It's a legitamate political party, I see nothing wrong with being a member or supporter (I am not btw). I'm sure a lot of you are just jumping on the 'OMG RACISTZ' bandwagon without reading about other policies.
I think that this has been purposely leaked by a government department to bring them into the news and get the anti-BNP train going again before the next round of elections where, given the mood of the country as a whole at the moment, they could have probably picked up a few seats.
Yes, I have to agree, although I hate their guts, it's not grounds for having information leaked. Leaking private information on people is still illegal, whether you agree with their views or not.
I will say though that if the BNP got into power they'd have a publicly available list of anyone who didn't conform to their idea of 'British' with a lot more details than have been let loose here.
I went and read their policies because being from Canada I didn't have a clue who they were. After reading their policies I say way to go whoever leaked the info!!!
If you are going to be a racist and hate people because of where they came from, Then have the Balls to stand up and let people know where you stand.
I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be the same worry by the members if the Liberal party list was released to the public
Conversely, this is a group which wants to repatriate all non-white Brits to their country of ethnic origin. They're an offshoot of the National Front, they've got links to groups such as Combat 18 (look those up if you like), they're a threat to the life and liberty of all non-whites in the UK. I don't know whether it's still in their manifesto but historically they've also advocated recriminalising homosexuality. They also had official anti-semite leanings for a while, but now they're trying to use the popular demonisation of Islam to drum up more support they've suddenly gone all quiet about hating Jews.
Anyway, point being: People with brown skin don't have the option of anonymity from radical xenophobes like the BNP. So if the anonymity of the people who fund radical xenophobes like the BNP is compromised, I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.
I'm sure you're jumping on the 'legitimate political party' bandwagon whilst blithely ignoring the fact that they're a bunch of violent racist thugs.
What possible downsides can there be to publishing this list?
1) Several policemen have their arrest records analysed for racial trends in their arrest records, whilst being suspended on full pay - if found guilty of racism: rightly given the boot. GOOD.
2) People who are the victims of BNP pro-active hate campaigns know who and where their assailants live, giving the option of either legal or vigilante action. GOOD.
3) People who support the BNP think twice about it in the future. GOOD although for the wrong reasons.
Previously discussed here and i'll skip the details I was assaulted by 3 fascists earlier this year, although I do not know if they where BNP or another group. Today I learned I have a member of the BNP living opposite me.
Will anything bad come of me knowing this?
No, but the tables are now equal. If another assault comes instructions are in place. What we have here is mutually assured destruction. It's nuclear stale-mate, and that is a far prefferable situation to yesterday when walking outside was a whole lot more scary than it is today.
Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to ... D_T's guide to politics in Blighty for the non-British
We do have conservative parties. There's one called the - er - Conservative Party (who are a bit more small-C conservative than they were). They are a perfectly acceptable mainstream party that's the "voice of Middle England".
Although, your political system in the US is skewed towards the right. In the US many people would describe Barack Obama as left wing, here he's centre/centre-right. Sarah Palin would not fit in any mainstream party.
Also there is UKIP, who are the BNP with fake tan, failed chat show hosts and a bit less racism.
The BNP are not "fiscal conservatives" - economically they are to the left of our Labour party but socially it's akin to Mr A Hitler.
Rough guideline comparison on social policy
Tories = Varies from the middle/right end of the Democrats to middle of the Republicans.
UKIP = Right of the Republicans to consititution party
BNP = Further right than the Constitution party
Other forms of right wing lots exist in the UK, there's tonnes of stuff about them on Wikipedia.
We don't exactly go for the religious nutjob stuff in the UK, there are a few in that mould though - Ann Widdicombe is like the British Sarah Palin, but aged 61.
The BNP have control of one local council and seats in a few others - it would be feasible for them to get seats in the Commons if there was PR, but we use First Past The Post for practically everything in the UK. UKIP have representation at European Parliament (basically a talking shop) level due to the use of the list system for elections.
As for the SNP (Scottish National Party) and the Plaid Cymru (Welsh Nationalists), they are nothing like these two and have acceptable social policy but are pretty crazy separatists.
Hah, what makes me laugh are the Cornish Nationalists, they want independance over a relatively tiny piece of rock with no real major resources or infrastructure. (Well you could say Tin, but thats kind of dead now).
It's the other way round, the BNP wanted to form an alliance with UKIP for the european elections so they didn't stand against each other. UKIP refused and actually got rid of some of its members for supporting the alliance.
I don't want any physical harm to come to these fascists through this, but I'm all for job loss, pranks, loss of trust/business, less BNP members etc...
There are a lot of problems with racism in the UK. If the publication of this list leads to the sacking of any members of the BNP from the police/army/educational sector/criminal justice sector then it'll have been worth it for the 'invasion' of other members' privacy, IMO.
It was the BNP running in the North and UKIP in the South: they couldn't risk Kilroy looking like a muppet due to his fake tan washing off, so he had to stick to sunny(er) London.