Labour Considering a Ban on BNP Teachers.

[TheBigotBasher]

I can fully understand that the Police ban BNP members, I think however a ban on BNP teachers just allows them to become political martyrs. It will not help bring back to Labour the working class vote that felt aggrieved enough to swap their vote from New Labour to the British Nazi Party. (How about some social housing Mr Brown?).

Perhaps rather than banning membership of one Party, ban membership of all Parties for teachers. This is done for senior Civil Servants and Senior Local Government Officers.
&cpag
http://www.labourhome.org/forum/?p=6034

(Updated for a more reliable source than Labour Home http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/bnp-teachers-ed-balls)

[non sociopath skin]

1. You'd want your children taught by them?

Or just someone else's?

The Skin

[TheBigotBasher]

2. It is not as though I will have children

but that is not the point, politics is not for the classroom. If you are going to ban teachers from political parties then ban membership of all parties. Politically restricted posts exist within the civil service already and it would ensure that they could not use victim status in the European Court of Human Rights. Where they may even gain a compensation payment.

No matter how offensive they may be, they are a legal party.

[LeftishBrit]

3. My problem is...

that BNP members are actively campaigning against a significant segment of the population - which other parties, whether one agrees with them or not, aren't.

It is not likely to be conducive to a child's education to put them into the hands of a teacher who is openly advocating that their family should not be in the country.

Labour and Tory and other party members are not doing this.

I disagree with banning all party members from teaching as it seems to be using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut (well, the BNP members *are* nuts). It would have at least two undesirable results: (1) restricting teachers' liberties unnecessarily, and (2) ensuring that people with direct experience of the classroom are unlikely to go into politics - which is unfortunate, given the importance of education as a political issue.

[TheBigotBasher]

4. This is already done in the Civil Service

with varying levels of exclusion depending upon the seniority of the position and within Local Government, again with varying levels of exclusion. It would not be difficult to include teaching within that. Nor would it reduce the importance of education within politics (although a quite high level of ex teachers and lecturers still voted through loans and top up fees).

Also I really would not want to see some stupid bigot being awarded a high level of compensation for this from the ECHR, which they absolutely would do as such a proposal, unless they become listed as a banned Party would be unlawful.

There is also the point that this proposal is fighting fascism with fascism, not quite the best way of dealing with them if you are fighting them democratically. Giving Nick Griffin victim status is also not a very good idea.

The silly trots invited me to an anti BNP demo the other day, after they had won. If only 10% of them had bothered their arse so much as to do some door knocking for the Greens on election day, at least one of the silly Nazis would not have been elected.

This kind of thing may go down well in Islington, but it will do nothing to win back the core Labour voters who believed the BNP more than Gordon Brown when talking of British jobs for British workers.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Well, if it really is against EC law that's that, I suppose

though I think it would be pretty hypocritical of the BNP to appeal to the ECHR, when they HATE everything to do with the EU in general and the ECHR in particular.

However, I think that even if it's not a law, it should be a matter of public knowledge if a teacher is a BNP activist, and parents should be able to use this information when deciding which school to send their child to.

[TheBigotBasher]

11. Being hypocritical wouldn't stop them

and I seem to remember that their membership list is easy to obtain and has now been imported in to a spreadsheet.

[LeftishBrit]

14. Who is hypocritical - the BNP teachers or those who oppose them or the parents or everyone?

[TheBigotBasher]

17. The BNP Teachers

And they could use the non discrimination article to do it as well.

[T_i_B]

15. Wrong on this point

The silly trots invited me to an anti BNP demo the other day, after they had won. If only 10% of them had bothered their arse so much as to do some door knocking for the Greens on election day, at least one of the silly Nazis would not have been elected.

Now I don't know if you actually bothered to read the ballot paper but the "silly trots" had 2 parties standing in the Euro elections. The Socialist Labour Party for the marxist n' proud and No2EU, who were ran as a spoiler to take votes off the BNP. I even did a thread about No2EU on here.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x27017

So actually yes they were out there doing something to stop the BNP.

[Dutch]

5. So if they do that in the classroom, sack them.

[Dutch]

7. "Think of the children! Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children!"

[LeftishBrit]

9. In a school, that's exactly what one should be doing!

People should not be expected to conduct their adult lives on the basis of the example they might set to kids; but schools are FOR children, and being at the mercy of a teacher who belongs to a group dedicated to discriminating against you and your parents is not good for anyone's education.

[TheBigotBasher]

12. If they are carrying out

discrimination in the classroom then that would be a disciplinary offence and most likely it would be gross misconduct.

If they are not - what purpose would such a law provide?

[LeftishBrit]

13. Suppose it's not in the classroom but that they are campaigning to have a child's parents sent 'back

where they came from' along with others?

I agree that people should not be banned from teaching just because they *vote* BNP (how they vote should obviously be a secret anyway); but I'm uncomfortable with open racists being responsible for non-white children. And it hardly seems fair or possible to allow BNP activists to teach in lily-white monocultural village schools, while refusing them access to multiracial inner-city schools.

Also, there's the other side of the coin: what if a child fails an exam, or is suspended for disruptive behaviour, and claims that it's due to a teacher's prejudice? Even if it's *not* true, it may be hard to disprove if the teacher is a BNP member. The whole disciplinary and academic policy of the school may be undermined.

Not sure whether a legal ban is the way to go; but would certainly hope that employers treat BNP activism as a negative mark against potential teachers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. They presumably wouldn't want to teach in a school with any non-white children in:

From their 2005 manifesto:

"A Clause 28-style proscription against the promotion of racial integration in schools and the media would be introduced."

So if their official policy is that racial integration is so bad that schools mustn't talk about it positively, you'd think they couldn't bear to be in the classroom with them.

[Dutch]

6. Classic New Labour.

Instead of trying to actually learn anything from the (sharply limited) successes of the BNaziP, just try and ban them from the workplace. Nice sop to the activists, I guess.

I actually suspect the Griffin would be ECSTATIC if this law was passed. Few things could feed more effectively into the BNP's perverse attempts to portray themselves as persecuted anti-establishment crusaders for the ordinary Briton.

[non sociopath skin]

8. I don't see it as an "either/or"

And I don't give a stuff about how Griffin will try to use it. The arsehole will use anything.

The BNP's views are the opposite of everything that the British (and American) education systems stand for. Do we really want them poisoning the water?

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

18. Sadly some of the apologists for faith based schools

are singing from hymn sheets not a million miles from that held by Griffin in his grubby little hands. This is why the BNP are probably relishing the prospects of attempts to muzzle them and their supporters in the civil courts. Their lawyers are not going to have to be world beaters to point out some of the more ludicrous inconsistencies in their opponents arguments ( ie why can unions have Black Workers sections but not White Workers sections. Why can schools discriminate in selection on grounds of religion but not race etc etc). The fact that British law currently justifies this sort of hypocrisy will mean that the fascists are likely to have every opportunity to play the martyr when they lose. As far as the BNP are concerned their opponents are behaving just as they would want in a run up to a General Election.