As the BNP began to take unions to court for attempting to expel BNP members from the union, the Institute of Employment Rights' submitted its thoughts on s 174 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 to the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The report was prepared by Keith Ewing and John Hendy and is available here

One union, ASLEF, pursued its case against the BNP through to the European Court of Human Rights. The ASLEF legal team used the arguments as outlined in the Institute's report relating to Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and ILO Convention 87.

On 27th February 2007 the ECHR found in favour of ASLEF (download) and agreed that a union should be free to determine the Rules by which the union is governed. This case has profound and positive implications for all unions.