There is an interesting story about Simone Clarke, a ballerina with the English National Ballet who has incurred the ire of many by being an outspoken member of the neo-fascist British National Party (and who happens to also have a Chinese boyfriend). Calls have been coming in thick and fast for her to be sacked by all the usual suspects.
Lee Jasper, equalities director for the mayor of London and chairman of the National Assembly Against Racism, said: “The ENB must seriously consider whether having such a vociferous member of an avowedly racist party in such a prominent role is compatible with the ethics of its organisation. I seriously doubt that it is and that should lead to her position being immediately reviewed. I think she should be sacked.” He called on funders and David Lammy, the arts minster, to intervene.
As the ENB gets tax money, it is inevitable that this becomes a political issue, which is yet another reason no artistic organisation should ever be given public money for any reason whatsoever. However I really have no fundamental problem with the owners of a company or institution sacking people or refusing to hire them in the first place for no other reason than they do not like them (which is not to say I necessarily think firing someone because you dislike them is always a good idea). Just as Lee Jasper wants Simone Clarke to be fired, I would probably be disinclined to hire Lee Jasper to work for me because I just do not like people who support using the law to abridge the right of people to freely associate and dis-associate. Oh I share his aversion to racists (though Simone Clarke can hardly be a conventional white supremacist given that she has a Chinese-Cuban boyfriend), I just despise people who want to use the the state to back their social prejudices with the violence of law.
I am perfectly happy to state my prejudices and to act on them to whatever extent suits me on my own property and perhaps to try and get them acted upon within any company I have any degree of control over, but I do not expect my views to be imposed as the law of the land. So although the issue of the detestable tax funding makes this a more murky issue, if I was one of the Nobs at the ENB, I would hire and fire on whatever criteria I thought was appropriate to the job. If the bosses think being a member of the BNP is bad for their ‘business’, they should feel free to sack Simone Clarke. If they feel her nasty fascist politics make not a jot of difference to her ability to do the job and other considerations do not matter, they should tell the people calling for her to be fired to get stuffed… but it should be their call (and of course that will only be really true if they stop taking tax money to support themselves).
Given that a bolshy aparatchik such as Jasper will have spent quite a lot of his career threatening employers with unfair dismissal proceedings on behalf of one or other comrade, it is interesting that calling for people to be sacked out-of-hand for their views should be part of his repertoire. However, such thugs often seem to think that the law only exists as a political instrument, and don’t get the idea of procedural equality at all.
Whether you ought to be able to sack someone for their beliefs is not in doubt. Whether you can without paying a large sum in compensation in Tony’s Britain is highly dubious. Only a very limited number of grounds for dismissal are potentially fair, of which only the boggiest category of all, “some other substantial reason,” might apply to beliefs unconnected with the employment role.
If the reason can be appropriately formulated, then:
So even if the ENB were convinced that membership of the BNP or belief in its policies – the official version of which is hard to distinguish from New Labour’s in a bad light, save for its solid opposition to ID cards – were a substantial reason for dismissal, then the company would probably have to offer her an opportunity to recant in order to be acting reasonably in the situation leading up to the decision. It would certainly have to have a hearing and appeal satisfying the minute requirements of the ACAS Code of Practice.
It couldn’t just sack her to curry favour with Mr Jasper. Unless it were to give a big payoff out of its grant-finding.
Perhaps that’s the key to the conundrum. If there’s always someone to pick up the tab for a political stunt, then in Mr Jasper’s world only the politics matters. The consequence is someone else’s problem.
I believe Yat-Sen Chang is Cuban, actually 😉
Cuban Chinese in fact, wonderful combination. In other circumstances this would make him an ideal victim figure.
The more important issue here is whether the Guardian is going to get it’s tiny little balls sued off by the BNP and everyone who’s privacy it infringed through it’s contempt for the data protection laws.
God, I do hope so.
The only reason that the lady is currently “Vociforous”
is because she was outed by a courageous undercover reporter going for a “Hard” story. Hmm. So how many Madrassas have they infiltrated lately?
The only question that need concern the ENB is can she dance? For if she can, and is not chanting Niggers out in the middle of the Nutcracker, then that’s all they need to know.
Idiot Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council, opines that this will lessen the opinion of minority communities toward the ENB.
Well strewth! They will go bankrupt without all those muslim ballet fans wont they!
I have no time for the BNP, but the ladies views are her own.
Especially when she did not ask for them to be made public.
