Michael Savage Disinvited

Interesting development - Michael Savage banned in Britain!:

LONDON (AFP) – The government published a blacklist on Tuesday of people recently banned from the country including a Hamas lawmaker and a Jewish extremist, as well as anti-gay protestors and a far-right US talk show host.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she decided to publish the “name and shame” list — which identifies 16 people banned since last October — for the first time to clarify what behaviour Britain will not tolerate.

“I think it’s important that people understand the sorts of values and sorts of standards that we have here, the fact that it’s a privilege to come and the sort of things that mean you won’t be welcome in this country,” she said.

“If you can’t live by the rules that we live by … we should exclude you from this country and, what’s more, now we will make public those people that we have excluded,” she told the GMTV broadcaster.

Between October and April the Home Office excluded 22 people for “fostering extremism or hatred” included preachers Abdullah Qadri Al Ahdal, Yunis Al Astal and Amir Siddique, said a Home Office statement.

Hamas MP Yunis Al-Astal, Jewish extremist Mike Guzovsky, former Ku Klux Klan leader Stephen Donald Black and neo-Nazi Erich Gliebe are also on the list, as is controversial radio host Michael Alan Weiner, also known as Michael Savage.

Others blacklisted include homophobic US pastor Fred Waldron Phelps, as well as Artur Ryno and Pavel Skachevsky, former leaders of a violent Russian skinhead gang which committed 20 racially motivated murders.

Smith said: “The government opposes extremism in all its forms and I am determined to stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.

“This is the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour,” she added.

One can argue, of course, that the First Amendment guarantees Michael Savage free-speech rights. Then again, despite the fact that we share with Britain the same inheritance of the English common law, free speech provisions of the United States' Constitution do not necessarily apply there. The British Home Secretary has wide authority and I hope Savage goes ahead, sues, wastes a lot of money on solicitors, and probes the limits of his scurrilous Talk Radio speech.

That's how it goes! When you travel overseas, you are a guest, and you have just those rights that your hosts are prepared to extend - and no more!