Published: June 25th 2009 - at 2:50 pm
Why the EHRC should challenge the BNP’s membership rules
As has been widely reported, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has written to the British National Party and, according to its own press release, ‘demanded that the party address potential breaches related to its constitution and membership criteria, employment practices and provision of services to the public and constituents.’
It’s been suggested, by Joseph Harker, that such a move is almost certain to be counterproductive…
I’m all for taking action to counter these bigots – restricting the BNP’s ability to spread its message of hate and banning its members from public service roles such as teachers and police. But what would the commission’s course achieve? If the BNP wins the case, it gains masses of publicity, is able to claim it has seen off the PC brigade – and Nick Griffin’s smirk and his odious propaganda will be all over the media. If the commission wins, the BNP gains masses of publicity and can bemoan an oppressive PC brigade – and Nick Griffin’s smirk and his odious propaganda will be all over the media.
… while others (Hi, Matt), seem not to have quite understood the nuances of the EHRC’s challenge to the BNP’s membership criteria, not that the mainstream media have been much help in that respect and, admittedly, even the EHRC’s press release is far from clear in its explanation of the thinking behind this challenge.
Personally, I’m of the view not only that this is a case worth pursuing but that, by pursuing it, the EHRC, and ultimately the courts, may do far more to clarify what it genuinely means to be British (and English, Scottish, Welsh, etc.) than any number of scholarly dissertations on the British identity and character or politically sponsored, and wholly misbegotten, flag-waving government initiatives.
In defending the legality of the BNP’s rules of membership, Nick Griffin has relied, publicly, on an assertion that the exemptions for member associations contained in s.26 of the Race Relations Act 1976 apply to the BNP, for all that it efforts to place itself under this exemption required the BNP to come up with perhaps the most tortuously defined set of membership criteria anyone is ever likely to see:
1) The British National Party represents the collective National, Environmental, Political,Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests of the indigenous Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse folk communities of Britain and those we regard as closely related and ethnically assimilated or assimilable aboriginal members of the European race also resident in Britain. Membership of the BNP is strictly defined within the terms of, and our members also self define themselves within, the legal ambit of a defined ‘racial group’ this being ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ and defined ‘ethnic groups’ emanating from that Race as specified in law in the House of Lords case of Mandla V Dowell Lee (1983) 1 ALLER 1062, HL.
2) The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ consist of members of: i) The Anglo-Saxon Folk Community; ii) The Celtic Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community; viii) The Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community; xi) Members of these ethnic groups who reside either within or outside Europe but ethnically derive from them.
3) Membership of the party shall be open only to those who are 16 years of age or over and whose ethnic origin is listed within Sub-section 2
In as much as this demonstrates anything it all, this clearly indicates just how ridiculous the entire notion of defining the British as a distinct and exclusive ethnic/racial group actually is but be that as it may, the BNP’s convoluted efforts to arrive at a set of membership criteria that implicitly amount to ‘white’ does, superficially, appear to adhere to the letter of the law as written, if not the spirit in which it was intended and, as such, the limited exemptions offered in s.26 of RRA 1976 could be argued to be applicable:
26 Exception from s. 25 for certain associations
(1) An association to which section 25* applies is within this subsection if the main object of the association is to enable the benefits of membership (whatever they may be) to be enjoyed by persons of a particular racial group defined otherwise than by reference to colour; and in determining whether that is the main object of an association regard shall be had to the essential character of the association and to all relevant circumstances including, in particular, the extent to which the affairs of the association are so conducted that the persons primarily enjoying the benefits of membership are of the racial group in question.
(2) In the case of an association within subsection (1), nothing in section 25 shall render unlawful any act not involving discrimination on the ground of colour.
* Section 25 is a general prohibition on racial discrimination in admissions to membership and the provision of services and benefits to members which otherwise applies to any organisation with 25 or more members.
This is certainly what the BNP believe and will argue in their defence, hence the reference to precedent set in Mandla v Dowell Lee – the case which established the status of Sikhs as a distinct ethnic group in law – in their constitution in order to back up their argument.
However, a careful reading of the judgement of the House of Lords in that case appears to suggest that the BNP’s claim to a s.26 exemption may not be anything like as solid as the party would like to think.
