BNP teachers

[calamari]

any opinions? Teachers can now openly belong to the BNP.

Well said!
We only need to read the news to see where social liberalism has gt the country. Broken Britain...

Wannabe (and also a reply to uberalice): "Also, you don't have to be a member of the bnp to be a racist. In fact, you don't have to be white to be a racist. As long as you don't bring those views into the classroom how you vote/feel/think is not for anyone else to dictate." - Quite so. Much racism/ prejudice full-stop is hidden, you can't prove it but it lies beneath the surface and colours people's actions. Which is what makes it so dangerous and so uncomfortable for minority groups to have to live with.

Alouiseg - but atheists do have a bias against religion, frequently a very strong one, IME. So their biases would colour the way they teach religion. The only people who I've ever met that can be considered anywhere near 'objective' on religion are certain agnostics.

Grumpy (are you a namechanger?), you've missed the point - that the BNP is not first and foremost about politics; it's a group of people who are focused on fear, ignorance and, ultimately, hatred of certain minorities. That is what makes them unacceptable, unlike the genuine political parties. Their use of politics is a tactic to sublimate and legitimise their hatred; the hatred is not just an inconvenient by-product of their otherwise innocent viewpoints on life. They've clearly fooled some people, including you.

How very patronising Speedy.

I genuinely find it hard to understand how otherwise intelligent and reasonable people conflate the dislike of a policy of importing millions from alien third-world cultures, with the creation of social division and problems where previously there were none, with a personal animus against the immigrants themselves

My experience of the BNP is that its members are not twisted with hatred for anyone, sadness and anger maybe at how things are maybe, but not hatred.

Hatred is driving decent people out of their profession because they lawfully stand up for what they believe, like this man:

www.thelawyer.com/st-philips-barrister-resigns-to-stand-for-bnp-in-general-election/1 003905.article

Grumpy - your experience of yhe BNP must be very limited then.

Colleagues of mine have been physically threatened bt them. They are thugs. I've seen the marches up
our local high street. They make me sick.

And I don't yhink a BNP supporting teacher could do their job properly.

I wouldn't want anyone you in anyway had anything to do with supporting racism (or any other discrimination) anywhere near children.

And as for the slippery slope, that slippery slope could work both ways. Eg. if the BNP are allowed, who's to say that KKK members could be stopped from teaching?

There has to be a line drawn, and for me personally I'd like that line to exclude any group affiliated with racism and extremism.

Also, I'm tired and that you should say who.

I'm shocked that someone should come on here and admit openly to being a member of the BNP. Years ago I don't think anyone would have dared admit such a thing but with the increased electoral success of the BNP - albeit regionally rather than nationally ( thank goodness) their voters and supporters are starting to put their heads above the parapet. I find this both insiduous and terrifying in alternate measures.

What are the BNP if not the National Front in ( thin) disguise and what are the NF if not the British Nazi party? If you vote BNP you are voting Nazi. And I for one not only would not want a teacher of my children holding Nazi idealogy but would not want that person as a citizen of the UK. Full stop.

Let's not legitimise these scum by including them within the virtues of a free society and earnest debate. The Germans did that too in the 1930s and look where it got them.

I'm sure I came across a factoid the other day that there are four, I think it was, registered teachers who are also BNP members.

Relative to the number of teachers who are for other reasons unfit to hold their post - it's not actually the biggest problem we face as a profession.

Also, as others have said: the BNP is currently an entirely legal political party. Very slippery slope if we start taking away the right of teachers to belong to legal organisations, however disgusting those organisations might be.

If you want to tackle racism within teaching, the BNP members wouldn't be where I'd start.