Hajira Talbot
As the furore over the leaked BNP membership list gathers momentum, the question I ask myself is this: if it is so “against public interest” for public figures to be members of the BNP, why not ban the organisation entirely? If their values are so contrary to what is acceptable to ordinary Britons, why are they given the opportunity to win seats in local council elections or even in the Commons and give them the potential to influence decision-making in Britain?
For those who have not been paying attention to British politics, the British National Party is a far-right political organisation, the membership of which is open only to white people. The party’s manifesto states it is committed to “stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948”. The BBC has estimated that around 58 BNP representatives have been elected as local councillors. Although the historically anti-Semitic BNP do not regard Sikhs, Hindus or Jews as culturally or ethnically British, it is their distaste for the Muslim population of Britain that has recently been most vociferous.
A full list of BNP members, numbering some 12 000, was leaked onto the internet on Sunday 16th November. The list revealed a number of respected public figures, including a radio DJ, teachers, doctors, military personnel and police officers. One police officer, who was on active duty, has been put under official investigation and the radio DJ, Rod Lucas, has been fired with immediate effect.
The Association of Police Officers has banned members of the police from belonging to the radical party, as it believes that having BNP members in the force would “damage race relations”.
Therefore it seems that although this democratic country allows parties like this to exist and conduct campaigns based on racial and religious intolerance, respected figures in society are not allowed to join the party, which leaves us in the interesting position of the racists building up a public image as the aggrieved and wrongly-maligned underdogs who are being unfairly discriminated against! And the worst part is, if people feel sorry for them and vote for them, they will inevitably become a huge, uncontrollable monster created by the public and the media.
My thoughts: if the general public doesn’t appreciate what the BNP stands for, the party should be banned altogether and the government should stop playing stupid politically-correct games before they regret it.
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