If the EHRC’s complaint results in legal proceedings then the key argument that the court will need to address is that of the correct interpretation of Lord Fraser of Tullybelton’s definition of an ethnic group for the purposes of the Act, which is set out as follows:
For a group to constitute an ethnic group in the sense of the 1976 Act, it must, in my opinion, regard itself, and be regarded by others, as a distinct community by virtue of certain characteristics. Some of these characteristics are essential others are not essential but one or more of them will commonly be found and will help to distinguish the group from the surrounding community. The conditions which appear to me to be essential are these: (1) a long shared history, of which the group is conscious as distinguishing it from other groups, and the memory of which it keeps alive (2) a cultural tradition of its own, including family and social customs and manners, often but not necessarily associated with religious observance. In addition to those two essential characteristics the following characteristics are, in my opinion, relevant: (3) either a common geographical origin, or descent from a small number of common ancestors (4) a common language, not necessarily peculiar to the group (5) a common literature peculiar to the group (6) a common religion different from that of neighbouring groups or from the general community surrounding it (7) being a minority or being an oppressed or a dominant group within a larger community, for example a conquered people (say, the inhabitants of England shortly after the Norman conquest) and their conquerors might both be ethnic groups.
On the face of it the BNP’s convoluted membership criteria appear to fit that definition, as you’d expect given that they were drafted specifically for that purpose. However, Lord Fraser then went on to add the following caveats, the full implications of which the BNP appear not to have considered carefully enough…
A group defined by reference to enough of these characteristics would be capable of including converts, for example, persons who marry into the group, and of excluding apostates. Provided a person who joins the group feels himself or herself to be a member of it, and is accepted by other members, then he is, for the purpose of the 1976 Act, a member.
Having cited and fully accepted, earlier in the judgement, the view expressed by Lord Simon in Ealing London Borough v Race Relations Board [1972]…
‘Moreover, ”racial” is not a term of art, either legal or, I surmise, scientific. I apprehend that anthropologists would dispute how far the word ”race” is biologically at all relevant to the species amusingly called homo sapiens.’
…it’s apparent that Lord Fraser’s postscript to his exposition of the characteristics of an ethnic group can readily be construed as placing quite stringent limits on the extent to which the BNP can rely on the relevance of a common geographical origin or ancestry when formulating and operating its rules of membership, given his expressed view that a lawfully defined ethnic group must also, necessarily, make provision for the inclusion of converts and the exclusion of apostates. Moreover, in citing marriage into a group as an example, Lord Fraser effectively precludes any possibility of arguing for a generational limit on such a ‘conversion’. One need not even be born into a particular ethnic group in order to claim membership of it in law, one need only join that group by adopting its social and cultural values and mores and, at the same time, be accepted into the group by its existing members.
Such a definition in no sense provides the BNP with what its seeking; a means to restrict membership to an exclusively white British population without falling foul of the general prohibition on the use of skin colour as a means of defining a particular racial group, hence the reference to an ‘aboriginal members of the Eruopean Race’ and ‘Indiginous Caucasian’ both of which are intended to close off Lord Fraser’s ruling that its possible for a [non-white] outsider to join any of the ethnic groups they purport to represent by means of adherence and acceptance. It an interesting tactic, but one that, on a careful reading of Lord Fraser’s comments, seems doomed to failure insofar as its founded on a set of outmoded and thoroughly discredits ideas about the nature of ‘race’ that Lord Fraser, and other members of the judiciary, have long since explcitly rejected.
It’s clear, for example, from both the remarks made by Lord Fraser and Lord Simon in their respective judgements and from several other cases I’ve read as background research, that the judiciary place little or no store on the kind iof narrow essentialist/taxonomic notions of ‘race’ that the BNP are attempting to rely on, i.e. the archaic and long discredited view that humans can be readily classified defined by coarse phenotypic similarity (Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid, etc.). What my own research indicate is that, but for cases where disparaging references to such observable characteristics comprise part of the evidence for discrimination or for racial hatred as an aggravating factor in an offence, the essentialist/taxonomic model is effectively redundant and has been largely superceded, in judicial thinking, by considerations of a plaintiff national or ethnic origins. As such, it seems highly unlikely, should the EHRC challenge the BNP’s membership criteria in court, than any competent judge would give credence to the BNP’s proposal that its membership should be confined exclusively to subset of British ethnic groups derived exclusively from an ‘indigenous Caucausian’ race, and less still from homogeneous ‘European race’, both of which would be ‘white’ by default even if not explicitly defined in those terms.
