Call for BNP public sector ban
Union leaders have called for a ban on BNP members working in public services and called for a huge campaign to counter the threat of fascism.
The TUC Congress said urgent talks should be held with the Government about extending the current ban on BNP members working in the police and Prison Service.
BNP membership was "incompatible" with jobs in teaching, the NHS and other parts of the public sector, said the TUC.
Delegates at the TUC Congress in Liverpool lined up to attack the BNP before holding a silent vigil outside the conference centre to press home their message.
Janice Godrich, of the Public and Commercial Services union, said the election of two BNP MEPs and local councillors was partly explained by a "collapse" in votes for Labour. "It is not acceptable that you can be a fascist at weekends, yet work between Monday and Friday accessing confidential information of members of the public."
Tim Wilson, of the National Association of Probation Officers, said it was wrong that BNP members could work in the profession, while Nick Kusak, of the Professional Footballers Association, said: "We cannot allow the extremists and the right to seize the initiative and take us back to the Dark Ages."
Meanwhile, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said the UK's economy has "fallen off a cliff" and will only start recovering when unemployment starts coming down and decent jobs are created, a union leader has said.
Mr Barber warned that bad economic news was not over as he hit back at suggestions that the economy was recovering. "Green shoots mean little when thousands of people a day are joining the dole queue," he told the opening session of the TUC Congress in Liverpool.
"Bumper bonuses are an obscene joke when it was our money that rescued the banks, and it is our public services that are now being told they will have to face the consequences. It is only when unemployment starts coming down, only when we create decent jobs that pay decent wages and only when vital public services are safe from cuts that we will be able to talk about a real recovery."
