Certain postal workers are refusing to deliver BNP election leaflets. They claim they are offensive and they don't have to do so due to a 'conscience clause' the CWU agreed with Royal Mail that means its members don't have to deliver material "if they feel threatened or it is against their personal beliefs". The Royal Mail has a constitutional obligation to deliver these leaflets.
As with all these issues the question is how far do you go? Would we want postal workers to distribute child pornography? Of course not, but child pornography is illegal. Do we want fundamentalist postal workers (of any religion) opting out of delivering atheist material? Not really. Being an atheist is still legal in this country. If you accept a job as a postal worker, you are inevitably, on occasions, going to distribute material you don't agree with or is against your personal beliefs.
The BNP is still a legitimate organisation, although both its leaders and membership indulge in questionable activity. Sharing platforms with the Klu Klux Klan I don't consider to be acceptable politics. And they are driven by racism. They promote repatriation, an end to all immigration and support the rights of 'ethnic white Britons'. Whoever they may be. The Ghurkas' cause must have confused them big time.
Campaign magazine quite rightly got an earful for offering a platform to the BNP's deputy leader Simon Darby, a man with white supremacist sympathies. Campaign had a choice and made the wrong decision. Under current legislation, the Royal Mail does not have that choice. But I can see why a black or Asian postal worker would not want to distribute something that is designed to create hostility towards them.
The traditional, liberal part of me says that democracy dictates that the postal workers should deliver these leaflets. The political, instinctive animal in me tells me they should not. I'd follow my instinct every time.
