I wasn’t seriously arguing that the Catholic church should be prosecuted for acting like, well, Catholics, I was suggesting prosecuting the BNP for being racist was equally absurd.

You can’t legislate an irrational organization into behaving in a rational manner without destroying the organization’s reason for being.

It would be like ‘modernizing’ the monarchy.

Sorry missed a bit.

One thing I like about the Harman move (even though I have some doubts about it) is that it refuses to let the BNP set the framework for debate.

>But still, they operate a ban on anyone who isn’t white, even if those individuals are part of the ethnic groups they claim to represent.

Indeed, and the rhetoric is based on “we are just doing the same as the Black Police Association and the Jewish Chronicle”. They aren’t, since none of the groups they compare themselves to are political parties trying to discriminate against others.

But – even if the comparison were valid – their basis for their own position is logical and scientific bullshit, so they fail even on those terms. I’m looking for someone who has debunked the “queer as folk” stuff authoritatively.

It is the linking of real problems to rhetoric that is one way they recruit – people believe the surface. As well as attacking the politics locally, we need to make it clear that the foundations are nonsense.

I admit, I’m just assuming their cateogries are meaningful. I have no idea, and re-reading them, the “folk community” bit makes me wonder. But still, they operate a ban on anyone who isn’t white, even if those individuals are part of the ethnic groups they claim to represent.

>Constitutionally, the BNP limits membership by ethnicity and is entitled to do so.

Seriously, I have yet to see any convincing argument that ethnicity as defined in the BNP constitution has any basis in reality. Can you show me how any of their categories are
meaningful?

If they were meaningful, then we could move on to a serious debate as to whether an ethnically based political party is acceptable, but at the moment I can’t see that the “definitions of terms” exist to make such a debate possible.

Rgds

Then Alan Duncan tried to be reasonable, and didn’t really pull it off.

was quiet funny.

Constitutionally, the BNP limits membership by ethnicity and is entitled to do so. But in practice, it refuses to let non-whites become members – and that includes non-white members of those ethnic groups. So, people of mixed race can’t join, even though by virtue of one of their parents they are members of one of the ethnic groups the BNP limits its membership to. The problem is that the BNP refuses to recognise that a mixed-race person can still a member of, say, the British Anglo-Saxon ethnic group – and therefore its definition of ethnicity is different from the law’s.

Gilligan’s very late to the party here, the story was broken by Dave Hill, continued by Adam Bienkov and eventually picked up by Paul Waugh, who made a decent job of it. The initial story was then credited to ‘Paul Waugh and Andrew Gilligan’, the second to ‘Andrew Gilligan and Paul Waugh’ and the third (which isn’t given top billing on the website today, although I’ve not seen the print edition yet) is ‘Andrew Gilligan’ acting alone, and concentrates on the sex (titillating!) instead of the expenses (makes Boris look as shifty as the House of Commons lot). It has all the hallmarks of a PR operation trying to wrest back control of the story, I suspect at the behest of Sir Simon Milton.

It appears that Gilligan gets interested in the story when the Tories have decided to drop Clement overboard, and call their old mate in as a rodent exterminator (Rent-O-Gill?). He wasn’t involved in the original story at all, because it wasn’t the Standard’s story.

If you are going to enact legislation which says “anyone must be free to join any organisation” then you may as well do away with all politics and religion.

It’s like me saying

“I don’t beileve in socialism but I have the right to join the labour party, therefore they must renounce socialism”

(I’m not trying to start a debate about nulabour and socialism just illustrate an argument)

Not really – that bucket loads of publicity states that the BNP doesn’t actually allow non-whites in. Many people don’t actually know that about the BNP – so this is negative publicity for a party that cannot be ignored any more.

I mean, is it coincidence that all the Popes so far have been Catholic or is there something going on there we don’t know about?

Or more seriously, why not take the Catholic Church to court and force them to ordain women and homosexuals?

every totalitarian fascist and bannana republic mass murderer justified their actions on the basis that they sought to improve society.

Sounds like the BNP…

If the BNP want to be a white-only party, let them be so. It only demonstrates what sort of organisation they are. If the law says that non-whites should be allowed to join the BNP against the party’s wishes, the law is wrong and should be changed. If you believe in free association, you have to let Nazis congregate in white-only enclaves.

Furthermore, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has limited resources, and should be using them to create “a fairer Britain” (one of their aims, proclaimed in big letters on their web site) rather than posturing against the BNP. It may be argued that it only cost them £500 or whatever to draft the letter sent to the BNP today; that’s £500 or whatever that can’t be spent on somebody’s discrimination case.

The only winners from this act of idiocy are the BNP who have received bucket loads of publicity today.

As usual with all Tory trolls, scratch the surface and a Nazi is revealed.

Just because their views are reprehensible that doesn’t mean they should be prevented from existing.

After all, Labour handing over control to those who opposed every one of its principles didn’t do any harm, did it?

Another interesting story is the cost of Prince Charles. Our increasingly right wing political head of state in waiting cost £3 million last year. What a waste of money. But it does show how the public gets all in a tiss about a few Mps claiming a few quid, but turns a blind eye to the huge welfare system for the Winsor family, and the aristocratic land owners of this country.

As for the speaker thing I think the Tories have shown their true colours over this. They don’t want an independent speaker. so all the hand ringing by Ian Dale and the Telegraph about parliament for the last 1 month is the biggest crock of shit going. The Tory party, as usual want total power over everything. No surprise there then. Dorries makes herself look the fool she is every time she opens her mouth. Does she really believe that Labour Mps were going to vote for a Cameron yes man? The speaker is elected with the Commons as it is now , not how Dorries thinks it will be in a years time. The Tory party instigated the removal of the speaker, so they should quit complaining that we have a new one. Dam it all, there were 2 Tories in the last vote in a Parliament that has a huge Labour majority, and they are still not happy. It just shows you can never appease the brownshirts.