By Their Fruits You Shall Know Them
Should a political party nourish and protect racism within its ranks? Well, if it is the KKK, it's very raison d'etre is racist, so of course it should and would protect racism. Should that party be deemed a legal association? Maybe. Maybe not. But that is not what is primarily at issue here. The question is whether racism should be tolerated within a political party. The answer to that question is in the hands of the political party itself.
Freedom of speech and freedom of association (fundamental precepts of a free society) require that the rest of society respect the right of some to gather together to advance a racist platform. But, of course, that leaves the rest of society free to pillory (figuratively speaking) the party and its platform . . . as the US has done with respect to the KKK.
This leads us to consider the depths to which the Labour Party in the UK has sunk. Even The Guardian, Labour's representative within the media, finds itself in a quandary. Should it criticise the Labour Party for its embedded racism, or not? Again, from our perspective, the UK Labour Party is free to become a political party with a racist platform if it so chooses. It appears increasingly obvious that racism is the new normal--at least to many within it.
