EDUCATION ASIDE, BNP MANIFESTO OFFERS LITTLE IMPROVEMENT IN EQUALITY

Our fifth manifesto to review from an equality perspective is that of the British National Party.

By far the strongest aspect of the BNP manifesto in relation to equality is their education polices. They propose the reintroduction of sporting and academic competition and by reverting to a more traditional syllabus - policies which would perhaps start to close the gender education gap. There's a promise to rid schools of political correctness, which would at least rule out brainwashing kids with sexist messages about domestic violence.  There's also a promise to challenge gifted pupils, which is inline with Conservative policy. Finally, the strongest part of the policy concerns higher education with the party stating "politically correct degrees have also proliferated and while they may be of use to ‘equalities’ minded left-leaning councils, they are of little use to the productive economy". The BNP promise to withdraw subsidies for such degrees and even wish to see "ideological balance in university faculties" which would certainly put many of the bigoted women's studies professors under the microscope.

Another interesting aspect of the BNP manifesto is the fact they'll hold the media to account for publishing falsehoods and slandering people. This would be particularly useful with regards to the media coverage of dubious rape prosecutions or domestic violence allegations which prove to be false.  especially as such laws also promise a right of reply.

The BNP promises to close the council run diversity schemes, something likely to increase fairness. It would certainly be positive to see an end to the plethora of sexist "women-only schemes" such as ones relating to business especially as many are failing anyway. There's also a promise to close the Equality and Human Rights Commission. There's no doubt that this organisation has huge flaws at present, though I'd argue the BNP might be wrong here. Just because the organisation totally ignores large sections of the population doesn't mean they need shutting down. Why not just get rid of the worst staff and force the organisation to be fair, honest and non sexist in future? Either way it's at least a positive that the BNP have raised such concerns.

The BNP has some reasonable economic polices, they favoursfocusing on science, technology, engineering and manufacturing, sectors of the economy in decline under Labour. More jobs in such areas would help many of the real victims of the recession.

As with UKIP, the main downside of the BNP manifesto from the perspective of gender equality relates to crime and punishment. For example they seem to be rather fond of the government's DNA database stating "A person’s DNA is only added to that database when in police custody for a recordable offence", therefore suggesting they have little concern for false allegations and concepts such as innocent until proven guilty.

Whereas so many other manifestos have polices that are sexist towards men, the BNP actually take the opposite position and discriminate against women instead through their "married man's allowance". Don't' get me wrong , it's brilliant to encourage couples to stay together, but benefits need to be payable to husband and wife, rather than just one aprtner. Admittedly this isn't a sexist as some Conservative or Labour polices as the money ultimately will be shared between the two parties in most cases, but principles are important too, and despite the relative lack of harm, such a policy sends out completely the wrong message regarding fairness.

The BNP's response to family breakdown is actually very disappointing in other ways too. They seem to recognise some of the issues around the edges, for example noting on the section on economics that "a child may be better cared for at home than in a day-care centre". Similarly they note how the cost of legal services is too high and they do have policies to address the financial incentives for separation as discussed above. However, there's no mention of family law nor shared parenting. Such absences are  compounded by the length of the manifesto - it extends to some ninety pages, so it's not even as if they've been omitted just to keep things concise.

In conclusion we should certainly commend the BNP education polices. Some of their ideas for higher education in particular are hugely impressive and have a few decent ideas on local government issues and Quangos too. The party's offerings on the really key issues such as family breakdown really aren't at all impressive though, and if anything actually discriminate against women. I find this particularly disappointing given how the BNP supposedly prides itself on tackling the tough issues. The BNP is marketed as being different to the other parties and while there are glimpses of this, they're actually very similar to the likes of Labour, both in their ignorance of many issues and in their tendency to pick on particular groups.

John Kimble

Comments

[sim s]

Oh no way, this is an awful idea.

Look, the Rights of Man Blog is an excellent site, and provides a lot of important and useful information for men's rights campaigners. However, even to take the BNP seriously is to do them a favour which they simply don't deserve.

The BNP philosophy is based upon hatred and intolerance; the men's rights movement strives to appeal to rationality and fairness. In short, steer clear of those evil scum and just concentrate on fairness and equality instead. That's my advice.

[amfortas]

Well, sim s, hatred and intolerance eh? I tolerate all parties equally. A pox on them all.

[John Kimble]

Thanks for commenting Sim.

We try to take a balanced approach to the issues on this blog and in the interests of fairness and inclusiveness are reviewing as many manifestos as possible.

Just because most people wouldn't want to vote for the BNP doesn't mean we should exclude them from this exercise. They have elected politicians who's polices need to be examined so they can be held to account.

If we exclude parties with politicians who appear to hate certain segments of the population then we wouldn't have been able to examine the Labour manifesto either.

[Research Term Papers]

Underestimation is not good, but I am relatively new to blogging and just recently figured out what “do follow” and “no follow” mean and the significance. I still don’t really understand how to figure out if a particular blog or forum fits which category. That’s why this list is so valuable to me. I will be bookmarking it and spending time here.

[New Jersey Divorce Attorney]

It's always the question of nature versus nurture with the education of children. We try to teach children the dangers of domestic violence and the ways of a successful, caring relationships. But society these days puts across a different message through different entertainment media, and because of this violence and divorce rates are up. We need to make the appropriate changes to the education system to try and counteract this trend.