Someone has leaked an old BNP members list and put it on the internet, and this gives the names of about 12,000 people, with their addresses and other details, including their occupations (BNP leak names 48 in York, The Press, November 20). Some of these people are soldiers, policemen, prison officers, teachers, doctors, vicars, dentists, journalists, senior businessmen, bus drivers, shop owners and a host of other jobs. Many of these folk now fear attacks on them and or their children and possibly losing their jobs. That is a terrible state of affairs.

The BNP is a legal political party just as are Labour, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens, UKIP and the British Communists. No member of any of those organisations would come under such scrutiny and abuse – where is the fairness and democracy in that? People are now asking: “What do you do if you find that your dentist is a member of the BNP?”

My answer to that is “nothing”. I have never considered what political views my doctor, nurse, dentist, newsagent, plumber, or car mechanic have. So long as they do a good job, it should not matter one iota what their political support, their religion or other private concerns are. So long as they keep politics out of their work and do not try to “convince” others, fair enough.

Some people are worried that a teacher who is a BNP supporter might try and favour the white children or teach history in a biased way.

What if he is a music or piano teacher? Should he lose his or her job? Certainly not.

What people, and especially politicians, should be asking is the far more significant and important question: why are all these well-educated, sensible, well-respected, hard-working, decent folk, joining the BNP?

The answer is, of course, frustration and despair.

David Quarrie, Lynden Way, Holgate, York.

• Though I do not condone the teachings of the BNP, I was always led to believe we lived in a free and democratic society where you could voice your opinion on any kind of subject without fear or contradiction.

We have a Government and Opposition which are full of people who are totally out of touch with reality.

They are made up largely of men and women who got their positions in Government because they have read about politics in university, and came up through the ranks because they can tell the head people what they want to hear and not what is happening in real life.

In this so-called free and democratic society we are watched in everything we do, whether it be walking, driving, even sitting on a bus or shopping, you are constantly monitored by the Government on CCTV.

They hold DNA on thousands of innocent people, even little children. They are even talking now about every phone call, email or any other kind of communication being monitored by a Government department.

They say that this is to stop terrorists, so do they count any one who disagrees with them as a terrorist? Even Nazi Germany did not have as much information on the populace as the recent governments of this once great, free and democratic country.

The sooner we get back to the system where politicians go into Parliament for a vocation and the good of the people of the country, and not to get on a gravy train where their sole aim in life is to make as much money as possible in the shortest possible time for themselves, the better off the country will be.

T J Ryder, North Lane, Dringhouses, York.

• With reference to your report of November 20, it is surely wrong in a supposedly democratic society that British National Party members should be barred from jobs in the Prison Service or from any other occupation.

The Prison Service says their motive for barring BNP members is because they are racist, but the BNP has always denied being racist.

BNP members are perfectly capable of leaving their political views at home and adopting an impartial attitude at work.

I am a BNP member and in my job come into frequent contact with migrants, but in 30 years have had only one complaint from them – far less than from white people.

One of the country’s top employment law firms, enraged by the witch hunt against BNP members, has offered free representation to any members threatened by their employers with dismissal.

Also in your report, Coun Alexander states the BNP is a “party which blames all the ills of the world on those who are not like them”.

We do not. We blame them on the Labour Party – to which Coun Alexander belongs – and the Conservative Party, both which over several decades of misrule have created the racial problems we now have.

Trevor Brown (York BNP group organiser), Newbury Avenue, Acomb, York.

• You couldn’t make it up. Some disgruntled former BNP member, presumably yet another who has quit the party after discovering its real nature, posts their membership lists on the internet. And before you can say “Adolf Hitler” the so-called champions of free speech are spluttering out furious, if vague, threats in an attempt to maintain their secrecy.

Perhaps some of us might have more sympathy if we hadn’t had abusive phone calls off BNP supporters in the past, or seen our names and photos posted on their internet sites.

As it is, for the BNP to demand privacy and even invoke the Human Rights Act (which they oppose for other people!) is typical hypocrisy.

The anti-racist majority in York need to stand together and speak out. Ben Drake, Chair, York Unity, c/o York City UNISON, Mill House, North Street, York.