Unions call for right to expel BNP members

Fear of election gains sparks a bid to alter the law

Trade unions want the right under UK law to expel British National Party activists - and deny them membership - as part of Labour plans to check the electoral advance of the far right.

Labour backbenchers, supported by all the biggest unions, will unveil the plan on Tuesday when they put forward an amendment to the Employment Bill that would allow them to ban racists. The proposal - labelled 'Stalinist' by the BNP - comes amid concern that it could win as many as three seats in next year's European Parliament elections and make strong gains in council elections.

Labour MPs, many of whom feel threatened by the BNP's advances in their constituencies, are concerned that the party is encouraging activists to infiltrate unions in order to spread subversive, racist messages in the workplace.

Tony Lloyd, chairman of the trades union group of Labour MPs who has tabled the amendment, said it was vital that unions had the right to get rid of people working directly against their aims: 'What the unions are absolutely right to demand is the right to kick racists out of their organisations.'

Until now unions have had to work under a legal framework set down under the Thatcher government in the early 1990s which prevented them from excluding people because of their membership of a particular political party. The Tory rules were seen at the time as a ploy to prevent unions from excluding or expelling those who broke strikes or were Conservative party members.

But the government has to bring UK law into line with European law after Aslef, the train drivers' union, won a landmark case in the European Court of Human Rights which upheld its right to expel a driver who was a BNP activist.

A spokesman for Thompsons solicitors, the trades union law firm, said: 'The amendment would mean a union could expel or deny membership to someone whose membership of a political party runs contrary to the union's rule book.'

The BNP has 10,000 members across Britain and 46 councillors. Labour is worried that under the proportional representation system that will be used in European parliamentary elections next June it could secure seats in three of the 12 regions.

Experts say that, under the list system, the BNP would need as little as 7.5 per cent of the vote in northwest England and only 11 per cent in Yorkshire and the West Midlands to install Euro-MPs in the Brussels and Strasbourg parliament. Labour also fears the BNP could become the largest party in two councils - Barking and Dagenham in Essex and Stoke-on-Trent - in next year's council elections if its anti-foreigner rhetoric struck a chord during the recession.

MPs, anti-BNP campaigners and lawyers say the bill as recently amended in the Lords would leave the law in limbo and not guarantee the right of a union to eject BNP members. Nick Lowles, director of the anti-fascist group Searchlight, said: 'The current wording of the Employment Bill leaves us in the worst of all worlds. Aslef would still not be able to expel Jay Lee [the BNP member at the centre of the original European Court ruling] and unions would be left open to further legal action from the BNP.'

Lowles said the amendment would give clarity, letting unions discipline and, where necessary, get rid of individual members for activities contrary to a union's rules and constitution.

A Department for Business spokesman said: 'This is a very delicate issue that involves people's rights to freedom of association and their political beliefs. The government's approach will strike a balance between these rights. Our present position is in line with the cross-party opinion in the Lords and Parliament's Joint Committee on Human Rights.'

Observer

Reinstate Section 18 - Join the campaign to allow unions to expel fascists

The House of Lords has recently altered a section of a Government Bill that would have allowed trade unions to expel BNP members and other fascists from their ranks. In doing so, the Lords have actually made the situation for trade unions even more difficult. Under the revised Bill, trade unions will not only find it more difficult to remove fascists but individual BNP members will actually be afforded more protection than any other trade unionist.

Section 18 of the Employment Bill was introduced in response to a European Court of Human Rights ruling that upheld the right of ASLEF to expel a BNP member from its union.

However, we now find ourselves in an even worse situation. A legal opinion on the Lords amendments concludes: "If the revised version of section 18 comes into law, I am convinced that it will become more difficult than ever for trade unions to expel BNP members. It will also be an opportunity for the BNP to pick publicity fights with trade unions, and also to waste trade union funds."

Trade Union Friends of Searchlight (TUFS) is launching a campaign to get MPs to reintroduce the original wording when the Employment Bill returns to the House of Commons this autumn.

• We believe that fascism is incompatible with the ethos of trade unionism. Trade unionism is built upon the concept of solidarity whilst the BNP seek to divide people on grounds of race, colour and religion.
• We believe that trade unions should have the right to exclude members of the BNP and other fascist parties from their membership.
• Unions should not be liable for any financial loss incurred by fascists if they are quite separately disciplined, overlooked for promotion or even sacked by employers after the union itself has taken action, as the Lords' amendments now state.
• We call on MPs to either discard the Lords amendments or introduce new wording that is favourable to unions.

To support the campaign to Reinstate Section 18 click here.