Friday 3 October 2008

"Police officer fired for wearing BNP badge"

The BNP has forty-six democratically elected local councillors.

As repugnant as the party's views may be to most people, should they all be sacked from their day jobs?

Or indeed struck off?

5 comments:

Snafu said...

Whatever happened to the Muslim WPC who refused to shake hands with the Met Chief!?!

Anonymous said...

Passed in 2004. You know, because you saw Shami and the BBC making a big deal out of whether the government should be allowed to do this to a political group that hasn't been outlawed.

Anonymous said...

"Terry Sweeney, acting assistant chief constable and head of the professional standards branch, said: "Item six of the Chief Constable's Order of 2004, which refers to police membership of the BNP..."

Oh, it's worse than that. Even if you agreed with the regulations, they apply to members of those organisations.

They found no evidence he was a member, he just wore a badge. They admitted this...

Surreptitious Evil said...

If the ubiquitous 'they' are serious about it, they should just get on and ban the BNP. This stealth version is appalling.

Having said that, of course, Article 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights specifically states:

Prohibition of discrimination

The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.


It doesn't say you can discriminate against people with unpopular (or even appalling) political opinions. So, they can't. Or, at least, government bodies such as the police, schools etc, can't.

Mark Wadsworth said...

Good points all.

As to this mantra that the BNP have unpopular (or even appalling) views let's not pussyfoot around here: they are absolutely disgusting*, but the way that The Powers That Be constantly chip away at the basic rights of BNP members or supporters is even worse.

* Although I can well understand why perfectly reasonable people end up voting for them.