The government is to single out Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons, the British National party’s two newly elected representatives in the European parliament, for special treatment, denying them some of the access and information afforded to all the other 70 UK MEPs.
Under new guidelines drafted in Whitehall and in the Foreign Office following the June elections to the European parliament, the two BNP leaders will be kept at arms’ length from the kind of routine contacts and socialising that take place between British civil servants and MEPs in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Look, Griffin and Brons are indeed vile little toads, their ideas and ideals repulsive.
But can we get this relationship between the voters, the politicians and the civil service straight please? The voters get to vote for any dumb shit they want. Those politicians who get elected get the same treatment from the civil service as all the rest: no, they don’t get different treatment because the C.S. Wallahs will have to hold their noses while they speak to them.
The civil service is hired and paid to aid the politicians we the people, in all our glorious stupidity, elect. Yes, even vile toads, the repulsive and the thick as shit.
How else do you think John Prescott managed to get his office staffed?
21 responses so far ↓
1 Hugh // Jul 9, 2009 at 5:40 pm
What a dumb move. Let the repellent eejits go about their business in the normal way and they’ll soon make compete dickheads of themselves, a la Griffin the other day. We don’t need the government handing them excuses to bleat and whine about anything.
BNP guys always fuck it up when elected, so let them get on with it.
2 Kit // Jul 9, 2009 at 5:54 pm
The Human Rights lawyers will rubbing their hands with glee.
3 Monty // Jul 9, 2009 at 6:21 pm
The ‘crats ought to be made to treat all MEPs the same. I suspect the BNP will have a case against them if they don’t provide equal support to all MEPs.
But this also shows the extent to which our civil service has been degraded into a party political jamboree.
4 JuliaM // Jul 9, 2009 at 6:23 pm
More votes for the BNP heading down the pike. Well done, Brown, well done indeed…
/golfclap
5 Doug // Jul 9, 2009 at 6:40 pm
C’mon, since when has the civil service been non-political. It’s employed by the state – that might give you a clue.
Never been anything but party political.
6 Monty // Jul 9, 2009 at 7:31 pm
If they are cutting of social access, that is a private and personal matter, because there is no way the taxpayer should be funding their socialising. So let’s put a stop to that across the board.
As regards officials and the information they hold on the governance of the EU and the UK, it isn’t theirs to grant, or withhold. If they fail to respond professionally to any request of that nature they should be fired for insubordination.
7 Winston // Jul 9, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Oh great, the BNPs only trick to appeal to voters is to claim victim status, so how do the government treat them, they victimise them. Pure Genius.
8 Ian B // Jul 9, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I think it’s pretty sad that much of the commentary on this is of the “it won’t work, it’ll play into their hands” type rather than the fundamental issue that this is deliberate discrimination against political representatives by the state. It is an indication of how deep our moral totalitarianism is now. Nobody dares mention the BNP without feeling obligated to prefix it with a disclaimer about how evil they are, etc etc.
We are in a deeply, deeply dangerous state. We have cast away any pretence of being some kind of a liberal democracy. The discrimination that our anglosocialist masters pretend to despise is now rooted into every part of our system, such that anyone found morally wanting, ranging from nationalists to smokers can be arbitrarily treated as inferiors by the state, and it is obligatory even for those of a liberal disposition who wish to mount some kind of defence to prefix it with a nullifying “even though they’re evil”. We are in the grip of a moral hegemony of mediaeval ferocity.
It is deeply ironic, that the Left gained power by demanding liberal freedoms such as freedom of speech. Feeble attempts to oppose communism were labelled a “witch hunt”, even though those communists were attempting to impose a system of the most awful kind. If the BNP are beyond the pale, what of the young communists many of New Labour were members of in their youth?
I am not a BNP supporter, neither do I agree with them- ooh look, there’s my obligatory disclaimer. But the state of our polity is now corrupted beyond recognition. There is no longer any illusion that it is liberal, democratic or representative. The post-marxist cultural hegemony is now absolute.
The future is a very scary place to contemplate.
9 JuliaM // Jul 9, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“I think it’s pretty sad that much of the commentary on this is of the “it won’t work, it’ll play into their hands” type rather than the fundamental issue that this is deliberate discrimination against political representatives by the state.”
Well, can’t speak for anyone else, but does the latter not pretty much go without saying?
The usual suspects aren’t likely to care, but if you point out that it isn’t likely to give them the result they want either, the more progress you”ll make..
10 MarkS // Jul 9, 2009 at 10:53 pm
The establishment accuses the BNP of being a party that discriminates and wants to exclude a minority of the population from the mainstream. So how does Whitehall respond to the BNP’s democratically elected members? By discriminating against them and excluding them from normal political life. Pure genius!
11 AntiCitizenOne // Jul 10, 2009 at 2:06 am
I “look forward”* to the BNP doing this to the other parties if they win an election.
After all there is now a precedent.
Good move idiots.
*Sarcasm.
12 Biffo // Jul 10, 2009 at 10:24 am
So Brown & his nasty little gang of low lives are intending to deny two legally elected MEPs, members of a legal UK political party, their rights as MEPs? M’mm – really clever! Wonder what brainbox in NuLabour thought that one up? The BNP will be laughing all the way to the ballot box.
13 The BNP, Europe, and the civil servants « Curly’s Corner Shop, the blog! // Jul 10, 2009 at 10:57 am
[...] Via Tim Worstall [...]
14 chas // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:08 am
Nick should tell the EU Parliament that he is being discriminated against. That would raise quite a few laughs.
15 david // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:30 am
It is indeed a tricky situation. On the one hand, reduced to resorting to democratically electing neo nazis, on the other a refusal of a democratically elected government to accept that democracy should be respected. Sort of stinks of ‘all voters are equal, but….’.
16 Zorro // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:30 am
Seriously for a moment, _can_ the government _really_ be _that_ stupid?
Or are they _pushing_ the BNP vote for some reason?
17 Zorro // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:31 am
As Tim alluded with the Prescott comment, if facilities/legalities are withdrawn from ‘dumb shits’ then this govt is in serious trouble…
18 Serf // Jul 10, 2009 at 11:43 am
Lets be honest, in the competition between meglomaniniac idiots, Gordon Brown is head and shoulders above anything that Nick Griffen could dream of.
That (apart from the sheer insult to liberal democracy) is what pisses me off about this BNP malarky.
So the BNP would discriminate against certain people given the chance. Bah Humbug. Labour discriminates against those it doesn’t like, right now, and all the time. And they are in power. Its like Harold Shipman denouncing someone for conspiracy to murder.
19 Surreptitious Evil // Jul 10, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I believe that if the UK government wish to allow discrimination against BNP members in any way shape or form (membership of the police, teaching, ballet dancer, MEP, whatever) then they should have the courage of their convictions and ban them.
And accept the enormous HRA Article 14 (I think 10 & 11 also apply) case that would result. They would then need to prove that the ban was “(i>necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.”
They might have a push at the last – although I don’t think it necessary.
@Ian B – it really doesn’t matter what I think of the BNP. Or anybody thinks of them. As long as they do not break the law (or, in certain cases which I am not happy about, advocate breaking the law or support law-breakers.)
20 Little Black Sambo // Jul 11, 2009 at 1:59 am
What Ian B says. Hear, hear!
21 gene berman // Jul 12, 2009 at 1:20 am
Ian B.:
The situation in the U.S. is not that much better. The principal difference (in portent for the future) is that: 1.) those who understand seem to be a somewhat larger portion of the population here; and, 2.) they have guns.
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