He could have meant Column 88
IIRC its something that affected the decision on where to send money or guns, some Belgians weren’t sure whether to send guns to the IRA or UVF, plumping for the latter because of perceived affiliations with groups in the Middle East.
Not really, but I’m surprised there isn’t more uptake of seemingly pro-British events such as Guy Fawkes night in Northern Ireland. I mean, you get to burn en effigy of a pro-Catholic guy who tried to take out Parliament, isn’t that as good as it gets?
I was unaware that their charter was quite so…specific…in terms of who could be a member. Allowing them to air their odious views freely is one thing; allowing active racial discrimination is quite another. I shall set the Distaste-O-Meter up another few notches.
As for the Royals being Greek: I assume you’re referring to Prince Philip who pretty much just passed through Greece (in dynastic terms) on his way from Denmark. He’s one of the Danish-German House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, so he presumably falls into the Anglo-Saxon-Norse racial group.
I think secret ballots were introduced in the 1880’s sometime.
I was under the impression that the 5th was still a bit of a deal amongst certain members of the community in Norn Iron. I thought there was a divide between the 31st of October and November 5th.
In civics class, we were told that the secret ballot system was also called the “Australian ballot.” Is anyone else familiar with that term?
A bit of Googling reveals that it was introduced in the UK by Gladstone’s government in 1872.
Exactly what acts of intimidation, violence has the BNP committed?
How exactly is the BNP oppressing anyone?
I’m not claiming that the BNP is not engaging in acts of violence, intimidation, or opression, but I would like to know the facts.
Civil servants in the UK are not permitted to be members of a political party?
Not quite, although you must remember that membership in a political party in the UK is not the same as registering with a party in the US.
It’s difficult to reconcile membership in the BNP, or other far-right organisations, with compliance with the Civil Service Code.
I didn’t know this. How so? Does “membership” imply some sort of actively participatory role?
This seems like a bit of a politically loaded statement. Why wouldn’t far-rightists be able to separate political beliefs from job responsibilities just like anyone else?
Members get to vote on party leaders and select/deselect local candidates for office, canvassing, overseeing polling stations and vote counts. Everyone I’ve known who has been a member of a political party (Lab, LibDem, Green or Tory) has been pretty active within the party.
If you hate some class of people enough that you’ve actually paid membership fees to an organisation dedicated to stripping those people of rights (which the BNP, Combat 18 etc most certainly are), how can you possibly act impartially towards them?
It’s like being a member of an actual organization, like a labor union, or fraternal organization, or civil rights organization. You pay dues, you get to vote for leaders and representatives, you gain the rights and privileges of membership. You can even be expelled for advocating positions that contradict the party’s platform. Political parties in most western democracies are actual membership organizations, nothing like political parties in the United States.
Interesting. I notice that some names in the BNP list have an “activist” notation - I wonder what’s required for that? Are these poll-workers, pub-brawlers, or what?
Thanks; that’s interesting. I learned something today.
Given what party membership means in the UK, maybe there’s something to this. The US has had some unpleasant history of rooting out purported Communists from government offices, so maybe that’s what makes me a bit skittish.
It’s not a common thing for an individual in the UK to actually join a political party. There isn’t really an equivalent of your (assuming in you’re in the US) registered Democrat, Republican or Independent for purposes of primaries and whatnot. It’s safe to assume that an individual who pays money to the BNP is aware of their rather fascistic nature.
Anyway, here’s a broken link to a BNP affiliate site:
http://www.redwatch.org/REMOVEindexx.html
and here’s another:
http://www.bloodandhonourworldwide.co.uk/REMOVEhome1.html
and here’s a link to some of the activities of some of their, err, officials:
I’m not going to give even a broken link to the Combat18 site. Think Stormfront, but with less-professional tattoos, bigger beer bellies and more convictions for racially-aggravated assault.
I don’t think the term has ever been commonly used in the UK of late. Speaking as a Brit with what I’d consider an above-average, but not expert, knowledge of our 19th century political history - and who has even been known to hang out with actual proper professional parliamentary historians - I’d never come across the specific term until reading the same New Yorker article of a few weeks back that WF Tomba mentioned.
I don’t think that’s a safe assumption at all. There’s also the naive and the easily-influenced - if nothing else, I did spot one under-18 listed on the BNP list, identified as such.
So what are political parties like in the US? If they don’t have members, who were all those people at the US party conventions earlier this year?
The conventions are controlled by the Republican National Committee or Democratic National Committee, which are slightly more “organizationy” than the parties themselves. But you have to be elected or appointed to the national committee. You can’t just sign up and pay your dues. Saying “I’m a Democrat” and “I’m a member of the D.N.C.” are two different things.
The delegations from each state are chosen in a formal process by the state party organizations. People who show up at conventions usually hold some kind of office at the local or state level – county party committee or something – or they know someone at a higher level.