Monday 19 October 2009

Pyrrhic Victory

For a political party to operate a membership policy which excludes citizens on the basis of their ethnicity is obviously something which most people will find repugnant. So, at one level, it was no surprise at all to see the BNP's rule book being legally challenged. And once challenged, they had little option but to agree to reconsider.

But I wonder whether some little victories like this are actually worth having. Changing their rules will not make them any less racist; nor is it likely to lead to any great rush by people from ethnic minorities to apply to join them. What it will do is to enable them to claim that their membership is technically open to all - a claim which is wholly dishonest in practice.

I really do wonder whether it wouldn't have been better to leave them with their racism openly stated.

1 comment:

Spirit of BME said...

Mr Dixon . I think you have hit the mark on this one. Well, done that man.
There is one aspect that you did not mention , in that the BNP from what I see on satellite TV (it has to be satellite where I am) tried to challenge a anti discrimatory law that allows exceptions to certain ethnic groups to "protect their idenity" on the theoretical basis that if a Group is formed to protect left handed people from discrimination ,their membership could not be swaped by right handed people saying via a majority vote that there is no problem.
The BNP got its timing badly wrong in light of the coming General Election as they could be faced with petty restrictions and legal squables that the voter would not understand ,so in my view they had no choice but to clear this issue from the forthcoming agenda.Yes you are right they might have left it as it was ,because that is what they believe in ,then the voter can see what exactly is written "on the tin".