Bigots intimidate with no-fee lawsuits
The British train drivers' union Aslef was recently sued for libel by a member of the British National Party after a Virgin train driver was called a racist in Aslef's magazine, the Loco Journal. The plaintiff, who stood for the BNP as a candidate in the London borough of Bexley in 2002, called himself "pro-white and pro-British"; the British far right have stopped bashing Jews now that they see a few more votes in attacking Pakistanis instead. Aslef ended up paying out £30,000.
Today, a representative for Aslef's legal firm writes that Aslef were not in fact "defeated", but paid out because it would have cost them hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend the suit, which they could not have recovered from the plaintiff because of the "no-win, no-fee" arrangement under which he sued, an arrangement not available to defendants. This means that the cost of defending a libel action can run into the annual salary of 100 journalists, meaning that these writers have to find "tame descriptions" of the BNP's policies.
