BNP ON QUESTION TIME
There is a good article on this at Liberal Conspiracy by Chris Dillow
The question of whether the BNP should appear on Question Time raises a worrying question for the health of our democracy.
Matthew Syed thinks the BNP should appear, on the Millian grounds that:The more oxygen they are given to publicise their views, the more the British people will choke on their bigotry and hatred.
But this runs into Paul Sagar’s objection – that QT is not a platform for debate but merely a zoo in which soundbites are vomited into an audience who clap like hyperactive seals.
There’s a danger that Nick Griffin could actually emerge well from such a show.
His imbecile beliefs lend themselves better to cheap slogans than do arguments in favour of immigration – especially as viewers have been primed by the trash media to give credence to such beliefs, and as his opponents are likely to be discredited ministers who lack the courage to make the case for immigration.
Indeed, as Bart Cammaerts notes, Belgian experience suggests the far right does gain votes as it gets media coverage.
Which raies the question: where are the arenas which do permit a sufficient exercise of public reason as to expose the BNP for what they are? Of course, there are websites that do this, and occasional reports, even from the BBC, that do so.What we lack, though – especially outside the internet – is an infrastructure or culture that can underpin deliberative democracy, and can improve public discourse. The BBC seems to think its job is to merely reflect a public opinion which has been debased by its private sector rivals.
Without such a public sphere, the BNP – far from withering from the oxygen of publicity – might actually thrive with it.
In this sense, the question of whether we should give a platform to the BNP is a knotty one precisely because the institutions needed to sustain a truly healthy democracy are weak or even absent.
And a more controversial view from A Very Public Sociologist
Most readers will now know the BBC is entertaining the possibility of inviting Nick Griffin onto Question Time. As you would imagine this has sent some sections of the left into howls of rage. Some have argued this gives the BNP the layer of “legitimacy” and “acceptance” they crave. Others have said Griffin should not be afforded a platform to spout his racist drivel.
This is the stock response we should expect from establishment anti-fascism. No doubt tomorrow’s press release from Unite Against Fascism will wag its finger at the BBC and ask if the editors know the BNP is a Nazi organisation full of Holocaust-denying freaks and people with criminal records. Nor would I be surprised if the UAF commit itself to picketing future Question Times Nazi Nick has been invited to.
The problem with all this is it plays right into the BNP’s hands. We may not like it but the BNP has successfully built up a semi-stable, semi-localised electoral base who are receptive to what the fascists have to say. A core element of their propaganda is a persecution complex where the BNP are victimised by powerful forces for daring to tell the “truth”. This is compounded by anti-fascists attempting to no platform the BNP without offering a rebuttal of their racist narrative. In the minds of casual BNP supporters it looks as though they have the establishment running scared.
Underlying this commitment to a no platformist strategy is a thinly veiled belief the BNP’s target audience - white working class people - have a hard time thinking for themselves. They need shielding from their Nazi lies because there’s a danger at any moment they’ll become slobbering racists.
I for one have much more faith in working class people. If they can see through the bollocks regularly churned out by Gordon Brown and co, they are more than able to see Griffin for the thick prejudiced tosser he is.
good post! There is nothing more humiliating than watching UAF scrabbling around desperately as if it was the seventies. The only problem would be someone on the liberal side of things chosen to question him. I know not many people like Galloway these days, but I think he would absolutely demolish him. Even if it didn’t go according to plan, how could that not be good telly…..
Comment by david — 8 September, 2009 @ 12:31 pm
There is some sense in what VPS says.
But, whatever the rights and wrongs of “no platform”, how can we allow a situation to exist where Griffin appears at a TV studio and nobody is there outside to protest against him?
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
So what should the balck working class do, VPS?
Comment by Richard Farnos — 8 September, 2009 @ 1:02 pm
The VPS is very wrong to write that the BNP’s target audience is “white working class people”. The BNP’s target audience is white people across classes. Fascists promote the most naked racism possible because their aim is to create a monoculture purged of “alien” elements. The BNP is no more a working class party than the fascist parties of the 30’s - it appeals across classes including to lumpen and petty bourgeois forces.