I have no time for the BNP, but the ladies views are her own.
Quite.
On the practical point, I might feel more motivated to sack someone for being New Labour, which I find marginally more repugnant as a party and a whole lot more dangerous (though I imply no judgment on individuals here, and I know some very pleasant, if wrongheaded, Labour members). But I strongly doubt that an Employment Tribunal would regard it as “fair” to do so. If that is the case, then it ought also to be unlawful to sack someone for being a BNP supporter, and if it is not, then things are very bad indeed.
In a word: yes.
The BNP are not “neo-fascist”. I suggest you read Sean Gabb’s article.
And yes, it is legal to sack someone for their political opinions. Since the Sex Discrimination and Race Equality legislation came into play it’s also legal for employers to discriminate on the grounds of race, but only against white people. It’s perfectly legal to advertise a job in Britain for ethnic minorities only but not for whites only.
You say that you ‘despise’ Lee Jasper? Why? Sure, you disagree with him, but why such anger towards him personally?
As Perry makes clear, one of the problems with issues like this is that the clear lines of argument get fogged up when taxpayers’ money is involved. Once money that has been coercively taken from people is spent on the arts or whatever, that means that the people who have been forced to pay for the arts have a claim in the people who run the arts and what they do.
Abolishing arts subsidies is not just the right thing to do by taxpayers. It is also the right thing to do in preserving the autonomy of those people and institutions involved in the arts, and for encouraging better stuff than much of the mediocre crap encouraged by some arts subsidies.
Perry’s analysis is spot on.
A similar issue cropped up here last year. A Nebraska State Trooper (a police officer, employed by the state rather than a city, and tasked primarily with traffic matters, for our English friends) was caught joining the KKK. He was fired. He then sued, and the NSP was forced to reinstate him.
Wrong outcome then, IMHO, just as it would be wrong to fire this ballerina. In the one case, he’s a public official required by oath to “Preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Nebraska against all enemies foreign and domestic, and bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and faithfully discharge the duties of…” I took the same oath (albeit in a different state) and IMHO one cannot be a member of a group like the Klan and still actually abide by that oath of office.
What makes him different from the ballerina is the matter of power. A cop has the authority to deprive people of their freedom or even their lives. A cop who’s also a Klansman is too much of a risk for abuse of authority, improper use of force, etc.
A ballerina, well, what’s she going to do to act on objectionable beliefs? Refuse to dance if black people are in the audience? Her position has no real power to be abused, which IMHO makes her views irrelevant.
I think Perry is right that a private individual or business should be able to sack someone for their political views. It’s their property, after all.
But the state shouldn’t be allowed to do this, provided those views don’t directly interfere with activity in question. It’s not their property – it’s ours, and Simone Clark is a member of the public too.
But can he dance?
If someone mugs you on the street, should you “hate the crime but not the criminal”? I say you should hate the criminal because a crime has not mugged you, a person has (in fact ideally, you should shoot the criminal, which is a highly effective way of conveying one’s displeasure as well as a means of self-defence).
I also take the view that anyone who wants to use force (the intimidation of law) to prevent free association is detestable… not just their views, them personally. Politics is not a sport and it is not a game, it is the way the collective means of coercion are employed and if you do not take people’s political actions personally, then I would suggest do not understand what is at stake.
I must disagree. Certainly the BNP are not a Nazi-like party (i.e. calling for extermination of Jews/Blacks/Gays etc.) but they are indeed fascists and clearly hail from that tradition (i.e. regulated economy ‘right-socialist’ with a dollop of racism thrown in).
And I suggest you read my whole article, not just the first paragraph 😉
Perry
“If the bosses think being a member of the BNP is bad for their ‘business’, they should feel free to sack Simone Clarke”
I can’t agree.
The BNP is a legal party. They are loathsome but so are the Conservatives. Private companies should not be able to sack people for their legal political beliefs.
Is a rational discussion of Fascism an oxymoron? My reading of Popper’s view of Plato seems to include some admiration. Plato’s belief that some are born to rule has been shared by many, not necessarily evil people, throughout history. Noblesse Oblige etc. Another option, again followed in history or indeed in some places in the world today, is the strong tyrant. If you can keep on the right side of him/her; you will be protected from all the other buggers. In the western democracies the system involves allowing those, who are best at convincing people to vote for them, to rule. Although, Yes Minister suggests that it is civil servants who actually rule Britain. Another possibility is that a professional body for politicians’ should be brought into existence and then only those who passed the exams etc. and obtained chartered status should be allowed to rule. Any other ideas?
