Officer resigns over BNP badge

Originally Posted by northwind

Coolgirl made quite a good point there, what's to stop any scumbag from starting up their own political party?

Nothing does, and nothing should.

If that party then commits, or promotes, criminal activity then that is a completely different matter. I may be naive, but I'd like to think that I still live in a democracy.

[yorkie_chris]

[cynic] Lol. [/cynic]

[G]

Its one of those thing....

But its an order....not a law.

The BNP is a genuine bonified political party, I imagine that if that officer decided to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights he would win without a doubt, I also imagine he would get a rather large constructive dismisal payout..... its a genuine political party for god sake, not a terrorist organisation.

[yorkie_chris]

That is a good question. What makes a genuine political party?

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

That is a good question. What makes a genuine political party?

Some light reading for ya

[G]

The BNP have won council seats.....that makes them fairly genuine.

Originally Posted by G

The BNP have won council seats.....that makes them fairly genuine.

Was riding through a village recently and every single shop on the main street was flying a Union Flag and a George Cross. I can only assume they got in there too.

Originally Posted by G

Its one of those thing....

But its an order....not a law.

The BNP is a genuine bonified political party, I imagine that if that officer decided to take his case to the European Court of Human Rights he would win without a doubt, I also imagine he would get a rather large constructive dismisal payout..... its a genuine political party for god sake, not a terrorist organisation.

if it was me i would. I think he has a good case. He had done nothing wrong.
hopefully he will take it to court. I mean are they going to turn around and tell us we cant vote for the BNP next??

There are no candidates around here so i cant

[G]

Originally Posted by neio79

if it was me i would. I think he has a good case. He had done nothing wrong.
hopefully he will take it to court. I mean are they going to turn around and tell us we cant vote for the BNP next??

There are no candidates around here so i cant

I without a doubt believe he would win if he could afford it.

I have never voted for anyone upto now, and probably never will.

Politics indeed How ironic

[northwind]

I'm totally conflicted on this one Good points on both sides. At the end of the day the BNP no longer belongs in that list, I think. And I hate intrusions of work into private lives. And it turns out they haven't even proved the guy is a member of the BNP, which is what's actually prohibited. So, 3 strikes. It all seems very wrong. But at the same time, I bet you 10p that the guy actually is basically a racist twunt. So I can't feel too bad about it.

Oh, someone said "It's very new labour"- I looked it up, this Chief Constable's Order only applies in Manchester, it was brought in by their head of police not by westminster. Seems strange that they can issue local dictats like this.

So because I can't think of anything more productive to do, I thought I'd slate the BNP. Political party... Everything after this is a rant, feel free to ignore it.

Look at their manifesto and tell me it's a serious political party. It swings between emotive buzzword use, and obvious political fantasy. They're in the excellent position of knowing they'll not have any MPs in the forseeable future, and so they don't have to keep their promises and plans to things that are actually achievable. Usually you can rubbish a party's numbers, but they don't even have numbers to rubbish, they just throw out wild goals without any suggestion at all of how to achieve them. They have no fiscal policy at all for me to even criticise. So far, their time in local government has mainly revolved around changing absolutely nothing, and blaming central government for the fact that they can't deliver on a single promise.

And naturally, they're not afraid to just make up random crowd-pleasing lies to support their arguments, not just financial but political, scientific and demographic. They plan to exclude certain foreign imports, without ever wondering what effect that'll have on the rest of the import/export market- apparently thinking you can pick and choose what you import and export.

They'll break up monopolies. Somehow. They'll "restore british land to british ownership". Somehow. They'll rebuild british industry. They're not too clear on exactly how. They'll shift agriculture "from quantity to quality" and push organic farming while cutting imports- apparently unconcerned about the fact that we're not agriculturally self sufficient as it stands. Under the BNP, we'll all live on air.

They'll expand the NHS, add staff and beds, and increase wages (oh, incidentally, while getting rid of the immigrant workers who keep NHS wards going). They'll pay for this by... Oh. They'll cut fuel tax and renationalise the railways, paying for this in the same way by... er... Their policy on Ireland is a bit odd, it seems to revolve around smashing the IRA. And they're going to increase our military spend, probably using all the leprechaun gold they take from the IRA.

Of course, the biggies, the voluntary resettlement program. They're going to pay legal immigrants to go "home", (they include people born in the UK, and people born in the UK to people born in the UK), and they'll pay those countries to take them. All paid for... Yeah, well, we'll work something out. What about the skill gaps it'll leave? What skill gaps? All immigrants are shirkers! They're also going to deport all illegal immigrants and asylum seekers- although they don't know how, or how to pay for it, or who'll actually do it.

Not sure why they stop there, they can't pay for any of their promises so why not add some more? Cure cancer. Dance on a pin. Fly to the sun, I'd vote for that.

I heard a brilliant interview with their deputy leader Simon Darby a while back, on the radio, it went like this:

"The BNP will reinvest in the NHS, double the state pension, and cut petrol tax to 10p per litre. We'll also increase military funding and renationalise the railways"
"Really? That's very impressive. How?"
"Well, we'll deport all the illegal immigrants".
"Oh, OK. That'll probably save a bit, though I suppose it'll be expensive to do. And then what?"
"We'll cut off all foreign aid"
"Oh, I see, it's that easy? Oh, but our foreign aid expenditure is less than the cost of the petrol tax cut alone, how will you pay for the rest of it? Plus the other promises?"
"Well, anything else, we'll fund by borrowing from abroad"
"Hmm. And you don't think that will weaken the pound?"
"No. Why would it?"
"Simon Darby- thank you. This has been most illuminating"

Simon Darby, incidentally, joined the BNP after the collapse of the National Democrats, who split away from the lovely National Front, which is also where leader Nick Griffin came from. For some reason, neither of these facts is mentioned in their bios on the BNP website.

I also find it kind of interesting that their third most important member is their "Editor of Identity"- John Bean, who before he became Editor of Identity was (consecutively) a communist; an illegal immigrant (in India); a trade unionist; a european federalist; before becoming one of the founders of the National Front. An interesting CV I thought. He's basically their spin doctor, and an ideal candidate since he obviously doesn't know what he believes, so can turn his hand to any extremes.

Right, so, rant over. The serious point is that people are voting for these guys for various reasons, but a lot of people are doing it because they want the BNP to deliver on their fantasy policies, which is impossible. In any other industry this'd be false advertising. A lot of other people are voting for them because they're very effective at trading on fear, and on making effective use of propaganda and, well, complete lies and scaremongering. They made gains in London based on the "mega mosque", which funnily enough they invented themselves.

But under this veneer of total dishonesty and electoral deceit... There's still a nice layer of racism. They're run by ex leaders of the national front. They put candidates into seats specifically to oppose asian and black candidates. When they were wiped out in Glasgow Govan by Mohammed Sarwar, the entire group of party representatives disrupted the reading of the vote by chanting "sieg heil" until they were excellently beaten up and kicked out by a coalition of political parties, including members from labour, the lib dems, the tories and the SNP. And that's what happens when they're trying to be respectable.