Get them out!
Not to sound too sensationalist or anything, but the teachers, nurses, police officers and soldiers who are now revealed to be members of the BNP should be sacked forthwith from their jobs. As a teacher, it gives me a sick feeling in my stomach to know that there are other teachers who feel comfortable teaching in multi-racial classrooms while being part of a political party that is “whites only”.
For the teaching of history in particular this has extreme relevance; the BNP have recently launched “white history month” as an alternative to “black history month”, which is an official programme of learning. Black history month was instituted to help British kids understand how the vital role of black people had often been ignored in history, deliberately, and how actually modern Britain owes them a debt.
The point of black history month is not to artificially construct a black racial identity, as the BNP likes to pretend. Instead it is to show how there is no such thing as “white history”; whether by examining slavery or whatever, black history month is there to get rid of the notion that each race has its own separate narrative, worthy of respecting. They don’t. It’s one narrative.
Naturally as a socialist I would be inclined to ask whether working classes of all colours get exploited and have more in common with each other than they do with the exploiters of their own colour. However bearing in mind the twisted BNP view of history, I doubt very much whether history teachers who are BNP members can be trusted to address matters in a responsible, academic manner.
As for putting members of an all-white party into positions where they have a large degree of authority over people of ethnic minorities such as they would be in the police? This is a political party under a leader who has urged violence on a number of occasions, and whose members have been convicted of, among other things, sending razors in the post to Jewish families.
This is a party where, upon one of its members beating up a Jewish teacher who, en route to work, was picking off a BNP propaganda sticker, the leader said, “In reality he defended himself after being attacked by a far-left thug who was a close comrade of the IRA ‘active service unit’ that planted the Harrod’s Bomb”. So not at all prone to glib lies to cover their violence.
So, what to do? The labour movement has fought long and hard to equal opportunities for peoples of all colour, and has fought many battles against rampant discrimination, all the while fending off the odd violent attack from far-right wing lunatics. Why should it be our policy, therefore, to allow people like this to serve in the front line of public services?
Yes everyone has stories of that dotty old aunt, eighty years old, who thinks that all Pakistanis should go back where they came from – but we’ve conquered the myths of the rising tide. We’ve proved that equal opportunities isn’t a Marxist conspiracy to defraud the white working classes (though the BNP have moved on too; now it’s Islam which is a Marxist conspiracy).
Now it’s time to take this list of BNP members and their professions and use it to expunge BNP members from public services, where they are meant to be ready to serve all colours equally. If they can’t do that in their private life, I see no reason to suspect that they would be able to do it in their professional life – and I wouldn’t blame anyone in their areas who wanted them removed either.
Are you sure about that? I’m as anti-BNP as the next person, but I’m also skeptical enough to be rather dubious about the efforts of others who share my view on the BNP. Sometimes, through lack of clarity as much as anything else, we end up giving the BNP more material to work with.
It is when I teach it. The history curriculum as a whole has something of a postmodernist “death of meta-narrative” type feel to it but in the classrooms I’ve seen that’s not how it is taught.
Hello. I am white and my husband comes from a Pakistani family. He is in his 40s now,and is a succesfull professional… but when he was a child, he told me that the teachers used to ignored him in the classroom, helping only white kids, and spending more time with white kids while teaching them to read…go figure!
So, the fact of being a teacher and having to teach a Pakistani kid, for example, has to have some sort of effect on the teacher.
Imagine if you believe and feel “these kind of people” are inferior, or shouldn’t be in this country, how can you teach them well? Would you teach them with love and respect?? Not possible. My hearts falls thinking about my kids ( 5 years old and 2) if this ever happen to them!
Presumably, then, you would also ban teachers from being members of Sinn Fein (violent and sectarian) Hizb-ut-Tahrir (violent anti-Jewish and and Muslim supremacist) and Al-Mujaharoun (same).
See the posts subsequent to this one. On the subject of whether or not I’d campaign for their removal, Sinn Fein (whatever else they are) aren’t fascist. Hizb-ut-Tahrir and Al-Mujaharoun I could conceive of fighting to have removed on the basis that they are fascistic.
As I say in the subsequent posts, violence is easily differentiated according to its purpose. It’s not something we should prima facie be against.
So sectarian murderers are fine as long as they’re not fascists?
Sinn Fein and the IRA are terrorists and supporters of terrorism, but their aim isn’t the subordination of workers rights to a totalitarian state. They’re not sectarian if by that you mean they’re anti-Protestant.