So what if they are legal? Private companies are exactly that… private companies. Why should the state be allowed to tell them who they can and cannot hire and fire unless there is a contract involved (in which case it may indeed be a matter for the courts but for very different reasons)?
I find Cameron and Blair every bit as loathsome as Nick Griffin but that is my point… I should equally be free to refuse to employ Tories/Labourites/People Who Wear Yellow/Jews/Whites/Fat Chicks/People who sound posh/Chavs/Gays/non-Gays or whatever other criteria I think is appropriate, how ever bonkers those criteria might seem to you or me. If I am a director of a company responsible for employment, it should be between me and my shareholders who I do or do not employ.
Provided people do not cause physical harm to others, or urge others to commit violence, they should be free to pursue whatever crazy notions they like. They should also be confident in the knowledge that they will not be fired for arbitrary reasons.
How can a company, even a private one, be able to suddenly fire a bunch of its workers, merely because a new Director doesn’t like their race, religion, views, gender, weight, height, eye colour etc?
It is one thing to ban people whose views you do not like from a blog, but another altogether to cause one to lose their job and livelihood.
One of the great things about a market economy is that if a company follows wacko policies, they will lose to companies which are more enlightened. Also just because a company should be allowed to fire people because they are, say, Jews, people should also be allowed to stand in front of their offices with signs saying “Do not give your money to these bigoted jackasses!”. In the information rich world of today, unreasonable behaviour is increasingly hard to hide.
Just because I think it is none of the state’s damn business if a company is capricious, that does not mean I think it is a good idea for a company to act in such a way and I am all for heaping (economically damaging) social opprobrium on people who are racists/bigots etc. In the end, that is actually far more effective than any ‘Race Relations’ laws.
Whenever I’ve had to interview potential recruits, I’ve usually found that all candidates I choose to interview have the skills I’m looking for (I find that from their CV, assuming it’s honest, which I why I take up references). The interview is to decide if they will fit into the existing department without causing friction.
If I can’t refuse to employ someone merely because their views would alienate their colleagues and cause me to lose good, experienced staff, why should I waste time interviewing? How can I run a department like that? If appropriate, I would refuse to employ a jew if I had a strong team who all happened to be anti semetic. I would also refuse to employ an anti semite if my team was predominantly semetic.
But here’s the rub, Mark: what happens if you live in a country where the majority of the population is antisemitic?
Regardless of her position within the ENB, Simone Clarke clearly has no place being a member of the BNP. The Chairman of the BNP Nick Griffin has previously written, “Do I regard someone who is married to or living with a partner of another race as a suitable member or candidate for the BNP? No, because by their choice they have clearly shown that they do not share our most fundamental values.” http://www.bnp.org.uk/articles/race_reality.htm
Either the BNP must expel Clarke or continue down the slippery slope of compromise for the sake of a few more council seats. The BNP should be a white party for white people, not a mixed race party for race mixers. Where will it end?
Then it may be hard to get a job if you are Semitic and no amount of laws are going to help (and if you live in a democracy in which that is the case, I would guess the laws will reflect that majority anti-Semitic view). Yet in truth being Semitic (at least being a Jewish Semite rather than an Arab Semite) does not seem to make it hard to get a job in all the Western countries I have even been to.
Of course it is not hard for a Jew to get a job in all those Western countries, but that is at least partially due to the fact that virtually all of them have laws that forbid discrimination based on race/religion/gender etc. And virtually all of them have been discriminating Jews/women/gays/blacks as recently as 100 years at most, as far as I know.
But here’s the rub, Mark: what happens if you live in a country where the majority of the population is antisemitic?
By way of an analogy. I am a libertarian, but I live in a country where the majority is either authoritarian or supine, so I’m planning my emigration. Trouble is though, the countries I like culturally are unacceptable politically (and my reason for leaving is mainly political), while the countries I like politically are less attractive (to me) culturally. Those views alone could make me a poor fit in some departments I’ve worked with, so I’d best shut up now!
PS: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity, as long as they spell your name right”. That last “E” is important to me.
That is some analogy…
Courtesy of Wikipedia:
Purely on the basis of what I have read here, I wonder too about the appropriateness of any payment from the public purse, for unelected persons expressing such views about membership of political parties whose views they do not agree with.
[I do hope that it is needless to state that the above says nothing concerning my views of any political party; just of our political system. But, as I doubt it, I’m stating it!]