Both the cases cited in this article incorporate an explicit rejection of the essentialist/taxonomic biological notion of race, which is clearly identified as lacking sound scientific foundations and as being impossible to apply in legal proceedings. In Mandla vs Dowell Lee, for example, Lord Fraser comments:
‘… it would be absurd to suppose that Parliament can have intended that membership of a particular racial group should depend on scientific proof that a person possessed the relevant distinctive biological characteristics (assuming that such characteristics exist). The practical difficulties of such proof would be prohibitive, and it is clear that Parliament must have used the word in some more popular sense.
Consequently, the courts have determined, as a matter of precedent, that the term ‘race’ should be interpreted in terms of its common, popular usage, which is itself broadly interchangable with ‘ethnicity’ and, by extension, this suggests that terms such as ‘Caucasian’ and ‘European’ should be treated on the same basis and afforded their modern, ‘popular’ meaning, i.e. Caucasian would refer to the modern population of the Caucasus and any recent migrants from that region, while European would refer to the modern, and distinctly heterogeneous, population of Europe.
As for ‘Indigenous’, it is, I think, a matter of common knowledge that all the folk communities cited by the BNP – the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Norse – are themselves, non-indigenous migrants – the Norse migration, from Scandinavia, is actually documented in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, the earliest version of which – the Winchester Chronicle – was begun towards the end of reign of King Alfred and has a final entry, written in Old English, dated 1070. As such it seems, at the very least, inconceivable that any judge would fail to spot the very obvious contradictions inherit in the suggestion that we should treat the Saxon and/or Viking as part of an indigenous British population and throw out the BNP’s arguments on that basis alone.
All of which brings us back, once again, to Lord Fraser’s definition of ‘ethnicity’ with its permeable boundaries in which adeherence and acceptance as as valid a basis for a claim to membership of an ethnic group as any characteristic inheritied by birth.
This is not what the BNP were looking for when they drafted their convoluted membership criteria but it is entirely consistent with what is, and remains, the commonly held view of what it actually means to be British, i.e. it not an exclusive club membership of which is contingent on proof of ancestry stretching back over a 1,000 years or possession of a set of specific genetic markers, but a club than anyone can join provided that they willingly accept, at least when interacting with others, a few quite basic rules and social/cultural mores that have developed, over the centuries, to grease the wheels of an orderly and cohesive society. In addressing the question of how best to bring Sikh’s under the protection of the Race Relations Act in the clear belief that this was what parliament would clearly have intended, Lord Fraser arrived at a very British solution to the problem. He simply aligned the UK’s legal definition of ‘ethnicity’ with its established legal definition of ‘national origins’, as these were applied in law to the UK’s constituent parts (i.e. England, Scotland, etc.) and, in doing so, ensured that both function broadly along the lines of the UK’s established civic identity.
The question of whether the BNP’s rules of membership, or those of any other organisation which seeks to make use of the exemptions afforded by s.26 RRA [1975], rests solely on the question of whether that organisation is prepared to admit into membership an individual who both defines themselves as British (or English, etc.) and who would be commonly accepted as being British. Whether that individual has familial roots in the UK stretching back centuries, or was born in the UK as a second generation scion of a migrant family, or even arrived a few short years ago and then settled and naturalised as a citizen is immaterial. Fail that particular test, as the BNP undoubtedly will, and your organisation cannot but be marked out not only as racist but as espousing a set of values that are entirely inconsistent with those few, somewhat nebulous but neverthelsss important core British values on which we all seem able to agree on.
There really is nothing British about the BNP.
While I can understand the source of some of the concerns expressed by Joseph Harker in regards to the EHRC’s challenge to the BNP’s policy of membership – and I should say that on the issue of recruitment and provision of services, it hasn’t got a leg to stand on even if its membership policy could stand up to scrutiny – I think his fear that bringing such a challenge before a court would prove to be an own goal is fundamentally misconceived.
With Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons having been elected to the European Parliament, the ‘no platfom’ argument which suggests that the should be left to their own devices in order to avoid giving them the oxygen of publicity is now moot. As MEPs they have a platform whether we like it or not and, as we’ve already seen, attempts to deny them the use of that platform by means of direct and disruptive action are both counterproductive in terms of the impression they create and inconsistent with our core democratic values. The same is also true of the practice of seeking to prohibit BNP members from working in the parts of the public sector solely on the basis of their membership of the party, an approach that Harker approves of. While I think that the ban on BNP membership applied to serving Police officers was justifiable, given that it was put in place at a time when evidence that racism was a significasnt problem with the Police had emerged into the public domain, I’m not all convinced that the same can of blanket prohibition can be justified in other spheres of public service and that moves to blacklist BNP members from other professions, such a teaching, are likely to much more of an own goal than a direct legal challenge to the BNP’s rules of membership.
More importantly, neither of these course of action is consistent with the public’s sense of what constitutes British values – we have strong cultural aversion to measures that appear to suppress freedom of expression and to the use of blacklists, the latter being an issue that the British left should be much more sensitive to given its roots in the Trade Union movement.
This is, however, not the case when one considers the legal basis on which a challenge to the BNP’s membership criteria would be mounted, one that necessarily affirms a set of values and ideas that the public tend to view as intrinsic components of the British psyche – particularly tolerance and the acceptance of outsiders into the fold in return for an acceptance of British values – while at the same time forcing the BNP to openly argue for the validity of concepts such as a British or European ‘race’ and for the existence of the English as a narrowly defined and exclusive ethnic group*, ideas in which few who are not directly involved in White nationalist politics have any real emotional investment in.
* For the avoidance of any doubt, I’ve consciously excluded the Scottish, Welsh and Irish from that last statement in recognition of the fact that such notions are gaining acceptance on the Celtic fringes but are catered for a very different form of nationalism than that espoused by the BNP.
A direct challenge to the legality of the BNP’s membership policies is not only long overdue but, thanks to the rational and elightened view taken by senior members of judiciary when tasked to unpick what Lord Simon referred to as the ‘rubbery and elusive language’ in which the UK’s race relations laws were drafted as a matter of necessity so as to ‘leave no loophole for evasion’, also bound to make – and set into law – a very clear, definitive, and valuable affirmation of an important facet of British culture and society, our longstanding and liberal tradition of tolerance and the acceptance of those who, whatever their origins, choose the see the world as we do.
---------------------------
| Tweet | Share on Tumblr |
'Unity' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He also blogs at Ministry of Truth.
· Other posts by Unity
Story Filed Under: Blog
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Reader comments
On the one hand, the positive outcome of this action (if successful) would be to highlight to the part of the public that reads papers that will carry this story that the BNP only allow whites to be members.
But I think everyone knows that already. That’s the whole point of the BNP.
So basically, the actual outcome of this action will be to allow the BNP to recruit some token ethnics, and be able to say “look, we aren’t whites-only! It’s Muslims we hate really”
Well done EHRC!
As for ‘Indigenous’, it is, I think, a matter of common knowledge that all the folk communities cited by the BNP – the Celts, Anglo-Saxons and Norse – are themselves, non-indigenous migrants – the Norse migration, from Scandinavia, is actually documented in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, the earliest version of which – the Winchester Chronicle – was begun towards the end of reign of King Alfred and has a final entry, written in Old English, dated 1070. As such it seems, at the very least, inconceivable that any judge would fail to spot the very obvious contradictions inherit in the suggestion that we should treat the Saxon and/or Viking as part of an indigenous British population and throw out the BNP’s arguments on that basis alone.
Possibly. Indigenous means, after all, inhabitants of a region from the earliest known time. However, I think there would be a good legal argument that the common law concept of ‘time immemorial’ would be the appropriate method of determining this – ie: inhabitants of this region since time immemorial. This has, handily, a specific date: September 3, 1189.
I think that defining ‘the British’ in any way that simultaneously limits the definition to white people while attempting to avoid any reference to colour is doomed to failure – but that the distinction drawn between race and ethnicity in the Race Relations Act is a bit of a mess.
this suggests that terms such as ‘Caucasian’ and ‘European’ should be treated on the same basis and afforded their modern, ‘popular’ meaning, i.e. Caucasian would refer to the modern population of the Caucasus
Is this right? I think there are surely more people who would associate ‘caucasian’ with a racial classification than would automatically think of Georgia/Armenia etc.