Sinn Fein, though their leadership has become New Labouresque and despite their refusal to countenance such a basic progressive measure as extending the Abortion Act to NI, still wield a large influence among Catholic progressives as a result of the continuing divide in NI.
Thus while I’m not advocating voting for them, they’re not fascist and they’re not advocating a totalitarian state and their goal isn’t the utter destruction of any socialist movement. I disagree with their tactics not to mention think them cowardly – but any attempt to brand Sinn Fein in the same colours as the BNP or fundamentalist Islamic groups is simply mistaken.
So how come Sinn Fein have been behind the sectarian murders of protestants?
As for subordinating workers to a totalitarian state, Marxists have subordinated more workers than the fascists did, yet you seem full of praise for them.
Sinn Fein have not been behind the murder of Protestants. The IRA and/or assorted hooligans (what in Belfast we call Hoods, which are distinct from the paramilitary groups and often fight with them) in various areas of Belfast and other parts of the province have. You should learn the difference. One is a secretive network of murderers, the other is an open network of their (deluded) supporters – people who despite their incorrect views are often behind the defence of working class interests. Anti-top up fees, anti-privatisation etc etc.
As for why I should praise Marxists, a Marxist is someone who ascribes to system of social, political, historical and economic analysis conceived by Marx and developed by his successors. The whole point of that analysis is to describe and explain the course of human history and to demonstrate how, when allied, theory and practice can create a movement that will end economic exploitation.
The point of Marxist praxis is to unite the working class and overthrow its exploiters. Whatever the incorrect applications of it (or, indeed, the things committed in the name of Marxism which directly stand outside any Marxist justification, e.g. individual terrorism), Marxism still represents the only system of analysis capable of grappling with the complex issues of capitalism and the world today, and postulating a way out of it.
Fascism, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, is hardly even a theory. It’s a concatenation of often mutually contradictory points of view; authoritarian state, racial segregation, corporatism, a discourse requiring the theorisation of an external threat etc. It is not any sort of alternative and indeed directly aims at the destruction of working class unity.
Whatever Stalin might have done, for presumably tis he who ranks highest in your thoughts, he represented the failure of a Marxist project rather than it’s apogee – and any suggestion that this failure was inevitable is an ignorant teleological interpretation of history.
What a pompous response. Do you take this sort of tone in the classroom? I bet your students love you!
I’m well aware of the difference between Sinn Fein and the IRA, of the fact that a number of people are members of both and that some of SF’s leaders are former terrorists.
True, many of their supporters are deluded but you could make the same argument about the BNP. Most BNP members have little or no connection with fascism or violent racism but they are members of a party where a few people have had those connections and probably still do. For the mass of BNP members and Sinn Fein members they are guilty only by association.
Whether or not fascism or Marxism are coherent theories is beside the point. Why is it any better to justify mass murder by pretending it is for the good of the proletariat than by saying it is for the good of the German or Italian people?
Regardless of the ideology, Marxist regimes always lead to mass murder and repression. That makes them as bad as fascists.
Whether or not fascism and Marxism are coherent theories is not beside the point. Your anti-intellectualism in reducing them both to “mass murder” is a disingenuous political position. By it you annihilate any means to differentiate between any political system, the basis of which is always violence.
Incidentally, the most you can say is that “most Marxist regimes hitherto have lead to mass murder and repression”. Unless you’re prepared to make the argument that this is somehow inherent to Marxism (as no doubt you will do on some sort of transhistorical human nature grounds), you can’t maintain what Marxist regimes will always lead to.
As for Sinn Fein and the BNP, however much deluded both of their supporters are, the role each party plays is different. Sinn Fein and the IRA are an outgrowth from failed class struggle and bear the same relationship to a working class movement as, for example, the Russian Narodniks. This is nowhere analogous to the role of the BNP.
The BNP on the other hand are the antithesis of a working class movement. Incidentally, I imagine that in regard to their supporters, you could have said the same about the NSDAP – that only a minority of their supporters engage in violence. That’s irrelevant, as was shown when the Nazis took power. The only difference is that the NSDAP leadership were proud of their political violence.
Griffin is trying to cover it over – and here is another difference between the BNP and Sinn Fein. Griffin and his mob aren’t terrorists, they’re Black Shirts. Their violence isn’t directed against the state, it’s directed against their political enemies. To combat their supporters, I’m not advocating violence – which is more than could be said for them when they featured me on Redwatch.