Best regards
In a word: yes.
Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge at January 4, 2007 07:51 PM
Do you really think that or do you just believe it should apply to BNP members? If people could legally be sacked for their political beliefs any manager could cite political beliefs as a reason to sack someone they don’t like. A Labour trade union hack working for a newspaper could sack the trainee who turns out to be a member of the Conservative party.
And another thought. If people on here seriously believe it’s ok to discriminate and sack people based on their opinions then presumably you include religious opinions in that? You believe it’s ok to sack someone for being a Christian, Jew or Muslim?
The libertarian viewpoint is that it can be OK for the owner of a business to sack an employee for any reason whatever, including religion, hair style, annoying high-pitched voice, or just because they felt like it, just as it is OK for an employee to resign from or not apply to an employer for any of those same reasons. It is a mutually agreed contract, and unless the contract contains terms forbidding unfair dismissal (as is implied under British law) or unfair resignation, the contract can be dissolved simply by giving a months notice (or whatever the terms might be).
In truth, this is merely an implication of the libertarians belief that people should be able to make contracts with whatever terms they like – if an employer wishes to attract employees by offering certain guarantees of fairness, they can do so – but that it is not the role of the government to insert extra clauses or insist on certain conditions in what should be a private matter between individuals. Caveat emptor, and you get what you pay for.
That said, many of us also believe that sacking people for such reasons is a bad idea, and likely to be a losing strategy in the market, just as employees consistently resigning on such grounds is a bad idea. And there is an argument that the additional effort/cost of everyone constantly having to check every term in every contract for abstruse legal implications is a burden on the market that it would be individually beneficial to collectively lift. I personally wouldn’t mind it if such fairness conditions could be legally taken as the default, and exceptions had to be explicitly and prominently advertised, but the problem with collectively imposed terms is that when the collective does the wrong thing there is no way for the market to correct it. The market could get it wrong too, and everyone in the nation might refuse to employ non-Muslims, for example, but it is a lesser risk. And if that was the result of some other externally applied authoritarian coercion, such as religious edict, libertarians would oppose that separately.
Yes but… it is not ‘ok’, it is just that it should be legal.
MarkE,
why should I waste time interviewing?
Given the state of UK employment law, you shouldn’t. Interviews are such a minefield. You should issue insanely detailed person specifications, conduct psychometric tests through a third party, and chose randomly from those people who match the paper qualifications best, having demanded to see their original or certified-copy documents first. (Do request a sealed envelope with the application outlining what reasonable modifications you will have to make to the office/working hours to deal with any disability, family commitments or religious obligations they might have, in the event they are successful.)
It won’t guarantee you get someone you can work with, but at least you won’t get sued by any of the disappointed candidates.
One imagines that when it was decided to give public funds to the ENB, the idea was that the money should be used to keep it stocked with folk who can dance to a certain standard. If Miss Clarke fits the bill, then what’s the problem? Surely it is that simple. Whether she’s a fan of the BNP, National Front, Combat 18, or Adolf Hitler himself is completely immaterial, provided she can do the job she was hired to do. I imagine that most of the British public would take a pretty dim view of her outing by the thought-police.
She’s a dancer: she holds no position of political power or influence. I suppose some might argue that she’s a “role model”, and her views might corrupt young minds, but I doubt your average wannabe ballerina is interested in Miss Clarke’s views on race — and that’s assuming they’d ever heard of her in the first place (who had, before this?). Moreover, her political views would be appreciably less well-known to her fans (and thus less able to influence them) had it not been for a piece of desperate, dirt-digging journalism.
Of course, one can conceive of cases in which it would be improper for public funds to be used to salary certain individuals — they would have to be very influential people with views which are far-removed from the general public’s own, and which may indeed result in observable harm to individuals or to society. But if we went around firing folk on this basis, who’d be left to run the country? 😉
Surely it’s ultimately a question of appropriateness: were it discovered, say, that a member of the cabinet spent his weekends screaming racist slogans at Screwdriver concerts, or attending Marxist rallies, then that would call into question his political judgement and thus his ability to do the job he’s been elected to do. If it’s discovered that say, a ballerina has a history of recurring ankle injury and she’s kept it secret from her employers, then that would call into question her ability to do the job she’s paid to do. If it’s discovered that she’s a closet admirer of Nick Griffin or Nick Ross or Nick Jackson — or that the cabinet minister had a capricious ankle — then….well what, exactly?