I should say that on the issue of recruitment and provision of services, it hasn’t got a leg to stand on even if its membership policy could stand up to scrutiny
Agreed. Couldn’t the BNP simply adopt the ‘candidates must be sympathetic with the aims of the party’ approach that other political parties espouse?
The BNP is a political party with a racist agenda, not a charity or a gentleman’s club. What exactly is the point of forcing it to accept ethnic minorities? Do ethnic minorities actually wish to join this organisation? I fear this will just give the BNP more publicity and allow them to shout “help, we’re being oppressed!”. If a company like Tesco banned ethnic minorities from applying for jobs I suspect there would be a huge public outcry. But as far as I’m aware there’s no great public demand to force an openly racist political party to accept ethinic minorities as members. It’s simply illogical.
Possibly. Indigenous means, after all, inhabitants of a region from the earliest known time. However, I think there would be a good legal argument that the common law concept of ‘time immemorial’ would be the appropriate method of determining this – ie: inhabitants of this region since time immemorial. This has, handily, a specific date: September 3, 1189.
Perhaps, but any reliance on the legal concept of time immemorial would have to set against both the accepted definition of indigenous when applied to a population, i.e. a population group with an ancestral connection to a geographical location that predates recorded history – that admits the Celts but not the Saxons or Norse – and against the accepted precedents in current discrimination law which, when dealing with concepts such as English, Scottish, etc., treat these as national origins rather than ethnic groups.
As such, while one could argue for a separation between Norman and Saxon/English on ethnic lines, this would not necessarily hold for the Scots, Welsh and Irish.
This still doesn’t give the BNP what they want, however, as national identities are at least as permeable in law as ethnic ones.
Richard:
This is not just about the BNP’s membership.
With Griffin and Brons having been elected as MEPs, the Party will now received EU funds which will enable them to employ staff.
What the BNP has done, and this seems to be the main trigger for the EHRC’s complaint, is attempt to circumvent the RRA prohibitions on discrimination in recruitment and employment by limiting its recruitment to party members.
Effectively its trying to operate a closed shop, a practice that falls outside the scope of the s.26 exemption.
Tim J:
Agreed. Couldn’t the BNP simply adopt the ‘candidates must be sympathetic with the aims of the party’ approach that other political parties espouse?
What, and rob them of their unpleasant USP – ‘No Blacks Allowed’? Without the racially exclusive membership policy, they’d simply be another bunch of ugly anti-immigration nationalists (a kind of Monday Club on crack). How on earth could they pursue their ‘vision’ of a racially pure Britain if they can’t even control who gets to join their party? How could they prove how ‘hardcore’ (or boneheaded) they are about race?
For once I’m (partly) in agreement with Harker (I disagree with banning BNP members from working in the police service or schools either): this is a propoganda coup for those who want to present themselves as ‘anti-establishment’, and at best they’ll just recruit a few token ethnics, as they have done in the past.
You can’t legislate the racists away, you have to defeat them at the ballot box. They need to be SEEN to be beaten, fair and square.
This is makes the mainstream look desperate.
“With Griffin and Brons having been elected as MEPs, the Party will now received EU funds which will enable them to employ staff.”
Can’t imagine any ethnic minorities wishing to be employed as their staff. In any case, if they had any ethnic minority applicants Griffin and Brons would just turn them down and use other reasons as an excuse.
“What the BNP has done, and this seems to be the main trigger for the EHRC’s complaint, is attempt to circumvent the RRA prohibitions on discrimination in recruitment and employment by limiting its recruitment to party members.”
Well it would be odd if they employed people who had different political objectives.
At the end of the day this whole thing is a side-show. Instead of going out and arguing against the BNP, highlighting why their policies and arguments are wrong, efforts are instead being wasted on trying to force them to change their membership criteria, which will probably have zero impact on their electoral prospects and is highly unlikely to result in any ethnic minorities being recruited.
that predates recorded history
Absolutely – but the only legal interpretation of ‘predating recorded history’ that has hitherto been used in the English courts has been the concept of ‘time immemorial’. That’s a side issue, as a look at the attempts of the BNP to define indigenous inhabitants of the UK shows it to be nonsense on stilts…
And as if by magic…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2009/jun/25/jewish-school-race-religion
…which seems to be a further affirmation of Lord Fraser’s argument.