Maybe you should keep that in mind when you’re pontificating so small mindedly about the difference between Marxism and fascism.
I will never understand you hypocrites! One rule for you and every one else is wrong! In a modern democracy people are allowed to live the way they wish! Providing they don’t offend or hurt others! YOU OFFEND ME!! This nation was built with its culture over thousands of years with my family people fighting and dieing in wars From the Romans, Crimea! Two world wars to keep our nation and culture from invasion! Working and slaving in workhouses field’s mills .mines! Many never ever met a black person!! These people where white! There is nothing wrong with black people but if the BNP or any one else wants to celebrate what my ancestors did then I will thank them!! I am angry that you attempt to belittle my family’s contribution to my nation! NEVER IN MY LIFE DID I THINK I WOULD HEAR CIVILISED PEOPLE CALLING FOR THE DEATH OF AN OPPOSITION PARTY! IF YOU DON’T LIKE THEM DON’T VOTE FOR THEM!! Easy as that! YOU HAVE NO RITE TO INTIMMIDATE OTHER PEOPLE? Remember what goes around comes around!!
Tell the BNP they have no right to intimidate people. And I could care less if I offend you.
Maybe we should ban members of the communist party from obtaining ANY WORK AT ALL (this is your proposal for all 12,000 members of the BNP; they should never be allowed to work again). I’d say that throughout the world communists have caused more death, destruction and misery than every other vicious ideology combined.
But it just so happens that communists are on the same ideological wavelength as the establishment brainwashers, who refer to anybody who displays an interest in the BNP as “Nazis”. You’re a narrow minded idiot and I petty your credulity and how easy it has been for the establishment to control your feeble mind. Not to sound too holier then though I must admit I believed all this “if they don’t agree with us they’re Nazis” BS until I sat down and looked through the BNP material and, how’s about this, CAME TO MY OWN CONCLUSION!
And on the subject of cowardice, why don’t the people behind this cretinous prank reveal their identity? To borrow the establishment’s new cliché: if they’re so proud of their views, why won’t they reveal them?
Wouldn’t be the first time there had been a witch hunt against communists!
As for the people behind the prank, I was under the impression they were ex-BNP members. Whatever their views, I doubt very much they’d reveal themselves – the fash have a pretty direct way of dealing with dissidents.
Proof enough of that is in the way Griffin handled his northern “comrades” who disagree with his leadership.
On all other subjects, I’m not suggesting that BNP members never work again. 1. I have specifically referenced public services and 2. I have clarified my own views several posts upwards of this.
I’m not suggesting an anti-communist witch-hunt, if some people cannot see that communism is a failed, anti-humanist ideology than they deserve pity, not persecution; I’m merely pointing out the double standard of established anti-BNP hatred as a societal axiom and non-hatred of other more destructive ideologies (the proletariat should rule the state, kill the educated; the kafirs should be slaves to their Muslim rulers, etc). What term would be used to describe a person if they proclaimed non-employment for people who refer to their others as kafirs? I’ll give you a clue: it begins with r and ends with acist. It’s all about double standards for me. If you wish to hate people for different political opinions, the slippery slope to a police state, then why play favorites?
Slippery slope arguments are silly, unhistorical and rarely prove to be true. You have consistently taken what I said out of context. I am not in favour of the expulsion of BNP members from work, I am for the expulsion of BNP members from positions where they would otherwise be called to equally serve all parts of the community.
A communist isn’t likely to treat black people one way and white people another. BNP racists are.
“I am not in favour of the expulsion of BNP members from work”
For some strange reason you’re article “Get them out” gave me the impression that you were! And of course it’s a slippery slope: who’s to decide which idea is heretical/blasphemous/counterrevolutionary/racist/most-recent-euphamism-for-a-person-with-the-wrong-viewist? If I’m the heretic today who’s to say you won’t be the heretic tomorrow? I would always stand up for a person being persecuted for their opinions because I’m selfish. If I grant the government the right to kick people out of work today fore their opinions who’s to say I won’t be kicked out tomorrow?
“A communist isn’t likely to treat black people one way and white people another.”
Of course not: Chinese, Russians, Vietnamese and Cambodian were all killed the same way! Do you know how many people have perished in the name of communism? I don’t know why we in the west try to paint such a rosy picture of it. And aren’t you advocating a witch hunt of your own? And the BNP is an anti-immigration party, hence their ethnic British (white) only policy; saying that members of the BNP are racists is defamatory and libelous since they are against all immigration black, white and every colour in between. You won’t accept that of course, because the issue is black and white for you.