The BNP does not have a point. It has a prejudice. This is the opposite or a “debate”. It is a life and death struggle against the vilest people and ideas produced by class society.
And isn’t it touching that some seem to think that Question Time is a forum which somehow allows reason to triumph over mistaken ideas.
Does the BNP want to appear? Yes. Do they believe they will gain from this? Yes. Could it be that they understand media manipulation better than some on the left?
This is best illustrated by the issue of Islamophobia. The BNP knows that under existing legislation it cannot simply spew out its core message on racism. But existing legislation does allow it to promote attacks upon Muslims which channel society’s racist bile.
Some opponents of the BNP do not grasp this, and fail to defend Muslims in the process. This is the equivalent of not defending Jewish people in the 1930’s. It is then not surprising that such people want to “debate” the BNP. This is a slide into pure liberalism. “Free speech” over the defence of black people, and particularly over the defence of Muslims.
Yes, fascists get elected. That is not “democracy”, that is another illustration of how capitalism promotes inequality, prejudice and vile bigotry over the lives of oppressed people. No invitation for fascists!
Comment by StevieB — 8 September, 2009 @ 1:10 pm
AVPS is spot on. ‘No platform’-ing plays into the BNP’s hands and should have no future.
If the BNP do appear, I pray that proceedings are not interrupted by some UAF/SWP numpty standing up and shouting. That would just send a few more thousand votes Griffin’s way.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 8 September, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
Please arrange for some ASBO in dreadlocks to start yelling about racism during the show and the BNP vote will increase.
Comment by Lord Snooty — 8 September, 2009 @ 3:11 pm
Isn’t there a bit of a confusion here? I have always understood “No Platform” as an essentially working class policy whereby trade unionists, members of student organisations and socialist political parties etc do not share political platforms with fascists (or invite them onto our platforms). I know that the term is sometimes used to describe other anti-fascist activities that are intent on breaking up fascist meetings or marches - but this is not the question we are dealing with here with regards to the BBC.
So the BBC obviously does not fit into this broadly labour movement list and I am not really expecting it to adopt a “No Platform” policy itself (AVPS seems to be saying that UAF will be calling for them to do this - will they?). Instead, surely the main question is whether socialists should appear on the BBC at the same time as the fascists - and I think that the answer to that is still a resounding “no”. So Galloway should definitely not debate Griffin.
Other questions also arise. Should trade unionists at the BBC try to disrupt the programme in any way - maybe by working to rule, or withdrawing their labour? And should anti-fascists demonstrate outside the studios when the programme is going ahead? I would still answer these questions with an unhesitating “yes”, although I do appreciate that trade union influence on management decisions may be quite limited and that a letter of protest (may be published in a national newspaper as well), might be the limit of the action possible by trade unionists at this time.
But a number of people on this blog seem to be against “No Platform” altogether now and this surprises me a bit (not just in this thread but in other recent ones too). To those people - where do you disagree with what I have written above?
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 8 September, 2009 @ 3:14 pm
I think the idea that the BBC has to have the BNP on Question Time on the grounds of impartiality is laughable. Exactly how many times were spokespeople from the Stop the War coalition or even the Greens invited onto the main evening news bulletins, Newsnight, Question Time or even the Today Programme and given an equal chance to debate the issues in the run up to the war in Iraq?
Instead we had to sit through “debate” after “debate” between the mainstream parties who essentially all supported the war (the Lib Dems weakly, as ever).
The BBC knew that millions opposed the war but wouldn’t give opponents air time. Some impartiality!
If all the mainstream parties refused to appear then the BBC couldn’t stage a “balanced” Question Time. Any one supporting the BNP’s appearance can have my place at the head of the queue for the gas chamber. Decent, “liberal”, countries imprison holocaust deniers - we give them free air time.
Hope this arrives on the right thread this time!
Comment by Bill Scott — 8 September, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
SP#7
I’m sure you’re right re your use of ‘no platform’, and I’m sorry for confusing the issue.