Incidentally, I don’t want the courts ‘clarifying what it is to British’: that’s none of their concern.
A legal definition will be open to legal challenge: if we accept that ‘Britishness’ is something with legally defined parameters, what happens if the bogeyman stories the mainstream parties are pushing come true and a party currently running a quarter of one percent of councils sweeps to power next time: are you prepared to accept THEIR ‘legal’ definition of Britishness because it’s The Law?
The lack of a strict definition of Britishness is a strength, not a weakness. It’s something which should always be in flux, blurred at the edges where it shades into other identities.
11 – well, judging by the link at 10, the courts have just decided what it means to be Jewish…
Richard:
1) The question of whether any non-white person would ever apply for a job with the BNP is immaterial as far as the law in concerned, given that EHRC has the power to initiate proceedings in its own right without recourse to finding an individual plaintiff.
That said, a better solution would be one in which the BNP were prohibited from drawing down EU funds on account of non-compliance with anti-discrimination law, which is matter that a British MEP really should be taking up in the European Parliament.
2) The assumption that forcing the BNP into making a change in its membership policies would either have no impact at all, or even further legitimise the party fails to take into account the corrosive impact such a ruling would have on its existing membership.
The BNP has already lost a considerable number of members as a result of Griffin’s decision to tone down the party’s racist rhetoric in public and, in particular, over the switch to targeting Muslims rather than Jews as the party’s primary hate figures. Forcing the BNP to rescind its ‘no blacks’ rule would only exacerbate existing tensions and create even greater internal divisions and dissension, and all the more so if Griffin knuckled under rather than fight this all the way in the courts and huge expense to the party in legal costs.
Shatterface:
You’re rather the missing the point on the issue of clarifying the nature of what it means to be British, inasmuch as what the courts have been asserting on the question of ethnicity is an open-ended definition of Britishness.
In short, to become British you simply have to adopt and adhere to British values (and citizenship, naturally) – whatever those happen to be – and be commonly accepted as British by British people.
That’s hardly the most proscriptive regime you’ll even encounter, is it?
“The British National Party represents the collective National, Environmental, Political,Racial, Folkish, Social, Cultural, Religious and Economic interests”
Folkish?
Folkish?
I’ve got that pegged for a misprint that should read ‘Volkish’.
I dunno, they seem to like their Folks
The indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’ consist of members of: i) The Anglo-Saxon Folk Community; ii) The Celtic Scottish Folk Community; iii) The Scots-Northern Irish Folk Community; iv) The Celtic Welsh Folk Community; v) The Celtic Irish Folk Community; vi) The Celtic Cornish Folk Community; vii) The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Folk Community; viii) The Celtic-Norse Folk Community; ix) The Anglo-Saxon-Norse Folk Community; x) The Anglo-Saxon-Indigenous European Folk Community
Quite what the buggering hell the Anglo-Saxon Norse Folk Community is I don’t know.
Quite what the buggering hell the Anglo-Saxon Norse Folk Community is I don’t know.
The complete nutters with SS rune tattoos?
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that most of those commentators who want to see the back of the BNP still don’t get it. Throwing eggs, refusing to share a platform, disallowing BNP members from entering professions and now this, all fall under the ‘sore losers’ umbrella.
Membership of the BNP accounts for around 1% of the votes which they received in the Euros. It’s the other 99% we should be focusing on and to those people, BNP Membership rules were largely irrelevant. Do we really think that a court case discussing the Section 26 exemption will make even the tiniest dent in that voter-base? Will it change the perceived institutional bias towards minoties, the perceived open-border free-for-all, the perceived removal of ‘British culture’, the perceived Islamification of Britain and other, at best, semi-truths or downright myths which have helped the BNP advance?
However odious some of their views, they gained nigh on a million votes. Live with it and concentrate on reducing it rather than fannying about with publicity-creating, victim-status inducing diversions such as this. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but the BNP will disappear only when people stop voting for them. Fact.
