Working at the GLA it is sometimes difficult at times to be totally divorced from the goings on up river. As if carried by the Thames itself the handiwork of the great and good eventually makes its way to the foreshore of City Hall and beyond.
You may remember that last week in Westminster there was an attempt to ban British National Party members from involvement in trades unions via amendments to the Employment Bill. Thankfully this pernicious piece of nonsense aimed at keeping Labour’s abusive tentacles around the throat of the union movement fell because of the vindictive and specific way it was aimed at the BNP.
During the debate one or two Conservative MP’s decided to draw the attention of the House to the concept of actually banning far left groups from trades unions in the same way that the bill was levelled against the BNP.In fact there was a specific mention of the communist movement in this country which considering the allegiances of several Labour MP’s seemed to cause a bit of a stir.
You might have thought that an ideology responsible for the murder of an estimated 100 million people in the last century would have had few people prepared to stand up and openly speak in its defense. However these comments attributed to Liberal Democrat Dr Evan Harris would appear to indicate otherwise:
I find it hard to decide whether the Conservatives just pick and choose their human rights. The hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr. Stuart) appeared to compare the BNP’s racist ideology with communism. There is no comparison between the threat to individuals’ welfare, in the workplace or outside, posed by the racist ideology of parties such as the BNP and any such threat from the ideology of communists, however much the hon. Gentleman may disagree with that. That is why although my sympathies, as a member of the British Medical Association, which is as close as I can get to being a member of a trade union in my profession, are entirely with the trade union movement in terms of its perspective, my sympathies and support are also with the Government on the wording of their clause
Posted by: Richard Barnbrook
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