not, but I can easily find out if it is necessary. Do you any idea, Mr Irving, how many of the so-called coloured minorities, minority peoples, in this country have been born here? . P-28 A. Are you going to lead evidence on this? Q. No. I want to know if you know. A. Well, I have no idea whatsoever that I can state here on oath, no. Q. Then what is the basis for your remark that on a balance of probabilities that chap at the airport not been born here? A. That is why I used the phrase "on the balance of probabilities". Q. What is your basis for thinking there is a balance of probabilities? A. Because we know of the rate at which immigration occurred within the last ten years, within last 15 years, at the time this speech had been, so on the balance of probabilities these are recent arrivals, which is why I stated that. Now can we have the rest of that sentence? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, by all means. A. Nothing makes me shudder more than arriving "and I go outside the Terminal building and there is an Evening Standard placard saying, 'Kinnock in fresh Wedgwood Benn row'". That is what made me shudder. You tried to pretend it was a Pakistani immigration official that made me shudder. That is what I call manipulation. MR RAMPTON: Oh, really? Mr Irving, I am afraid I reverse that arrow and throw it straight back at you, because it is . P-29 exactly what you have just done. What you were telling your audience, which is why you got laughter and applause, is that there was a humiliating experience of having your passport checked by some dreadful little brown man who had no business to be here that made you shudder. A. No. It is having it checked by a foreigner that made me shudder. You yourself adduced the fact that he was brown. Pakistanis of course are not necessarily brown. It is perfectly possible to be Pakistani and white, but you are the one who has the racist attitude and you automatically assume that the Pakistani is brown. Q. There are some, very few we know but, Mr Irving, do not---- A. I know a number of very interesting cases of English people who are born in Pakistan and found difficulties getting back into England. Q. Mr Irving, this passage in your speech is all about coloured immigrants. A. It is not. It is about immigration, of which the major element is coloured immigration, of course, at that time. Q. Yes, and so that is why you chose---- A. Now of course we have other immigration which is causing problems. I would deliver exactly the same speech now about immigration from central Europe which is not a coloured immigration problem. Q. That is why you chose the Pakistan instead of somebody . P-30 else of, say, German ancestry, is it not?. A. It is unlikely there would be a German checking our passports at Passport Control. I think that probably everyone would draw the line at that. Q. Why do you not say, "What makes me shudder, it is so humiliating, when I get back to London I too often find that the immigration officer is an Australian"? A. You are manipulating this again. What made me shudder was the placard outside reading, "Kinnock in fresh row with Wedgwood Benn" and you know you are back in England again. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It speaks for itself, does it not? A. He is manipulating again, and trying to tell the public gallery that I shuddered at arriving and finding a Pakistani checking my passport. MR RAMPTON: Now, my Lord, I propose to pass from racism -- -- A. That is precisely the kind of manipulation that I am accused of. Q. I propose to pass from racism -- I have said enough about that, I believe -- to Moscow. A. Can we then in at that case please call my witness first? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes, but just before you do that, I want to get something straight. I have got a clip, which I suppose consists of, I do not know, 30/40 speeches or extracts from the speeches. MR RAMPTON: Yes. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It seems to me that on this aspect of the . P-31 case the position is somewhat different. The mere fact you have not cross-examined on these other speeches. MR RAMPTON: I should have said that. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That does not, it seems to me, mean that they are not part of the case and, Mr Irving, you should be clear that that is the way in which I am approaching this part of the case. Do you follow what I am saying?. A. In other words, you intend to take into account the other ones on which he has not cross-examined? MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. I think that must be right on this part of the case, that being the criticism, because you have explained very clearly, if I may say so, what your views are on the topic of alleged racism. A. Yes or whatever, patriotism. Q. I think I am entitled therefore to look at the totality of all this. A. Well I would have preferred that they would have marked those passages in the full text of the speeches. MR RAMPTON: They are. MR JUSTICE GRAY: They are. That is what has been done, you see. I have the full context.. A. And that you would have looked at the full text so you could have seen the full context. MR RAMPTON: I would invite your Lordship -- I should have said it. I did sort of indicate it when I started, by saying, if we went through every single one, we would be here . P-32 until Christmas, which we would have been. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I wanted to spell it out and have it on the transcript. MR RAMPTON: I am very grateful. I do urge your Lordship, as far as your Lordship wishes to do, it is entirely a matter for yourself, to read as much of the whole of the speeches as is relevant, which are not necessarily just the passages marked. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I have been through quite a lot of it before we even started. MR RAMPTON: That is not excellent. That is really not for my sake but for Mr Irving's sake. My Lord, can I say something before Mr Millar is called, and tell your Lordship our proposal in relation to what I might call Mr Irving's right-wing associations. I mean that at the moment in a neutral sense. The relevant documents, which consist of letters, diary entries, and so on and so forth, are spread across 14 files. Cross-examination making reference to 14 different files is, we believe, simply not practical. What we -- I say "we", I mean Miss Rogers -- is actually going to do is to produce a single file, as we have for Moscow and for Dresden and for this topic that we are have been dealing with, which shall have -- this is not necessarily written in stone -- but documents relating to the IHR, and these will all be the plaintiffs documents, sorry Mr Irving's documents, correspondence . P-33 with Zundel, correspondence with German right-wing persons, the DVU, somebody called Woch, Kristofferson, Altsans and Karl Philip. Then there will be some diary entries as well relating to all over the world, but they will be in sequence. Whether we divide them up by country, I do not know. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is fine by me. I am anxious that it does not prejudice Mr Irving. I do not think it will, will it, Mr Irving? A. Once again, as we have frequently seen in the past when they have done this kind of selection exercise, they have left out sometimes replies which are germane to the issue, and they have left out other letters which tend to neutralize the effect of the first. And, of course, I am also preparing a very extensive selection of extracts from the diaries which neutralise their extraction from the diaries. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I do know how you want deal with that physically because it is a problem. You are perfectly entitled, if a document is put to you, to say, well, that is fine but you must also have available the reply, whatever it may be. A. At present we are intending to come back with our counter attack when we have the chance of cross-examining each witness concerned, Professor Funke and the others. MR JUSTICE GRAY: In the context of this case I think that is . P-34 probably a reasonable way of dealing with it. A. It makes more sense, but of course it is going to produce a very lopsided effect to start with and I would ask your Lordship to bear that in mind. MR RAMPTON: What will also be in the file, my Lord, is the statement of case on this part of the case, which will be cross-referenced to the contents of the file, and also the relevant request for information and Mr Irving's responses. Mr Irving will necessarily and obviously get a copy of the file. I hope he will get one before your Lordship sees it. If he has any objection to it, aside from the fact that he may want your Lordship to see other stuff, then no doubt he will say so. MR JUSTICE GRAY: When are you thinking we are going to embark on this? We are going get that when? On Monday? MR RAMPTON: It will be ready by Monday, yes, but at the moment my sense of direction if I can use that, tells me that, unless your Lordship thinks it right that I should do so, or unless we have a change of heart overnight, it may not be necessary for me to cross-examine on that topic at all. MR JUSTICE GRAY: That is entirely a matter for you. MR RAMPTON: I know it is. What I am not proposing at the moment is that the file should be produced on Monday and that I should carry on cross-examining Mr Irving. If, when everybody has digested the contents of the file, I would have to have your Lordship's permission if . P-35 I wanted to cross-examine, your Lordship could ask me to do so, and I would do so, if asked, or Mr Irving might want me to. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I will have to wait and see what is in the file. Mr Irving may have a view about this as well. MR RAMPTON: Of course. I add this. For fairly obvious reasons, the one witness on this that we are going to call is Dr Funke from Berlin, who is an expert in this area in academic life in Germany, and he will be called as a witness. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Then I think it has to be put. A. In view of the undertones in that remark, can I ask what other witnesses they do not intend calling, because we have prepared very extensively for cross-examination of Professor Levin, and Professor Eatwell. MR RAMPTON: He is not coming. A. This is news, of course. MR JUSTICE GRAY: It will help Mr Irving if he knows what he does not have to deal with. MR RAMPTON: He does not have to bother with Professor Eatwell or Professor Levin. A. This is news which I am hearing for the first time. We have spent many weeks preparing documents for the purpose of cross-examination of those two witnesses, and this is not the way that a case should be conducted. MR JUSTICE GRAY: I think it would be helpful if, to the extent . P-36 that witnesses are not going to be called, that Mr Irving should be, as it were, the first to hear. MR RAMPTON: He is. MR JUSTICE GRAY: In this case that is quite important. MR RAMPTON: It is a decision that I made, I think probably yesterday. MR JUSTICE GRAY: Yes. MR RAMPTON: The reasons for it I am certainly not going to go into. I do not have to at all. MR JUSTICE GRAY: No.
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