(14): Wouldn’t ruling on Britishness based on adopting ‘British values’ (whatever they are) and being ‘commonly accepted’ as British potentially exclude as many people as the BNP?
We need something more liberal and inclusive than simply being accepted by a majority, especially if that definition is backed up by the powers of the State.
It’s not for the State, or even a majority of the populace, to decide who is British.
http://bnp.org.uk/2009/06/bnp-membership-nick-griffin-rejects-equalities-commission-%e2%80%98pr-stunt%e2%80%99/
“Forcing the BNP to rescind its ‘no blacks’ rule would only exacerbate existing tensions and create even greater internal divisions and dissension, and all the more so if Griffin knuckled under rather than fight this all the way in the courts and huge expense to the party in legal costs.”
So actually this isn’t about the rights and wrongs of racial discrimination or freedom of assocation, it’s about trying to destroy the BNP through the courts rather than defeating them in debate. Can we expect you to come up with solutions to destroy far-left parties as well?
I would expect the liberal-left to be above this sort of authoritarian nonsense – “we don’t like what they say so we’ll change the law to bugger them over”.
Yes it is about the right and wrongs of discrimination – creating chaos within the BNP at the same time is just a rather welcome fringe benefit…
Can we expect you to come up with solutions to destroy far-left parties as well?
Why on earth would I need to do that?
You obviously know nothing about far left politics or you’d already know that if you put three Trots in a room for more than half and hour you’ll end up with two new political parties and a committed entryist.
I’ve never read the BNP’s membership criteria before. How fascinating. They appear to exclude the Royal Family which is not anglo-saxon or norse, more germanic-greek. Having anglicised volk, is the BNP term for genocide folkmord or folkdeath, I wonder?
I think the EHRC action is absolutely correct.
I belong to the anglo-saxon jazz community, I can’t stand folk music.
Hmm, laudable and interesting aims there, Unity (to get the courts to rule that ”Britishness” as an exclusionary racial concept is a nonsense, as of course it is) but I still fret that it’s giving the BNP more publicity. I take the point about ‘no platform’ not workng now that they have MEPs but I’m more worried that they’ll get “political-correctness-gone-made” martyr status from this – and gain a dozen voters for each one they lose…
One point I’m not clear on – what liabilities do the BNP face if they get taken to court and lose the case there – significant financial penalties or just a legal slap on the wrist?
Look around you at the Terror Laws, at the CCTV Cameras,
Don’t you think there is the slightest chance that our Political elites might just want to use Islam as another Layer of Repression over us.
The reason why the British Public do not know about what is going on is because the News on this issue is repeatedly censored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PliODvEGuxI
Why do you people Hate Britain and the British people, culture and heritage so much, would you sanction the destruction of Japanese Society through mass immigration, mass abortions ( 7.2 million since 1970 ) now a bill to sterilise our children.
Are there any other cultures you hate as much as British culture.
We are being destroyed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NtSd0EOF3w
Who else to the British people have that will listen to their concerns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxvqBT2aJnc
Please forgive me if I don’t leave my real name, I have children and I don’t want my windows Bricked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alsBscnVe-0
Oooh, a BNP troll has turned up!
[Excellent]Mr Burns[/Mr Burns]
*pats BNP troll on the head*
The question of the BNP’s membership policy is irrelevant. It is the last thing that anyone should be concerned about with regard to that “party”. The problem is their policies.
Politicians like to been seen to act. That’s why you get a “war on drugs” and a “war on terrorism”. Both of these are aimed at curtailing the supply of what is deemed dangerous. The same applies for the BNP membership policy issue. It is basically a “war on the BNP”. But as we know full well for the failure of anti-terrorism and drug policies, dealing with the supply side is ineffective because, as long as there is a demand, there will be someone willing to supply.
Much more effective would be dealing with the demand side. In drugs this amounts to education and recovery policies. In anti-terrorism it amounts to measures that support groups that are vulenrable to etremists. With regard to the BNP or any other far-right group, it should amount to social intergation policy at the regional/city/council level. Simple things like having community evenings; ensuring a mix of populations in school; activities that highlight how much people from different backgrounds have in common. It could be something as simple as a neighbourhood food festival, where everyone brings something from their own culture, which can lead to sharing of stories/experiences etd.
