For reasons best known to the Department for Schools, Children and Families (good name by the way) Maurice Smith’s review is not in an editable-text formatted PDF. I have, therefore, had to skim-read the thing!
I admit I have mixed feelings about how we should treat the BNP: On one hand they are a political party that represents an opinion that I find abhorrent; they provide a political outlet for opinions that, thankfully, the vast majority of British people do not share. On the other, by having a legitimate political party, people can argue that they should not be excluded from parts of society, including, working in schools.
The trouble is, if the government were to ban the BNP, you would still have racist people about the place, but they would not be so easily identifiable. Therefore, perhaps the best solution is to continue to allow the party to exist, but make it quite clear that its stated aims are incompatible with working with, or for, vulnerable people.
The risk is that this view could be extended in the future to, say, members of the Respect Unity Coalition (perhaps it should be?) or to UKIP. Where do you stop? The stated aims of UKIP are not racist (at least not in the view of society today) but in the future could an argument be made about it based on typical members, or about unadmonished public comments by some of its candidates?
I don’t know what the right answer is, but I am sure that we will eventually have a world free of racism. The challenge today is to find ways to bring that day sooner, and avoid measures against it that drive racism underground and allow it to survive unchecked.
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