The trade unions UNISON and GMB complained to a company Serco Ltd , regarding one of its drivers, a Mr Redfearn who was a BNP councillor.
A large proportion of the company's staff are of Asian origin, and the company took the view that under Health and Safety Law,in order to avoid any risks to customers and staff, it would be within their rights to dismiss someone who held Mr Redfearn's vile views.
Redfearn was dismissed, and he subsequently made a complaint to the Employment Tribunal for racial discrimination.
The ET heard Redfearn's complaint, and threw it out. On appeal to the Employment tribunal, Redfearn won on a technicality.
The case then went to the Court of Appeal
In deciding the case, the Court of Appeal unanimously held that the ET was correct in not following the 'Showboat' case, as the decision there was meant to protect those who refused to implement an employer's racially discriminatory policy.
Those who refuse to comply with an anti-discriminatory policy being pursued by a company (ie members of the BNP) can not expect to be protected by discrimination law. In trying to use Race Discrimination Act to protect one of its members, the BNP was cynically attempting to abuse and undermine a law specifically introduced to extend equal treatment to all of this country's citizens, and to protect them against those who would bring divisive and racist ideas into the workplace.
That Serco's decision to dismiss Redfearn involved racial considerations, ie that many of Serco's customers and workforce were Asians and that Redfearn was by way of his membership of the BNP a self-declared racist, did not mean that he was dismissed on 'racial grounds'. In the words of Lord Justice Mummery, Redfearn was 'no more dismissed on racial grounds than an employee who is dismissed for racially abusing his employer.'
The police has now also introduced a policy of excluding BNP members from its ranks.
© Workrep 22/8/2006