The point is to let people realise that we are all essentially the same – black, white, british, polish, asian… When people understand other culture and why, for example, an immigrant had moved to the UK, they become much less likely to blame them for all the bad things that happen in their own lives and, therefore, become less succeptible to extremist views.
Most of the comments on this board are made from IGNORANCE, Ignorance of what the ACTUALLY policies of the British National Party are….. You are not to blame, the people to blame are, THE PRESS, THE T.V. STATIONS AND ANY OTHER FORM OF MEDIA.?
They persistently and aggressively omit items of relevant news, or deliberately tell lies,.
When Mr Griffin and other BNP councillors are permitted a platform to debate, in open the policies and reasons, for the opposition to the political mainstream..THEN and ONLY THEN, will the public at large be able to determine for themselves, the merits or not of the British National Party.?
Until they are allowed a voice, and can be heard, how can people judge….. Does it not seem strange that if the British National Party are so bad, then it would be very easy for the mainstream to argue them down..?
They WON’T debate with them for fear of losing the argument. There can be no other reason.? ALL Mr Griffin want’s is a LEVEL PLAYING FIELD… In a democracy that’s not much to ask, IS IT.?
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE
As long as people who have travelled to Australia to live, in the last 200 years or so. As long as they and their descendants live they will never be INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS.. the only people who have that claim are the ABORIGINALS….
That is the same with the INDIGENOUS PEOPLES of AMERICA. The immigrants from two hundred years ago, will never be INDIGENOUS of America. The people with that claim are the American Indians They are the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF AMERICA, and NO-ONE ELSE
The Indigenous population are the ORIGINAL PEOPLE of that country.. Likewise the INDIGENOUS PEOPLE of britain are “WHITE CAUCASIAN” ALL the immigrants wherever they come from will never be INDIGENOUS PEOPLE of this country. That, as much as you may not want to hear it, is a fact.?
Reactions: Twitter, blogs
-
Liberal Conspiracy
New blog post: Why the EHRC should challenge the BNP’s membership rules http://bit.ly/11Tlgk
-
Liberal Conspiracy
New blog post: Why the EHRC should challenge the BNP’s membership rules http://bit.ly/11Tlgk
-
Serena V Randy C
Liberal Conspiracy » Why the EHRC should challenge the BNP's … http://bit.ly/cRrLo
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or RSS feed. You can also get them by email and through our Facebook group.
» Do older people really need more NHS healthcare?
» There are alternatives to the reckless ‘Plan A’
» On Beecroft: it is already quite easy to sack people
» Why Cameron’s claim of 600,000 jobs created is plainly wrong
» By using age to allocate NHS funding, Lansley rewards Tory voters
» The rise in domestic violence deaths is not an “isolated” problem
» Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
» The US is now a model for the Eurozone to save itself
» The IMF plan to revive the economy doesn’t go far enough
» The Boris brand is weaker than his friends think
» Nine things you can do to halt Lansley’s destruction of our NHS
|
12 Comments 67 Comments 19 Comments 45 Comments 10 Comments 24 Comments 22 Comments 69 Comments 44 Comments 25 Comments |
 |
LATEST COMMENTS » Chaise Guevara posted on Do older people really need more NHS healthcare? » re posted on '43% of young women sexually harassed' » Callum Lane posted on Three reasons we should oppose attempts to block porn » Jonathan Kent posted on How Newsnight demonised a single mother » Robin Levett posted on Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right » Kath posted on How Newsnight demonised a single mother » john77 posted on Angry about absurdly high pay? Here's what to do about it » Monglor posted on Criticism of Obama for its own sake: a reply to Mehdi Hasan » Sarah AB posted on Red Tory Blond: gay marriage "homophobic" » Peter Stewert posted on '43% of young women sexually harassed' » Women have the power to end Domestic Violence. | Feminist Prose. posted on The rise in domestic violence deaths is not an "isolated" problem » GO posted on Do older people really need more NHS healthcare? » john b posted on On Beecroft: it is already quite easy to sack people » Ben2 posted on '43% of young women sexually harassed' » Chaise Guevara posted on Do older people really need more NHS healthcare? |
