The BNP has voted to change its constitution in order to allow non-whites to join, as long as they share ideas and aims of the party, particularly with regard to keeping Britain fundamentally British. It's hard to imagine it will result in the party being swamped with applications (though if you happen to know a few thousand blacks or Asians with nothing better to do than wind up Nick Griffin then we might be able to have some fun) and Griffin himself says as much.Rent-a-quote anti-racists have said that the move is purely cosmetic and doesn't reflect any change in the racism at the heart of the BNP, thereby setting new standards for stating the obvious. But they are also wrong in an important way. The change has been enacted because the BNP do not want a public fight with the Equality and Human Rights Commission at this point, and because they have spotted a tiny flaw in that body's cunning plan to make them nice by decree: obeying the commission will make no difference to their policy and practice whatsoever, but, as a spokesman says, their new constitution will effectively be approved by the EHRC and the courts, giving them an official legitimacy that they will take great pleasure in pointing out at every opportunity.
Neither the EHRC nor any other organisation, legislature or court has any business telling a private association who it must or must not allow to belong to it (and in the case of the EHRC I don't know why it exists in the first place), but this particular interference will not even achieve their intended aim, but rather the complete opposite. This will probably then be used to justify more oppression, and not just of the BNP.
The BNP is not a violent or criminal organisation, whose actions need to be stopped by the forces of law and order. Most people dislike the BNP intensely because it and its members have ideas that we would rather did not exist. Well, they do exist in Britain, thousands of people think that way. Pretending they don't exist, or using some quasi-judicial force to try to make the people who hold those opinions pretend that they don't, does not solve anything. To change people's minds you must talk to them, discuss their opinions and defend and explain your own. It may not work, but it's the only thing that has a chance of working.
The BNP has won a victory today, once again, thanks to the stupidity and arrogance of its opponents.
4 comments:
Next for the EHRC is the Black Police Association...
If the Black Police Association (which actually seems to be the Non-White Police Association) is a private organisation then it is not a matter for the EHRC either. They claim to be a registered charity (No. 1068108) and not to receive (currently) any funding from the Home Office or any other public body. That wording is, no doubt, carefully chosen.
Having had a look, I see that its accounts are rather strange. It handles very little money, has gone suddenly from receiving almost everything in membership fees to receiving all income in donations, and has virtually no actual expenditure. At least it did finally manage to file accounts last year.
Anyhow, it seems to be a private body, but since it is a charity and has a semi-official position within the Met, it's only right that someone should cast an eye over it, though the EHRC is not the most appropriate body to do that.
And to answer your unspoken question, no, I can't see a White Police Association being well received by the bien-pensants.
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