Refusing to debate Griffin is obviously different from trying to disrupt any appearance of his on QT. The latter, as I have said, in my view clearly plays into the BNP narrative of being victims and martyrs of the PC/liberal elite, and would also just annoy ordinary voters. The former (refusing to debate with him) is trickier. But if he can’t be shown to be an idiot in a debate, then those debating him don’t deserve to be on. I have a basic fundamental sympathy and respect for the belief that the BNP can best be beaten in the market place of ideas, not by censorship. Allowing them to be heard also seems to me be the democratically right thing to do, and the left should always have a deep respect for democracy.
Comment by Jonny Mac — 8 September, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
#9 Jonny, I understand your point of view but I do profoundly disagree with you.
I am not in favour of democratic rights for fascists - but I also do not support the state banning political parties or restricting their activities. This is because what may start off directed at the right may end up being used against the left (see the history of the Public Order Act 1936, renewed in the 1970s, for an example).
Basically, the worker’s movement needs to deal with the Nazis whenever they appear. So in this particular “Question Time” scenario, I would be in favour of trade unionists pulling the plug on the programme if they were strong enough to do so and instead they could broadcast a “No Platform” and anti-fascist message for the programme’s duration.
Also, I would be in favour of anti-fascist demonstrators blockading the venue to stop Griffin getting in, and even occupying the venue so that he could not get his message across if this was at all possible.
I must emphasise - the key thing for me in all this is working class self-activity against the fascists - we cannot rely on anyone else to defeat the fascists.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:02 pm
The idea that the BBC ‘merely reflects public opinion’ is risible. From the war to privitization, the BBC does just the opposite.
As for Leninist contempt for working people, I’d say it runs fairly deep. Apparently we’re incapable of evolving beyond ‘trade union consciousness’ and an obsession with horse racing.
IMO the UAF have done more for the BNP than the Sun newspaper. In fact sections of the left are now in a cosy, co-dependant relationship with the BNP. After all, focusing on the BNP removes the spotlight from the uncomfortable territory of state based racism under Labour, and projects the problem into an imaginary lumpen ghetto. Meanwhile colonial wars continue, editors and academics bemoan the demise of Empire and Gordon Brown asks us to be proud or ‘our’ colonial history. And all of this is brought to you through TUC funding.
No wonder some prefer to shout pointless slogans…
Comment by Dora Kaplan — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
The BNP on Question Time will certainly help increase their vote as they manage to get their racist propaganda out on national television. The Vlaams Belang party in Belgium have been given a platform by the media over the last 15 years and now receive 30% of the vote.
That will be the outcome if the BNP receive a platform on the BBC. A platform of political legitimacy and respectibility was what facilitated Hitler and the Nazis rise to power. All those who want to appease the BNP by giving them a platform are replicating the mistakes of the past that led to the gas chambers.
I am certain that there will be a very big protest if the BBC try to legitimise the BNP in this way. The BBC has never been politically impartial and it is astonishing to read comments from those presumably on the left who claim they are or that they have a duty to give the BNP a platform.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
vps rigth when he said”working people can see through the bollocks of brown and co” and a bet there see the shit put out by the BNP,the thing is WE must take them on territory there campian on.
I hope there going to be a stong left wing on this QT
Comment by Anonymous — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:22 pm
“Basically, the worker’s movement needs to deal with the Nazis whenever they appear. So in this particular “Question Time” scenario, I would be in favour of trade unionists pulling the plug on the programme if they were strong enough to do so and instead they could broadcast a “No Platform” and anti-fascist message for the programme’s duration.
Also, I would be in favour of anti-fascist demonstrators blockading the venue to stop Griffin getting in, and even occupying the venue so that he could not get his message across if this was at all possible.
I must emphasise - the key thing for me in all this is working class self-activity against the fascists - we cannot rely on anyone else to defeat the fascists.”
Great post! What a brilliant strategy. I’d love to turn on the TV and see an anti-fascist message about why the program was pulled. Blocking Griffin from entering the BBC is also a good idea. A number of different tactics will stop the BBC legitimising the nazis.
