This is an article on the Daily Mail online news.
Followed by a posting on the BNP website:

BNP ordered to stop taking new members after judge rules entry criteria are 'illegal'

By Sophie Freeman
Last updated at 5:19 PM on 12th March 2010

The British National Party was today barred from taking new members after its amended rules of application were deemed to be still racist.

Judge Paul Collins declared the far right group's membership rules illegal, and said the party was 'likely to commit unlawful acts of discrimination within the Race Relations Act'.

The BNP had agreed to remove its whites-only policy following a legal challenge by the government's Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).


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BNP leader Nick Griffin arrives at the Central London County Court, where a judge ruled today the party's new membership rules are likely to discriminate against non-white people

The party had previously stipulated that only 'indigenous caucasians' and people from ethnic groups 'emanating from that race' could join.

But it scrapped that clause - after months of delay - at an extraordinary general meeting in February.

However, the EHRC decided to challenge the new rules, claiming that they still amounted to indirect racism.

Sitting at Central London County Court, Judge Collins issued an injunction ordering the group to comply with race equality laws.

He said: 'The membership list will have to be closed until then.'

The hearing had been told that, under the new rules, applicants would be subject to a two-hour home visit by BNP officials.


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Richard Barnbrook leaves court this afternoon

It is only a couple of each,' he said, adding that there were two Chinese people on the list, several Sikhs and several West Indians.

He said that if the party was forced to pay £60,000 in costs it would have 'some effect' on the general election campaign 'but not a huge amount'.

Judge Collins ruled: 'I hold that the BNP are likely to commit unlawful acts of discrimination within section 1b Race Relations Act 1976 in the terms on which they are prepared to admit persons to membership under the 12th addition of their constitution.'

The judgment found that, while it is not unlawful to hold discriminatory views, it is unlawful for such principles to be used for controlled entry to a political party, the EHRC said.

Susie Uppal, director of legal enforcement at the commission, said after the judgment: 'The commission is glad that today's judgment confirms our view that both the BNP's 11th constitution and the amended 12th constitution are unlawful.

'Political parties, like any other organisation, are obliged to respect the law and not discriminate against people who wish to become members.

'The BNP will now have to take the necessary steps to ensure that it complies with the Race Relations Act.

'This matter could have been resolved last year by the BNP changing its constitution properly, rather than believing that it could find a way round discrimination laws so that it appeared to be open to members regardless of their ethnicity, while in practice continuing to prevent them from joining.'

The decision to change the BNP constitution came after the far-right party held an extraordinary general meeting in Essex on February 14.

Following the change in the constitution last month, millionaire Asian businessman Mo Chaudry said he would apply to join the party to 'fight them from the inside'.

But he was told his application would be blocked.

Mr Chaudry, 49, from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, said earlier: 'They have no real intention of allowing people like me into the fold. It is just a camouflage to appease the system.'

Anti-BNP campaign group Searchlight described today's judgment as a 'devastating personal humiliation' for Mr Griffin.

A spokesman said: 'His desperate attempt to give the BNP a veneer of respectability in time for the general election has been torn to shreds.

'The BNP has been proven in court to be as racist and extremist as ever.'

Weyman Bennett, general secretary of Unite Against Fascism, added: 'The cosmetic changes that Nick Griffin tried to make were exposed as not being honest.

'I believe the BNP wants to pervert our democracy in order to introduce racist policies into the mainstream.'


NOW THE BNP SITE:
As of this tine 7:40pm Fri 12th March 2010
Both posts are online.


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BNP Membership Reopens Despite Race Gestapo’s Attempt to Subvert Democracy

Membership applications to join the British National Party are now again open despite the state’s best efforts to subvert the party and democracy, Nick Griffin MEP has announced.

Speaking after the conclusion of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) court case today, Mr Griffin said the court had in effect ruled that political parties could not ask its members to endorse policies which oppose mass immigration.

“The court ruled that sections 3.2.1 and 3.2.3 of the BNP’s new constitution could not be set as conditions for membership of the party as they would discriminate against ethnics,” Mr Griffin said.

Section 3.2.1 of the BNP’s new constitution reads as follows:

Our party is a party of British Nationalism, both ethnic and civic, and we are committed to the principle of national sovereignty in all our British Homeland affairs and of self determination and sovereignty in all Indigenous British affairs.

We are pledged to the continued creation, fostering, maintenance and existence of the unity and of the integrity of the Indigenous British and of the government of the countries of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and of Eire,


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which together, and as further expanded in Schedule 1 (“Interpretation Rules”), are referred to in this, our constitution, as our “British Homeland.”

Section 3.2.3 reads as follows:

We are pledged to stemming and reversing the immigration into our British Homeland that has, without the express consent of the Indigenous British, taken place since 1948, and to restoring and maintaining, by legal changes, negotiation and consent, the Indigenous British as the overwhelming majority in the make-up of the population and expression of culture in each part of our British Homeland.

“The court has ruled that these clauses, which are part of the membership conditions as stated in section 4 of the constitution, makes it impossible for ethnics to join the BNP,” Mr Griffin said.

“We, of course, disagree with the court’s opinion.

“There is no correlation between being opposed to mass immigration and the opening of membership of the party,” Mr Griffin said, adding that he knew members of ethnic minorities who were just as opposed to mass immigration as any indigenous British member of the party.

“Section 3 of the BNP constitution is protected and cannot be changed except by an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of the party,” Mr Griffin went on.

“The new constitution grants the party’s leader the power to change all non-protected parts of that document to comply with the law, without the need for EGMs.

“Section 4, which deals with the requirements for membership and includes the demand that members support all the principles of the party, is not protected.

“I have, therefore, with immediate effect changed the section 4 requirements, as I am entitled to do, to comply with the court order,” Mr Griffin continued.

“What this means is that people can apply to join the BNP without having to endorse and support the principles of the party.

“Everyone knows this is a mad situation, and it has set an astonishing and extremely dangerous precedent for all parties.

“It is a complete subversion of democracy and is in reality an attempt by the state to order the citizenry what policies they can or cannot believe in.

“The bottom line is that the BNP’s policies remain exactly as they were, particularly the demand for an end to mass immigration.

“I have changed the non-write protected constitution to comply with the court order and the amended version will be published online well within the 30 days set our constitution.

“Membership applications are therefore are now open and the 7000-strong backlog will be processed in the order in which they applied,” Mr Griffin said, adding that any ethnic who had applied to join the party would wait in turn like anyone else to have their applications processed.