My initial reaction to the letter sent by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to the British National Party was to welcome it. Recently I’ve become more and more frustrated with people who believe that simply declaring the BNP ‘fascists’ or ‘Nazis’ – and urging those who never had any intention of voting for them not to do so – is in some way a sufficient response, so to read that the equalities watchdog is taking some concrete action to oppose them was encouraging. However, on reflection, I am concerned that the repercussions of this move might themselves be quite undesirable.

The duty under which the EHRC is acting is that to prevent discrimination by political parties, so it has asked questions about the BNP’s constitution, membership criteria and recruitment practices. As it says on its website, “the Commission has required the BNP to provide a written undertaking that it will not discriminate contrary to the Race Relations Act in its employment and recruitment policies, procedures and practices”.

If the BNP wishes to continue to exist it is likely that it will comply with the request, otherwise it faces costly legal action which, although bringing it welcome publicity, could see it bankrupted. So it will change its constitution and everyone will be happy that the law is being followed. Maybe they’ll try and put up a bit of a fight, but they’ve had a taste of power now and are unlikely to want to relinquish the hold they’ve gained.

This will do nothing other than render the BNP an increasingly acceptable political party. There will be less stigma attached to voting for its candidates, whilst its leaders and members will remain free to think and believe bigoted thoughts that will continue to underlie their policies and actions. They will continue their external transformation from thugs to politicians, altering the way they dress and speak, but underneath they will still be bigots.

The changes that are being requested are necessarily external, unless we wish to start prosecuting people for thoughtcrime, and therein lies the danger; a pig in a silk hat is still clearly a pig, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing is less easy to spot. That is, its constitution makes it very clear what the BNP stands for, whatever its leaders wear, so why would we want it changed?

The only way we are going to tackle the BNP and similar organisations is by exposing them for what they are – by publicising the contents of their constitutions and allowing them air time to hang themselves with their own words. If we force them to cover up their true beliefs and deny them freedom of speech, all the public will see are underdogs railing against the government, the lone person fighting the system, and the political attraction of such a sight cannot be underestimated.

In asking the BNP to ‘clean up its act’ we do just that – ask it to act differently but not to be different. We don’t ask it to actually change, and, indeed, this would be pointless, for it is what it is. What we should want is the demise of organisations whose beliefs are based on bigotry and discrimination, not to mainstream them. The best way we can do this is to engage such people in open debate, not forcing shallow aesthetic changes upon them that may make us feel better about ourselves but in reality change nothing.