Monday, 23 March 2009
BNP Policeman
No doubt the Association of Chief Police Officers had good 'policing' reasons for, in 2004, banning serving officers from being members of the BNP. No doubt also this decision was promulgated throughout the police service nationwide. The sacking of a BNP member from Merseyside police is thus a simple matter of industrial misconduct. The BNP is, however, a legal, legitimate political party. Despite its' abhorrent views, as Liberals we should be very careful about banning its' members from employment & other public functions. The voters are not fools. The more the BNP is allowed to open its' mouth the more it will condemn itself. We do not further the cause of opposition to its' views by creating martyrs or by driving its' membership underground. On the contrary we should attack it in public & at the polls at every possible opportunity & with the utmost vigour.
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2 comments:
Note also that the man is appealing as he said he was never knowingly a member, that the disciplinary hearing found no evidence that even if he was he let his views affect his work in any way, and that he may have been signed up by a relative or neighbour without him knowing.
It seems dodgy to me. If someone is prepared to deny their membership they clearly don't have much loyalty to the party which may suggest he is quite right. That list did contain, it is said, people who were not members but had been identified as supporters or non-member helpers.
I would argue that, if you ban members of the police from being members of the BNP then surely you should also ban them from ALL political parties. I am not particularly a political animal, but surely, as we find some of the views of the BNP abhorant, there are those who find some of the views of the other parties abhorant as well. If the police force is to be kept impartial then they should be banned from mebership of any political party, or not banned from any so long as they do not let their political bias affect their work.
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