REGARDING your report (LET, July 3) on the British National Party councillors' 'refusal' to debate their policies with the rest of the council in Burnley, the role of opposition councillors is not to debate party policies in the council chambers, but, rather, to check and question the decisions of the controlling group putting forward alternatives when appropriate.
The BNP councillors are accountable to the party and to the public who voted for them and not to the controlling Labour group.
If any councillor does not keep or attempt to keep promises made in their election manifesto, democracy will inevitably have a role to play in the next council elections. It is not for the Labour/Liberal dictatorship to orate to elected members on party policies. It is, after all, the taxpayer who supplies the funding for all council meetings. This should be used with respect towards those who provided it.
As to the question of British National Party policies themselves, they are not a question for council debate. The constituents who voted for the BNP will know what they were voting for and will have conducted their own debates, private or otherwise, on the various subject matter contained within.
COUN ROBIN EVANS, British National Party, Blackburn with Darwen Council.
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