********************
As for those who claim that the BNP are reflecting the mood of working class people since when have traditional Tory voters been involved in the labour movement? That’s who voted for the BNP. There are millions in the UK who oppose the BNP and they have the right to defend themselves from these violent nazi thugs. The BBC will be giving a platform to a party that advocates throwing bricks through the windows of Muslims. Every anti-racist should be intent on stopping them promoting this vile message.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:25 pm
“Basically, the worker’s movement needs to deal with the Nazis whenever they appear. So in this particular “Question Time” scenario, I would be in favour of trade unionists pulling the plug on the programme if they were strong enough to do so and instead they could broadcast a “No Platform” and anti-fascist message for the programme’s duration.
Also, I would be in favour of anti-fascist demonstrators blockading the venue to stop Griffin getting in, and even occupying the venue so that he could not get his message across if this was at all possible.
I must emphasise - the key thing for me in all this is working class self-activity against the fascists - we cannot rely on anyone else to defeat the fascists.”
Great post! What a brilliant strategy. I’d love to turn on the TV and see an anti-fascist message about why the program was pulled. Blocking Griffin from entering the BBC is also a good idea. A number of different tactics will stop the BBC legitimising the nazis.
As for those who claim that the BNP are reflecting the mood of working class people since when have traditional Tory voters been involved in the labour movement? That’s who voted for the BNP. There are millions in the UK who oppose the BNP and they have the right to defend themselves from these violent nazi thugs. The BBC will be giving a platform to a party that advocates throwing bricks through the windows of Muslims. Every anti-racist should be intent on stopping them promoting this vile message.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:27 pm
I post a comment supporting Stockwell Pete’s strategy and now a ‘Ray’ advocating murdering nazis appears. The trolls are crawling out of the woodwork again and their parody skills are sub Benny Hill.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:45 pm
“how can we allow a situation to exist where Griffin appears at a TV studio and nobody is there outside to protest against him?”
How many council meetings where BNP councillors attend are picketed? Almost none.
The lesson is that you need to beat the BNP in argument BEFORE they are elected, not try to act as self-appointed censor afterwards or, even worse, ask the state to do it for you.
Comment by History Man — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:46 pm
Here here Ray.
I wish people would stop associating neo-nazi holocaust deniers and assorted fascists with working class folk.
Here’s lenin recently on the make-up of the BNP -
Re: New Statesman: Bias and the Beeb
lenin
media lens messege board
4:20 pm 28 Aug 2009
‘…most BNP members are not poor people living on estates. The membership comprises about 28% police, prison officers and security personnel; 13% company bosses and shopkeepers; 8% managers; 9% professionals; 7% artists; 7% HGV drivers and taxi drivers -
See -
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=16519
Their core vote is also lower middle class, not workers living on poor estates -
See here -
http://www.democraticaudit.com/download/breaking-news/BNP-Full-Report.pdf
Comment by joe90 kane — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:48 pm
“I would be in favour of trade unionists pulling the plug on the programme if they were strong enough to do so and instead they could broadcast a “No Platform” and anti-fascist message for the programme’s duration.”
That’s absolutely brilliant. It would be the biggest PR coup for the BNP in their entire history. Does the BNP have people in the UAF, or is this stuff coming from agent provocaterus, or what…?
Comment by Dora Kaplan — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:55 pm
“The lesson is that you need to beat the BNP in argument BEFORE they are elected, not try to act as self-appointed censor afterwards or, even worse, ask the state to do it for you.”
In other words give the BNP a platform like Hitler had in the 30’s and do nothing to stop them controlling the streets. Your strategy really worked, didn’t it? Meanwhile in the UK the no platform strategy stopped the BUF in the 30’s, the NF in the 70’s and the BNP in the 90’s.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
#18- Council meetings aren’t broadcast on national TV.
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
“That’s absolutely brilliant. It would be the biggest PR coup for the BNP in their entire history. Does the BNP have people in the UAF, or is this stuff coming from agent provocaterus, or what…?”
