BNP supporters would be persecuted
SWP/UAF/Searchlights definition of "No Platform"Interest article over here on The Waterfront. In fact being pushed for time, I am just going to cut n paste it and highlight relevant parts of it. Here you go....
THE DEPUTY leader of the British National Party Simon Darby fears that BNP supporters at Swansea University would be “persecuted” if they revealed their political allegiances.
The BNP’s deputy leader told The Waterfront that they probably did have supporters at the University, but that they fear that they would not be safe if they made their views heard.
“We probably have got people in Swansea University, no doubt about it,” said Darby.
“If we did I wouldn’t tell you, the Socialist Workers would drive them out, probably with the help of the student newspaper.
“They would be persecuted.”
In response to whether there were BNP members in the local police force, the BNP’s West Wales Regional organiser Brian Mahoney told the South Wales Evening Post that the BNP do have “members everywhere” .
This comes after a list of party members was leaked on the Internet revealing that there are 62 BNP members in Swansea, including a secondary school teacher.
The Socialist Workers’ Party student office said that they support the Students’ Union’s no platform policy.
“We don’t engage in debate with Nazis,” a source from the Party said. “We wouldn’t allow them to have a platform. “We would build a campaign around them, we hold the stance of no fascists on campus.”
SU president James Houston said that individual supporters who revealed themselves as BNP supporters might have an argument on their hands with fellow students but nothing more sinister than that.
“The Students’ Union has a no platform policy much like the National Union of Students,” he said.
“But we almost don’t need a no platform policy because if any BNP activists wanted to do anything on campus, they would be clamped down quickly by the police because they are a massive risk factor for riots.
“Particularly in Swansea, it’s a strange place for them to claim they have numbers here because it’s a multicultural diverse university.
“Last week in Fulton House you had three stalls: the Islamic Society, the Christian Union and the LGBT, three very different organisations but there is also an awful lot of respect.
“I think if you said to someone in your lecture ‘I’m a BNP supporter’, you would have an argument on your hands but I don’t think you would be necessarily driven out.”
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