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BNP to vote on membership changes BNP votes to change race rules
(about 13 hours later)
The British National Party will hold an extraordinary meeting later for members to vote on amending its constitution to let black and Asian people join. The British National Party has voted to scrap its whites-only membership rules after an extraordinary general meeting.
The BNP has been threatened with a possible court injunction over its whites-only membership policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Members who had gathered in Essex voted to amend the party's constitution to let black and Asian people join.
A court has told the party its rules must comply with race relations law. The BNP had been threatened with a possible court injunction over its whites-only membership policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
BNP leader Nick Griffin has said ethnic minority members will be "welcomed" if they back the BNP's aims. The party must now go back to court in March when a judge will decide if the new rules meet race relation laws.
He said: "They'll be accepted, they'll be welcomed, providing they're there to do the things that we want to do, and providing they accept and agree with our principles." BNP leader Nick Griffin told the BBC News Channel: "We had to do it for legal reasons. Many of our members think it's a good thing.
Backing urged "A lot of people said we should have done it some time ago but that's really by the by.
After a hearing at the Central London County Court last month, the BNP sent letters to its 14,000 members informing them of the proposed changes. "Our problem with this is a government funded, taxpayer-funded quango telling people who they can and can't associate with, [which] is a fundamental outrage.
Mr Griffin has urged party members to back the changes to its constitution, saying it must "adapt or die", but he also condemned the commission's actions as "cynical and despicable" and a "waste of public money". "Nevertheless, we recognise legal reality, so we have done it and now, for one thing, they can't call us racist any more."
In the proposed new constitution a BNP member, whatever their racial origin, must be someone who "bona fide supports and agrees with each of the principles of the party". At a Central London County Court hearing last month, there were questions over whether amendments proposed to the party's constitution would go far enough to satisfy lawyers from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), in particular over the use of the term "indigenous British".
But BNP deputy leader Simon Darby said further changes had been made since the court hearing and the party now believed it had overcome the "major obstacle that has stopped us from complying with the law".
The section of the constitution that could viewed as discriminatory against potential ethnic minority members had been removed, he told BBC News.
But he said he could not comment on the precise wording until it had been seen by EHRC lawyers, which would happen within the next seven days.
He said Mr Griffin had the authority to make further minor changes to the wording if the EHRC was not satisfied.