Michael Foster - Pushing 1984 style politics.

The Labour MP for Hastings and Rye, Michael Foster, has called for members of the BNP to be banned from working in the public services, after it was revealed that the Department of Work and Pensions had granted permission to two of its employees to stand for the party in the forthcoming council elections.

A Labour MP is urging Gordon Brown to ban members of the BNP from working on services dealing with the public after it was revealed that the Department for Work and Pensions has given permission for two civil servants to stand for the party in next week's local elections.

Michael Foster, MP for Hastings, is taking up the issue after the Public and Commercial Services union objected to Frank Swayne standing in Hastings and Daniel Thorlby standing in an inner city ward in Newcastle upon Tyne. Foster said yesterday: " It is outrageous that the DWP should have allowed these people to stand and I am asking the prime minister to look at this. We should follow the example of the police who do not employ members of the BNP because they would be perceived to be racist when dealing with the public."

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS, plans to launch an attack on the department's decision at the Love Music, Hate Racism rally in Victoria Park, east London, on Sunday. He will say: "This department is supposed to be about helping some of the most vulnerable people in society, and promoting equality. How can it possibly be right for active BNP members to be working there?"

Swayne handles claims from single parents at the Hastings Child Support Agency office while Thorlby handles pensions claims in Newcastle.

A DWP spokesman said: "Standing for election as a local councillor is, for a civil servant at this level, permitted by the civil service management code."

**Does he not grasp free speech, the right to express a view different to that rubber stamped by New Labour and the EU? The right of free speech and free assembly, as well as the right to hold whatever views one wishes is one of the cornerstones of our nation.

Mr Fosters party has eroded those rights for so long since gaining power that they now fail to even see comments like his as a problem. Since when did joining the BNP mean that they should have to lose their job?

Were that a Tory making a comment about sacking from his company who was standing for New Labour the howls of outrage would be heard from every Labour MP..

Maybe he should cast his small mind back to the days when people in this nation had to fight for the right to vote, the right to join a union. I could make a comparison with the Chartists and many others but fear it would be lost on Mr Foster.

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