An interesting last point: would you advocate the expulsion of Muslims from work because they believe non-Muslims are pigs and monkeys so long as they kept their politics at the front door of their office? I would advocate leaving them at work, wouldn’t you? If so, why the double standard?
The BNP is a racist party. If it is libellous to write such, I shall expect a writ sometime soon. However we both know it isn’t – and indeed the judiciary has agreed with me in numerous legal cases.
The logic that the BNP is white only because it is against immigration is flawed – first of all, we’re all immigrants. The Angles, the Saxons, the Normans. How far back are we to go, in opposition to immigration? If it’s less than about three hundred years, then there are many thousands of native, non-immigrant black peoples.
The BNP are racist, pure and simple.
No, you only receive a writ if you’re talking about George Galloway! And let’s face it, you only get sued for libel in this country if you’re telling the truth (Galloway, Maxwell, etc)
The press can say all it wants, including incitements to vandalism, vigilantism and persecution against the BNP without fear of reprisal. That’s what I mean by institutionalized discrimination. And yes, everybody who doesn’t live in that tiny part of Africa where Homo sapiens originated six million years ago are immigrants; but that’s a pathetic argument and an obvious diversion from the true nature of the BNP’s argument which in the real world has nothing to do with race. At least, I would bet, not for the 12,000 people who are no longer entitled to work in your opinion.
The anti-immigration policies of the BNP are impractical and against our economic interests, but if white British people feel that they want to halt the influx of foreigners for whatever reason doesn’t make them racists by default. Are the Japanese racists for their policy of letting almost no foreigners make a new life for themselves in Japan? Or is it just a matter of Western self loathing that seems to be at the centre of leftist politics today: whites are always racists, non-whites are never racists. Ayn Rand pointed out that the Western left always feels the West needs to apologize for its great success and beg the world for forgiveness for our prosperity. And that was 40 years ago! Good to see the left hates the West as much now as it did in the 60s.
And I would say that those Muslims who would call me a kafir are racists; racists in the traditional sense of the word. Indians and white South Africans often called the natives kafirs in the same way the KKK would call a Black American a n-, so kafir is a truly racist slur against non-Muslims.
And you didn’t answer my question to see if you’re a hypocrite. And you won’t address the issue of the gruesome results of the communist experiment (100 million+ deaths, stagnation and misery in communist countries) but at the same time are so eager to persecute people for being against immigration.
What question? Do I support the death of a hundred million people? Of course I don’t – not that such an answer will mean much to you because you will say there is a contradiction between holding communistic views and yet professing not to support the actions of other ‘communists’ – but then such generalizations are exactly what you’re trying to attack me for.
On the subject of immigration, of course it’s about race. It was openly about race when Enoch Powell, the Monday Club and the National Front were leading the charge. Now that the BNP is trying to be media-savvy, they won’t openly say that – but then I’ve watched the videos of Nick Griffin talking to American crowds and pointing to his white skin and openly saying that that is the crux of our identity.
I’m sorry but you’re full of it.
“I’m sorry but you’re full of it.”
Full of what? Coffee, eggs and toast and chocolate biscuits? I’m completely indifferent to most of the BNPs policies (except for the demand that we no longer grant privileges to Islamic extremists) and if that makes me a racist then I guess I’m a racist. For me the issue is freedom: should I be entitled to learn more about the BNP by subscribing to their newsletter? Is this a free marketplace of ideas where we can speak openly about our beliefs and try to convince other people we are in the right based on the merits of our arguments in contrast to a totalitarian state where we are told what to believe and face our last few miserable years on earth in a gulag for thinking for ourselves? I say that I have a right to apply for the BNP, the Flat Earth Society and the I love Lenin’s Style newsletter without fear of reprisal or persecution no matter how daft or objectionable these groups may seem to outsiders.
The reason I mention the scourge of communism is not because I assume you support the communist mass murderers (looking at communist leaders that’s a redundant term) what I’m asking is whether you believe anyone who takes an interest in Marxist/Trotskyite/Stalinist ideas be persecuted for their beliefs. I would say no. A country in which one group of people decides what can and can’t be said leads to the closing of peoples minds and that leads to poverty and stagnation. I’ll say it again: deciding that we can silence one group is a slippery slope to silencing everyone.
The question I asked earlier was would you advocate the expulsion of Muslims from work because they believe non-Muslims are pigs and monkeys so long as they kept their politics at the front door of their office? I would say that if a Muslim who’s brought up to believe that non-Muslims are kafirs wants to apply for a job as a civil servant should be allowed to, as long as they leave their politics at the front door, which I’m confident they can do.
