Continuing on the tricky theme of racism in politics, I was pleased to read in yesterday’s Guardian that Nick Griffin, a fellow British MEP and leader of the British National Party (BNP), has been forced to rethink his party’s discriminatory constitution. (Click here to read the article online.) Before now, the BNP has had the power to stop people from becoming a member on account of their race or religion. Yet this is all set to change thanks to a recent intervention by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), a British non-departmental public organisation.
Under the BNP’s current constitution and membership criteria, only ‘indigenous Caucasian’ people have the right to join the party. This policy, while hardly surprising, is clearly both unjust and prejudiced. Rightly, in my view, the EHRC has conceded that the BNP’s constitution is a breach of the laws described under the Race Relations Act. I cannot imagine why anyone, particularly a person of non-Caucasian descent, would want to join a party founded upon deluded racist principles. Nevertheless, I welcome today’s news that the party is being pushed to change its ways. For those who have tried in the past to deny that this is a fascist party, the EHCR’s ruling comes as a reminder to everyone just what the BNP is really all about. The party’s constitution stands in opposition to the core democratic principle of equality, which we are entitled to enjoy, and there can be no doubt that it must be changed.
Unsurprisingly, the BNP took less than kindly to the EHRC’s intervention. While Griffin has grudgingly agreed to ask his party to alter its constitution, a spokesman for the BNP, Chris Roberts, argued that the ruling was a ‘disgrace’ and stressed that it ‘will not change our core beliefs’.
For now, thankfully, the BNP has suspended its membership while it addresses this issue. Any changes to the constitution must be made by no later than three months from today. I sincerely hope that the EHRC’s ruling will come as a wake-up call to Nick Griffin and his right-wing cronies that this party cannot continue in the manner that it has done unscathed . At the same time, however, I also cannot help but worry that for a party with such inherently racist views, it is going to take much more than an intervention by the EHRC to overhaul the face of this bigoted party.
Filed under: Labour Party | Tagged: British National Party, Chris Roberts, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Nick Griffin, Race Relations Act
