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Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

The National Union of Students has a reasonable list of banned organisations.

Al Muhajiroun; British National Party (BNP); English Defence League (EDL); Hizb ut Tahir; Muslim Public Affairs Committee; National Action

Some of these are proscribed organisations in the UK, eg https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-action-becomes-f...

The problem is that local branches go much further, and ban many more people.

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The BNP was nearly destroyed by their appearance on question time. The more publicity they get the less people like them.

I'm not sure that was the main factor in their decline. I think it was more that they were internally divided over what direction the party should take. The members that wanted the full-fat fash street violence left for the EDL. The remnants weren't able to effectively compete with UKIP's money and ground game at elections.

Is the British National Party an actual political party? If so, it does not seem reasonable to me that they are banned, unless they ban all political parties.

Favoring some political parties over others should not be allowed.

The BNP formed from the National Front, an extreme far right organisation.

They have one elected politician, in local government, I think it's fair to say they're an extreme minority voice in British Politics these days.

The leaders of the party have criminal convictions and their rallies are known for violence

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party#Associa...

I think the very small list is reassuring. They're not banning all extreme right wing parties. UKIP isn't on the list, for example.

What rating out of 10 does "extreme" denote in terms of right-itude?

"far" seems to start at about 3/10.

Like I say, they haven't banned UKIP (which is seen as a strongly right wing group), but they have banned the BNP.

If the bans started at 3/10 then UKIP would definitely be banned.

BNP members went on to form paramilitary organisations that are linked to the murder of immigrants.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_18

> Combat 18 is an openly neo-Nazi group that is devoted to violence and is hostile to electoral politics, and for this reason Sargent [the founder of Combat 18] split decisively from the BNP in 1993.

They occassionally win local election seats and have been invited to take part in televised debates including on the BBC.

The BNP is not a proscribed organisation.

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