The most important point: I would stand up the rights of others not because I care about them, but because I care about my own freedom. If BNPers are persecuted today who’s to say that libertarians or Objectivists won’t be tomorrow? They both have beliefs that are contrary to the whims power hungry politicians and every stripe of freedom hater; not to mention socialists, communists and statists.
George, you’re a BNP member or at the very least a sympathizer.
I’m somewhere between a libertarian and an objectivist, but I applied for the BNP newsletter some time around 2006 (I’ll check my e-mail to get you the exact date) because I was directed to their website by someone who gave me a leaflet in my local town centre and I was intrigued that a political party of the UK was condemning Islamic extremism as opposed to applauding it. I applied for their newsletter to learn more about the party (hence the lack of a telephone number on the list) and I decided that the party was against my philosophy. I’m not a sympathizer of the party but I’m a supporter of anyone who takes an interest in them or any other ideas from communism to laissez-faire capitalism. How can one determine one’s values in a rational fashion if not by listening to all sides?
I don’t regret my desire to learn more about them though. That’s the whole idea of the free marketplace of ideas: listen to another man’s ideas and accept or reject them based upon their perceived merits. Your philosophy is perhaps best summarized as a mixed economy of ideas: allow most ideas to be heard but silence and persecute some ideas which are deemed objectionable. But it’s like prohibition or the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge: tell people they can’t drink or eat the fruit and they’ll probably be keener to drink or eat than if they were free to do so. The unearned mystique around the BNP, due to media obsession with them, leads a great number of people to be interested in what would otherwise be an obscure and mostly unheard of party.
And what about my all important question?
On Muslims? I was on the phone to a friend earlier who was telling me about a story in the Telegraph: apparently in Tunbridge a bunch of Muslims threw out a disabled man from a restaurant because his guide dog offended them. Indecency like that, I’d happily cut them up and feed them to the guide dog.
I don’t believe in special treatment for the religious – but that includes not giving doctors the right to opt out of providing abortions or contraceptives on anything other than medical grounds. If we’re against special treatment for religions, we need to be against it all across the board.
However, most Muslims (and most Christians and most Jews) are very selective in the application of their doctrine of choice. There are Muslim groups which are proscribed, and rightly so: the right-wing press calls them Islamofascist. I don’t disagree with that assessment, though I disagree with the subjective position from which the right-wing press casts such a denunciation.
If a Muslim’s views are so discriminatory, they too should be disbarred from public service. Same for a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or any religious sect, or any discriminatory political sect.
Of course your answer to me is that I am myself being discriminatory, but then that’s like saying locking up terrorists is discrimination against terrorists. It is a BNP members’ choice to support a racist party. It is the choice of a terrorist to bomb a building. It is not the choice of a black person to be black, or an asian person to be asian.
Nor is it a free choice for immigrants to come here or not to come here. If the definition of free choice requires that we establish a credible alternative, then immigration is necessary as much for political as economic or social reasons. We’re simply bearing our share of the load, here in the UK – a load which, I might point out, the economic policies of the West have a large hand in creating.
“If a Muslim’s views are so discriminatory, they too should be disbarred from public service. Same for a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or any religious sect, or any discriminatory political sect.”
All religions and political sects are discriminatory! It’s what I would call having an opinion. I would not kick a fundamentalist Christian out of public office so long as their beliefs didn’t interfere with their duty. I’m convinced that’s possible. A very important point: most Christians and Jews are moderates in Europe today. A great number of Muslims still take their religion seriously. (See my YouTube channel ThePissedOffAtheist for a quick description of my views)
And you’re comparing BNPers to terrorists is a classic example of amoral cultural relativism and immoral multiculturalism that has squeezed the moral and reasoning faculties out of the left. There was a time when the left held the moral high ground over the right; no more.
And the Muslim kicking out the blind man is an example of actions as opposed to thoughts. If the Muslim had just kept the irrational religiously motivated “I hate dogs” nonsense in his head there would be no problem. This is the distinction I’m trying to make when talking about leaving politics at the door: not acting upon views that one will always hold.
Incidentally, George, I’ve yet to see a political party in the UK support Islamic extremism. You’re not so politically naive: that’s a baiting statement. The closest we’ve got is the SWP, some of whose members are of the mistaken opinion that terrorist groups might be the only way to redress social grievance.