Yes, stopping the BNP from spreading their filth is er…helping them spread their filth. Great logic there Dora. Giving nazis a platform is what led to the rise of Hitler.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 4:59 pm
#20. What stopped the NF in the 70’s was a combination of factors, including Thatcher winning over the majority of their voters.
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:00 pm
10*
While i agree with your sentiments pete, especially about w/c activity to oppose fascism. I disagree with your statement,
“I am not in favour of democratic rights for fascists,”
You go on to argue against state bans, which is good, because a section of the movement have been calling for bans in relation to the edl march recently.
But i can’t agree with your atatement ‘I am not in favour of democratic rights for fascists ‘
the problem is. who decides who is a ‘fascist’? and who decides what domocratic rights are?
are all BNP members fascist?
a BNP supporter?
a BNP Voter?
an EDL supporter?
A EDL sympathiser?
where does hard nationalism become fascism? who decides?
what democratic rights should be withdrawn or taken away from fascists?
the right to speak argue in public? the right to publicise thier views? the right to exist as a legal organisation? the right to …..
I think you can see the problem.
Comment by non-partisan — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:02 pm
I have to ask. Is Ray an agent provocateur or just an angry idiot?
Comment by History Man — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:07 pm
#19 Stop being such a “Fanny”, Dora. I am not in UAF - and why would it be a PR coup for the BNP? More likely it would be an important victory for the labour movement tha would raise our morale enormously - and it would send a clear signal to the fascists that we were developing the ability to block their access to the mainstream media.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:08 pm
#23 Armchair, the NF have admitted that the ANL played a key role in defeating them on the streets before Thatcher made her “swamping” speech. I can’t remember if it was Tyndall or Webster who conceded this. Of course, you are right to say that Thatcher’s “racist turn” had an impact as well.
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:11 pm
“I think you can see the problem.”
Not in the least. The left decides who is a fascist based on their political ideology. Griffin and the BNP idolise Hitler and have openly stated that they wish to emulate the Nazis. The EDL has links with the BNP (a BNP member set up their website and their spokesperson praises Griffin on this website.)
Anti-fascists are opposing a self-confessed nazi and Holocaust denier from the BNP being given a platform on the BBC to legitimise nazi ideology. The Vlaams Belang in Belgium and the FPÖ in Austria are two contemporary examples of how giving a media platform to fascists will legitimise their politics and increase their vote significantly.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
#24 Yes NP, I can see your point. To answer you directly - I would regard all BNP members as fascists in this context. I accept that there is a fascist core/racist periphery dynamic going on with them but essentially they are a fascist organisation. I need to do my homework on the EDL because I am not clear to what extent the BNP are “pulling their strings”. My suspicion is that the BNP is very involved with them so I am very much tending towards the position that our “no platform” policy should be directed at them too.
But to try and move towards a clear demarcation - UKIP are a right-wing nationalistic party, not a fascist party, I think most of us would agree - so our attitude to them would be different, even though they are also pretty odious. I would not be seeking to “no platform” them in the way I would the BNP.
Does this sound reasonable?
Comment by Stockwell Pete — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:20 pm
“I have to ask. Is Ray an agent provocateur or just an angry idiot?”
Perhaps you’re struggling to counter my response to you with a rational argument but resorting to ad hominems doesn’t help your case at all.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:23 pm
28* The left decides who is fascist?
is this the labour party?
unions?
SWP? Communist Party? or some committee of them all? does this apply to individuals as well as organisations? so we scould have banned people as in aparthied S Africa?
Ray this is not serious politics, you and your mates decide who has the right to democratic rights? you really think that is serious?
Comment by non-partisan — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:26 pm
30 - No, I’m just struggling to see why any sane person on the left thinks that the ‘muscular’ approach to countering the BNP will work in current conditions. They have gained ground while being ‘no platformed’, physically confronted and excluded from democratic debate. I believe that as long as they are the party that everyone else wants to gag - by fair means or foul - they have a very potent message to sell on the doorstep.
Wake up - the world has changed.
