Union threat to ban BNP school governors

A TEACHING union is threatening to take Stoke-on-Trent City Council to court unless it bans BNP councillors from serving as school governors.

The NASUWT says the move would help protect children and school staff from the far-right party's "pernicious agenda for hatred and discrimination".

Now it has written to all local education authorities, including Stoke-on-Trent, to urge them to review whether they are complying with the Race Relations Act.

The union says it is "fully prepared to file for judicial review" if councils do not offer "appropriate advice or take appropriate action" to stop BNP members being appointed as governors.

There are already six BNP councillors in the Potteries who sit on governing bodies and they could be forced to step down if any legal action is successful. All of them were appointed by the council.

Today, Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, told The Sentinel: "We will be looking very carefully at the governing bodies in Stoke-on-Trent."

She said the campaign to prevent party members becoming governors was triggered by an East Midlands case, where a BNP councillor could become vice-chairman of governors at a primary school.

But she added: "Stoke-on-Trent is a deep concern to the NASUWT, because of the number of BNP councillors."

The union represents thousands of classroom teachers across the city, although it's not clear how many members work in schools which have BNP governors.

The BNP today branded the NASUWT's stance as discrimination and vowed to fight any attempt to introduce a ban.

Alby Walker, BNP group leader on the city council, said: "The teaching union would be best keeping out of politics. They are trying to politicise the role of school governors.

"My councillors all do a good job as school governors. They do it because they want the best for the children."

In a statement, the city council said: "All city councillors are democratically elected and their nomination and election to panels and committees follow due council process.

"All city councillors are required to sign up to the members' code of conduct, under which they undertake to do nothing in their official capacity which will cause the council to breach the equality laws."

The Sentinel


THE END OF DEMOCRACY

It comes as no surprise to me that it is a teachers' union that is opposing the rights of BNP members from acting as school governors.

This is a group who have peddled left wing anti-establishment propaganda for years, long before the BNP was formed. If they are able to use legal means from stopping democratically elected people from office the end of democracy is in sight.

A recent report in the press said that three quarters of the teaching profession believed teaching patriotism was brainwashing our children.

I have no doubt that some smart Alec will come up with Samuel Johnson's quote that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". I believe that he was referring to politicians – or maybe even teachers.

If they believe that, I challenge them to meet the families of our soldiers coming home in Union Flag draped coffins and tell them they are scoundrels.

A few years later Johnson also said: "A man thinks meanly of himself for not being a soldier or been at sea," a change of heart maybe.

Our rights are being whittled away day by day by officialdom. Some members of all the other main political parties say the BNP should be banned, that meetings should be boycotted and disrupted. I have never heard a member of the BNP say that of other parties, on the contrary, they want open debate with all parties.

Are the others afraid they might lose the argument?

Fascism can come from either extreme of the political spectrum. Hitler banned any party that opposed him and had the dissenters imprisoned and in many cases executed. Stalin did the same in Russia but these men had ideas that were politically opposite.

Today's politics is based on lies and deceit but they don't call it that they call it spin. I remember Screaming Lord Sutch and his Monster Raving Looney Party, of course with his barmy ideas he never stood a chance of getting elected, and this is where the spin doctors triumphed. They changed the name and their leader and bingo, in 1997 they were elected and have been in power ever since.

I am not a supporter of the BNP or of any other political party. I will leave you with this on which I base my argument, "I disapprove of what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Voltaire.

GRAHAM LENCH - THE SENTINEL