British National Party membership list published

Karen writes from England:

The entire BNP membership has been exposed on the Internet revealing the names of thousands of members. Already witch hunts have begun to track down the members. So far a DJ has been sacked from a radio station (this happened within a few hours), a police officer is under investigation, and many others fear for their jobs and livelihoods.

The BNP is a legal political party and not an illegal organisation. The BNP addresses the concerns that have alienated voters from the mainstream political parties, namely mass immigration and the transformation of Britain into a Third World dump. Its members are not beholden to wealthy backers. But this looks like an attempt by the political establishment to frighten people from joining the BNP. The political establishment is very worried that the economic depression (I call it by its true name and not merely a recession) with its rising unemployment and financial hardship will result in a mass swing of voters to the BNP followed by riots and political unrest. We live in strange times!

LA replies:

As explained in the Daily Mail article that Karen links, the list was apparently released by former BNP members who had been ousted from the party last year. I don’t know the details beyond that. But we do know that BNP leader Nick Griffin, who has made serious efforts to move the BNP away from its former anti-Semitism (see my articles listed below), has pushed out members who resisted this change. Thus there is a fair likelihood that the disgruntled former members who released the party membership list were of that group. Which would mean that it wasn’t the leftist political establishment that did this to the BNP, but anti-Semites who wanted to hurt the party because it is no longer anti-Semitic.

As the Mail article also explains, there was a court injunction against releasing this list, and the people who violated it face possible criminal charges.

Here are some VFR entries on the BNP:

How reformed is the BNP?
BNP leader criticizes anti-Semitism
Explaining the BNP
BNP chairman criticizes his followers’ anti-Semitism

- end of initial entry -

JS writes:

According to a reporter at The Guardian who spent seven months as a BNP member and wrote an article about the party in December 2006, the BNP is sinister … because they tried to keep their membership rolls secret. That’s all this reporter uncovered while undercover. It’s interesting as well that Nick Griffin’s efforts to curb wrong-headed racism and anti-Semitism are mentioned as though they were somehow damaging for the BNP. Damned if they do …

Bert R. writes:

It appears to me that publication is unwelcome, not because of the desire to hide one’s beliefs but rather the desire to protect one’s family and home. Recall the multiple cases of intimidation and violence in Northern Ireland. Do those who approve of publication wish to see the same on the mainland of the UK?

Should the membership list of the Northern Ireland political parties Sinn Féin or the Democratic Unionist Party be published? If not, why not?

Which organisations should not have their membership details published? Military, teachers unions, vivisectionists, livestock farmers? How about the membership of Stopthebnp? This group actively campaigns against a political party, the BNP, but is not registered as one itself.

Why is it that British police officers are deemed sufficiently unprofessional that they are prohibited from joining the BNP and have to be tape recorded at work, whereas lawyers are not?

Should BNP members have to wear a badge so that people can spot them on sight?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 19, 2008 01:45 PM | Send