Comment by History Man — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:28 pm
I tend to look on what VPS say with some favour, but then I think back to last year: Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand, that prank and abusive massages left on Andrew Sachs’s answer phone, in the end after much too do even Ross said it was “thoughtless and juvenile”. The BBC pulled the plug out on Ross suspended him with loss of earnings and for what is in my opinion a much, much, much lesser crime than what has been committed by the holocaust denier and convicted criminal Griffin!
The thousands who found Ross and Brand offensive are but a spatter compared to the tens of thousands who will be offended if Griffin is allowed to appear. The BBC have released the information about the Griffin appearance so as to quell, appease and polish the way. We must flood the BBC with objections now!
Comment by Jim — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
As always from the publicly-subsidised BBC,
top quality comments and top quality debates, not -
Question Time and the BNP
News The Editors
07 Sept 2009
Watch out for a forthcoming special on -
spEak You’re bRanes
Having read a bit of history myself, I’ve always been struck by the fact that open democratic debate and argument was never really as effective against assorted fascists, nazis and neo-nazis as the champions of liberal democracy hoped they’d be.
What made all the difference in the fight against fascism, down the years was how well armed liberal democracy and its allies were, compared to the nemesis of human civilisation they fought against and had to end up physically destroying for the sake of future survival.
I have yet to come across a single liberal democratic argument which managed to close down any nazi gas chamber.
Comment by joe90 kane — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:39 pm
Some posters have claimed that the BNP are articulating the ideas of workers and on this basis they should be allowed to speak.
It’s worth having a look at the polls on the London ‘Metro’ paper. Far from a right wing response to many issues a large majority of voters (67%) are opposed to the BNP being given a platform. They are also overwhelmingly for pulling the troops out of Afghanistan (78%) and Iraq (74%). 73% are against job cuts in the NHS. 84% want bankers bonuses to be capped. And there is even a majority against the 2012 Olympics (50% against/44% for).
http://bit.ly/AqvY4
So the argument that we should reflect the views of the general population doesn’t even stand up in favour of those who want to give the BNP a platform. The truth is that millions of people want a left alternative to New Labour and these polls reflect that. Rather than drawing right wing conclusions people are significantly in favour of anti-war, anti-nazi and left wing arguments.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:46 pm
29* Yes, on the face of it what you said sounds reasonable to me, in terms of demarcating who is fascist and who isn’t, At the moment anyway, things can change rapidly….
part of my understanding of facism is that they organise forces ‘on the street’ to be able to ‘deal’ with the workers movt when the time is ripe.
was enoch powell a fascist? he was in Tory Party, but allied with street mobilisations?
Buchanan in the states? (far right repbulican but who also mobilises the christian right, on the steets in anti abortion activity, anti immigration etc
You see the dividing line may not always be so clear.
But pete, you failed to answer? does ‘no platform’ apply to individuals as well as organisations? and who decides? between racist/far right/nationalist/fascist?
would the orange order be banned?
What other rights should be denied to them? you didnt answe rthat bit, i think its usefull to follow this through.
Comment by non-partisan — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:47 pm
37 - why are you reposting these nutter sentiments? Disappointed that others didn’t take up your ‘kill ‘em all’ warcry?
Comment by History Man — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:50 pm
#37
I have deleted another comment purporting to be from Ray
What seems to be happening is that some troll is parodying Ray and taking it a further to seemingly advocate violence against Nazis.
Comment by Andy Newman — 8 September, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
Joe90Kane @ 18
I’m yet to be convinced that the core of the BNP vote is not white working class. Firstly, the SWP’s analysis of the BNP membership is meaningless - we’re talking about voters, remember. I’d be interested to see the SWP produce evidence that any party - left, right or centre - has significant working class estate dwelling membership. Certainly not the SWP, which I would wager has a larger middle-class membership component than the BNP, so what does that imply? Secondly, your reading of the Democratic Audit material that the core vote is ‘lower middle class’ is hugely contestable. 1. It is seriously out of date. It is based on an exit poll from 2004. 2. It is hardly representative - 22 voters were polled (!). 3. It does not even say what you claim: 54.5% come from classes c1 and c2, 45.5 come from the manual working class and the very poor. That is significant given the widespread political alienation of those classes under New Labour. None came from the managerial or professional class.
