The BNP is not a banned party, and we just have to accept that

In all the fuss about the leader of the BNP going to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, I am inclined to go with those who say just ignore it, don’t give the BNP the oxygen of publicity, and the Queen is quite capable of dealing with the situation, especially as she has had to entertain some pretty nasty foreign tyrants in her time.

But there is one point which must be stated yet again.  

The BNP is a registered political party in this country, just like the other political parties.   It has to be in order to field candidates at elections.   It is not a banned party.

Whilst this is so, the party is entitled to go to Buckingham Palace Garden Parties and all other events in the national calendar.   What is more, the leader is going as the guest of a duly elected member of the Greater London Assembly, who has been given an invitation just like the other members of the Assembly.   It comes to something if we are to question whether Mrs Bloggs, the guest of Cllr Joe Soap, is fit to go to a garden party.

I have to commend the officer of the Assembly who took that view, saying that the BNP elected councillor had as much right to be invited as all the other councillors.    It contrasts sharply with another council a few years ago, where the council staff announced that they refused to work with a newly-elected BNP councillor.   That councillor, too, had been properly elected, and the disgraceful conduct of the staff should have resulted in disciplinary action.