iBlockhead wrote:
The key phrase is "allow them to join"...isn't it true that ex-BNP, ex-Neo Nazi, etc. who joined UKIP before 2008 cannot be kicked out?
Yes, that's true. That's when the rules were put in place.
They can be kicked out if they break the rules, but if they don't then we can't remove them.
We also recently kicked out an ex-BNP member from UKIP.
I'm sure you're aware of the case of Martyn Heale, the chairman of Thanet South branch. He was a member of the National Front in the 1970s for a brief period, something he now much regrets. He later left the NF as he had gotten grief from fellow party members for having a non-white girlfriend (who he later married). He was then a member of the Conservative Party for over 20 years before joining UKIP.
However, as far as I'm aware, the main three political parties do not have any particular rules against ex-BNP/ex-neo-Nazis joining them. As I've said, the Labour Party allows ex-BNP councillors to join them without any fuss being made.
We occasionally do have the far-right trying to get involved with us - we always tell them to get lost in no uncertain terms, although our biggest problem is that sometimes our local activists are a bit naïve and don't know who the nasties are. I had to bring it to their attention who a known local white supremacist politician was who contacted us over Facebook, for instance.