Those on the left who have a morbid fear of acknowledging the BNP’s support among the people we should be picking up are actively sabotaging any real fight against fascism. It’s nigh time we faced the truth - the BNP has hoovered up the votes we can’t even begin to attract.
Comment by Another Dave — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
“Ray this is not serious politics, you and your mates decide who has the right to democratic rights? you really think that is serious?”
So how do we decide who is on the left then? If it’s all arbitrary then definitions about political ideology are meaningless in all contexts. If you are correct then why are there anti-Trotskyist insults on this blog by Stalinists? If definitions are meaningless then so too is politics.
How do we know that Marx or Lenin were Marxists? Not just by what they said or wrote but by their actions and the political program they followed. The same is true of the BNP. Griffin and the BNP have made it very clear by their words and actions that they are fascists and support nazi ideology.
The whole purpose of no platform is to stop the BNP from pretending to be champions of democracy and expose them as nazis. Giving them a platform provides them with a veneer of respectability which covers over their real violent ideology. By using no platform to prevent them from promoting their politics and controlling the streets the nazis will resort to ever more aggressive tactics to promote themselves and their true behaviour will be exposed. No one will vote for them once they expose their violent nature.
Griffin is holding back the thugs in the BNP who are straining at the leash to enact their violent agenda. The EDL demos and the recent comment by a leading BNP member about bricking opponents are signs that the BNP are attempting to legitimise their violent behaviour. No platform stops the BNP from spreading its violent ideology and exposes their true nature.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:09 pm
“What seems to be happening is that some troll is parodying Ray and taking it a further to seemingly advocate violence against Nazis.”
Thanks Andy. “Ray” must be pretty desperate to troll in this way.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:14 pm
41*
i don’t know where to begin…
Ray like you i am an anti racist/fascist, part of my first organised political activity was through the ANL in 77/78. i’m sayin this because i disagree with almost everything you said in 41 wich was just a collection of assertions. I think Griffin is a fascist and want the wc to demolish the BNP politically and physically should they attack workers or black/asians people.
BUt how do you ‘no platform’ their hundreds of thousands of voters?
what gives the BNP the ‘veneer of respectability’ is not Question Time or ‘platforms’ and people debating them but the Nu Lab machine providing the political background music on housing jobs etc.
This is the problem, a political one that needs a political response that wins people away from the ideas of scapegoating and racism of BNP- it must be clear, your strategy is not working, the BNP are on the rise, a ‘political platform’ has been created by the politics of NUlab and bristish jobs for british workers etc.
NO platform has’nt and won’t stop the BNP
A political alternative might and could.
Comment by non-partisan — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:21 pm
“Those on the left who have a morbid fear of acknowledging the BNP’s support among the people we should be picking up are actively sabotaging any real fight against fascism. It’s nigh time we faced the truth - the BNP has hoovered up the votes we can’t even begin to attract.”
No one is denying that the BNP breakthrough is significant and a serious threat. A poll carried out recently identified BNP support coming from disaffected Tories some of whom are working class who have traditionally held racist ideas. The membership list of the BNP identified a significant number of their members holding petit bourgeoisie professions. This fits in with the traditional pattern of those who vote for or become members of fascist parties.
We also know that New Labours vote slumped in the area the BNP did well and that voter turn out was a record low. Low enough for the BNP to scrape through even though their vote hadn’t increased significantly. The left was divided during the European Election but it got about 3% of the vote overall. The Metro polls show that in London at least there is significant support for anti-war, anti-nazi and left ideas. If the left can build an alliance before the next election then this will offer a pole of attraction for voters who are demoralised with New Labour.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:30 pm
“BUt how do you ‘no platform’ their hundreds of thousands of voters?”
We’re interested in no platforming Griffin. Without him promoting his lies and attaining legitimacy in the media then there is less chance people will vote for him. The experience in Belgium and Austria confirms that if the nazis gain media exposure they grow significantly.
