This is a cross post of an article by Maurice Cousins of There is Nothing British about the BNP
Screen grab taken from BNP web site on 29th March 2010
Just got off the phone with the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Electoral Commission to clear up some of the confusion surrounding the BNP’s membership arrangements.
The BNP were told by Judge Paul Collins to:
1. Remove any controversial clauses that directly discriminated against non-whites from joining the party and indirectly by compelling its members to subscribe to their racist political purposes and objectives.
2. Publish the most up to date constitution (i.e. that satisfied the EHRC and complied with the court’s order) on its web site.
On March 14th Griffin declared his party was back in business because he had complied with court’s order by removing the controversial clauses.
But what about the constitution bit?
After looking on the BNP’s website, we have been unable to find the new constitution.
BNP.org.uk says that the disputed 11th constitution, which effectively states that party membership is closed to non-whites, was declared invalid after the party’s membership voted it out on February 14th 2010. It then says it was supposed to publish the newly amended constitution “shortly after the court hearing with the Equalities Commission on March 9th.” At the point of writing today’s date is the 29th March, 2010 some twenty days after the BNP said it would publish the new constitution – so why is the old 11th constitution still listed on the party’s web site?
Maurice Cousins
