JOHN Hoodless asked why it was only now that the BNP was taken to court, rather than ten years ago, over not accepting coloured members (HAS, Oct 29).

Given he’s the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Darlington, I’d have hoped he’d understand the situation.

The answer is simple. Having a membership policy based on race is perfectly acceptable (legally speaking, at least) if you’re not receiving public money. As I’m sure Mr Hoodless and his fellow demagogues would point out, there are many such groups dominated by non-whites. The problem came when BNP members were elected to the European Parliament, at which point they became accountable to a new set of laws.

Nick Griffin and his party like to portray themselves as the honest citizens taking on the money-grubbing incumbents. If this is true, why then did they not choose to refuse this new European income and stick to what they claim to believe, rather than amending one of their most basic policies? Easy – they’re as greedy as the rest.

Pete O’Connor, Durham.

THE BNP’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Darlington, John Hoodless, claimed (HAS, Oct 29): “All the BNP wants is a curb on immigrants coming into this country and taking our jobs.”

This is strange, because it was only a matter of weeks ago that BNP activist Adam Walker wrote that immigrants “create vacancies as fast as they fill them” (HAS, Sept 15). They couldn’t, therefore, be a threat to British jobs.

It’s also totally dishonest to claim that curbs on immigration is “all” the BNP wants, given that the party remains committed to the “voluntary repatriation” of anyone belonging to an ethnic minority, irrespective of whether they were born in the UK, how long they’ve been here or their contribution to the country.

Christopher White, Spennymoor, Co Durham.