BNP leader Nick Griffin under fire in stormy Question Time debut
Following the programme, Mr Griffin acknowledged his appearance would "polarise normal opinion" but expressed confidence that it would have an impact.
"A huge swathe of British people will remember some of the things I said and say to themselves they've never heard anyone on Question Time say that before and millions of people will think that man speaks what I feel," he said.
"People will see the extraordinary hostility shown to me from the people representing the three old parties. It's still a matter of the main political parties being against the outsider and that is what it is about."
Before the recording, around 25 protesters breached security and were able to get through the reception area at Television Centre before being removed from the premises.
Scotland Yard said three police officers were injured in clashes with the demonstrators, although otherwise the protest appeared to pass off largely peacefully.
Inside the studio, the recording took place without incident, although Mr Griffin came under fire from a number or audience members for his views.
To loud applause, one man branded his opinions "completely disgusting" and accused him of "poisoning politics".
Another suggested derisively that he should be consigned to the South Pole where the "colourless landscape" will "suit you fine".
Mr Griffin sought to defend his record, insisting that his views had been widely misrepresented and that the BNP had changed under his leadership.
"I am not a Nazi and never have been," he said.
"I am the most loathed man in Britain in the eyes of Britain's Nazis. They loathe me because I have brought the British National Party from being, frankly, an anti-Semitic and racist organisation into being the only political party which, in the clashes between Israel and Gaza, stood full square behind Israel's right to deal with Hamas terrorists."
He taunted Justice Secretary Jack Straw - who was also on the panel - saying that while his own father had served in the RAF during the Second World War Mr Straw's father had been in prison for "refusing to fight Adolf Hitler".
Asked, however, by presenter David Dimbleby if he had ever denied the Holocaust, he did not answer directly replying: "I do not have a conviction for Holocaust denial."
He said that if Muslims wanted to remain in Britain they had to accept that it was "a fundamentally British and Christian country" and that most of the population were descended from people who had lived there for 17,000 years.
"We are aborigines here," he said. "We feel shut out in our own country."
Mr Griffin also went on to describe the sight of two men kissing in public as "really creepy".
"I understand that homosexuals don't understand that, but that is how a lot of us feel. The Christians feel that way, Muslims, all sorts of people," he said.
Mr Straw said that, like the Nazis, the BNP continued to define itself on the basis of race.
"It is that difference - the fact that the BNP defines itself on race - which distinguishes it from every other political party I can think of," he said.
Shadow communities minister Baroness Warsi said the majority of the audience had been "appalled" by Mr Griffin's views which had been "exposed" by his appearance on the programme.
Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne accused Mr Griffin of "playing the same old game" of "peddling hatred and fear against a minority".
