Over at NothingBritish.com, James Bethell is deeply unimpressed by Ed Balls' attempts to ban BNP teachers from the classroom:
"We think that Ball’s intemperate rhetoric at a party political function dangerously helps the BNP rally its own recruits with a narrative about an over-mighty state only too happy to prosecute racists, “so long as their white”. Ed Balls is out-of-date and undemocratic to imply by association that everyone connected with the BNP is a racist. That group includes 947,000 voters, many of whom come from Labour’s heartland."
James believes that there are probably enough existing powers to deal with the problem:
"Teachers must respect the honour of their profession, and the authorities must not be complacent. That is why the teaching profession is already protected by a number of restrictions, including a requirement for schools to have equal opportunity policies, a duty to promote racial equality, a statutory duty to promote community cohesion, a duty on governing bodies, head teachers and local authorities to forbid the teaching of partisan political activities and disciplinary powers of the GTCE. Where problems have arisen, theses are implemented with vigour. For example, Adam Walker, a BNP activist, is currently faces a General Teaching Council tribunal for allegedly using a school computer for inappropriate reasons. Despite Balls’s cynical implication, there is no new evidence that there is a BNP problem in our class-rooms."
The Conservatives share a determination to keep the BNP's ideology out of the classroom but also want other extremist indoctrination restricted too. Hizb ut Tahrir, for example. Britain's membership of the ECHR restricts the ability to act decisively and James Bethell is probably right to say that strict enforcement of existing guidelines may be ther best way of protecting schoolchildren.
