After castigating Ed Balls for his mealy-mouthed appeasement of religious critics of his sex education bill, here is something he got right.
He has said that membership of the BNP should not be prohibited for teachers.
Now obviously I’m no fan of the BNP and their blatant racism, but to ban somebody from employment because of their political view, no matter how onerous is anti-democratic in the extreme. As it is BNP membership precludes a person from serving in the police or prison service. This is wrong too IMHO unless membership of any political party is disallowed.
What a person believes cannot be policed in this way. What they actually do however can be and as long as the expected checks and balances are in place to prevent them propagating those beliefs and they behave in a professional manner I don’t see a problem.
Let’s face it I don’t want stupid religious shit taught to my children, but I wouldn’t deny an evangelical Christian a job as a teacher all the time they left their immoral views at home.
There is another aspect to this, if a person is a member of the BNP, we know they are likely to be racist and we can be on our guard against any attempts at indoctrination in the classroom. The ones to watch are the racists who don’t’ advertise.
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