Judging by your comments elsewhere on the web, you’ve got no idea about the far left and prefer to simply throw around generalisations – about ‘communist front groups’ and ‘Trotskyite anti-fascists’. I’ve actually been on the hard end of WNP (a splinter of the BNP) phone calls and threats in the middle of the night, to myself and my family. I’ve been a part of anti-fascist and anti-racist campaigns for years – and the most we get up to is defending ourselves if confronted while putting up posters.
The truth is, there is no such thing as a ‘marketplace of ideas’. Ideas are tied to the material interests which they represent – which is why some ideas will never return, because their material basis has been destroyed: absolutist monarchy and feudalism to name two. If you think differently, it exposes the great weakness of your idealist philosophizing.
George, if someone really believes something they will act on it. They will act on it if they can get away with it, without being found out. The BNP are racist; they are the associates of thugs. Give them access to the personal details of minorities in the community, or to a position of power where those minorities can feel persecuted?
That’s the fastest way to cave to the BNP thirst for race war.
“The BNP are racist; they are the associates of thugs. Give them access to the personal details of minorities in the community, or to a position of power where those minorities can feel persecuted? That’s the fastest way to cave to the BNP thirst for race war.”
And you talk to me about cheap, crass generalizations! Have you any evidence at all to back up such accusations? I was linked to this article via the Pub Philosopher blog. The blogger makes a very good case that these stereotypes have no basis in fact and are the inevitable result of a leftist media obsessed with a whipping boy. The Guardian’s six month undercover investigation uncovered nothing more radical than the presence of a ballet dancer! Presumably a thuggish ballet dancer.
And there IS a marketplace of ideas. Hatred of feudalism and monarchy proves it! Why do people believe feudalism, monarchy and caste systems are evil? Because they have seen the equivalents and they can see that capitalism, freedom and individual rights are superior. That is analogous to the economic marketplace: chose one product because it is superior to the other. How can we know that capitalism is better than communism, than individual freedom is better than aristocracy and a caste system? Because we can see they are objectively better than other ideas by comparing them. If there was no marketplace of ideas there would be no way of knowing which ideas are better. And multiculturalism and cultural relativism claims there is no such thing as “better”. What Ayn Rand called hatred of the good for being the good.
A leftist media? What bullshit do you speak? The Guardian is about as left-wing as the media gets these days – and it is New Labourite, overtaken by the petty celebrity dominated politics which has hitherto been the domain of the tabloids. With what whipping boy are they obsessed? With the BNP? They are merely the object du jour; the febrility of the media means no one cause or group becomes a whipping boy.
Yet if of whipping boys you want to speak, I should demand that you cast the mote from your own eye: the media is obsessed varyingly with immigrants, single mothers, the obscene notion that ‘equality’ means forcing a ‘homosexual agenda’ (whatever that is!) down the throats of our children. The media is obsessed with demonization of all minorities. The only difference in respect of the BNP is that they deserve it, and it is because they do their own fair share of victimization.
Do I have evidence to show up the BNP as thugs? I’ve discussed more than a few concrete examples on this blog – you need only use the search function.
On the subject of the Guardian’s investigation, I submit that you’re a bloody idiot if you think that it showed up little. In fact it showed up a consistent effort by the BNP leadership to clean up its image by ensuring members don’t use racist or anti-semitic language in public, whilst happily using it themselves in private. It demonstrated that the BNP is secretive and desirous that its clandestine meetings not face public scrutiny.
Such a party! Such “British Lions” they are, you will no doubt claim, that they need to hide from a ragtag of students and ageing hippies.
The study also uncovered an attempt by the BNP leadership to bring in funds from their racist brethren in the United States, for which the electoral commission was to investigate them.
So little do you know.
I am not the one who claims the BNP are the media’s whipping boy (the days after the list was published ALL of the British media apart from Sky News talked about it for days, it was still a headline story of the Guardian by Saturday!) I was quoting from the Pub Philosopher. Go to his blog and read the articles “The BNP – disappointingly ordinary” and “What is it about the BNP?” Please read those too articles because he argues the case very well.
And keep in mind we’re not talking about whatever racists happen to be at the top echelons of the BNP, we’re talking about those 12,000 people who took an interest in the party for any reason at all. You’re saying they “deserve” to be persecuted. I’m saying they don’t. And I feel anyone who believes people “deserve” to be persecuted for nothing more than thoughts can only be called a thought policeman.
A quiet thought policemen too now.