I don’t see a dichotomy between no platforming Griffin and building a left alternative to New Labour. In fact the more people who get involved in anti-fascist politics and organise against the BNP the more people will be open to building a left alternative.
New Labour parroting the BNP’s racist propaganda is a concern but the nazi LePen stated correctly that racist voters prefer the original to the copy. That’s why we target the fascists with a no platform approach and challenge Brown by fighting back against NL cuts and attacks on jobs. The left is challenging the growing use of racism by the mainstream parties. The fight against Islamophobia is one example of this.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:44 pm
Ray: in Tower Hamlets the fight against Islamophobia requires resisting the demonisation of the Islamic Forum of Europe, which a faction of the Labour Party is doing now. Do you think the SWP are prepared to do that?
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:51 pm
Has anyone noticed that arguments against no platform seem to assume that resisting the BNP helps them? It seems in practice a strategy for demobilisation. The arguments also seem to reflect an acceptance of a whole range of stereotypes about their voting base which socialists should not share. The facts are different. In short the overwhelming majority of people who voted BNP were people who normally vote Tory. There are signs though that liberal anti-racists are regaining their nerve and cutting through this freedom of speech bullshit. No Platform is only a slogan. It depends on a mass movement capable of effective self-organisation against the fascists. The only debate to have is how we get to that situation as fast as possible. And there are of course real tactical questions involved in how to do this.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 6:55 pm
A sensible point, johng. I worry about how some people almost wave no platform as a talisman.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:00 pm
46 not all resisstance john, just denying them democratic rights..not hard to understand that is it?
No Platform is not only a slogan, if it was it would be so bad. No platform was part of your reasoning calling for a ban of EDL last weekend. THe Bham unity event was ‘banned’ not the EDL march, the call for the ban had the effect of demobilising the anti edl forces, as a last minute counter demo was called, after the unity event was ‘banned’. So a real example of No platform forming part of a strategy that effectivel demobilsed the anti facist movemnent.
Comment by non-partisan — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
@11 Dora said
‘As for Leninist contempt for working people, I’d say it runs fairly deep. Apparently we’re incapable of evolving beyond ‘trade union consciousness’ and an obsession with horse racing.
Scratch (as usual)came up with the right label for it on Daves Part, its called ‘PROLEFEAR’
Comment by history tells us things — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:04 pm
johng- bit of a sleight of hand- opposing no platform (which I don’t neccesaraly)is not the same as not resisting the BNP.
There are all types of ways that the BNP could be resisted, and some of them clearly would help them more than hindering them.
I really wish people would argue against what other people actualy say.
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:05 pm
#39
Thanks Another Dave.
I’m not in the SWP.
I was merely passing in some info I thought might be useful in helping people decide about what the BNP is about and where it gets it support from.
I was questioning the assumption that working class folks are naures’s fascists. This same assumption is made as regards football fans for instance.
This is all I was claiming.
People can make what they will of the interesting data-sets of BNP membership list etc
Comment by joe90 kane — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
I have yet to see a reliable report on what happened in Birmingham.
What was banned?
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
Well some of that is understandable. Its always shocking when you find that real gains made by the movement have been forgotten and need to be fought for again. But there is an old story from Greek mythology about a God whose task it was to roll a stone up to the top of a hill only for it to roll down the other side - and then you had to begin all over again. Its the same arguments we heard in the 1970s and in the end most changed their minds and it became an issue of principle for many. My point is that we have to win that argument again. Not that its not an important argument. (apologies to Rosa Luxemburg via Tony Cliff by the way).
Non-partisan your point is a bit skewed. There was an argument about how to ensure that opposition to the fascist presence was as large as possible. There were disagreements about how to do this. Its possible that there were some tactical mistakes (I don’t know I wasn’t there). But most people objecting objected because they thought the fascists should be smashed off the street rather then relying on the State. I don’t see how this involves ‘respecting their democratic rights’. In any case its no-one’s democratic right to throw bottles at, and beat up passer’s by, and intimidate the public. The only question is how best you stop that. The police have issued a statement saying they won’t be allowing this bunch to march in Birmingham again. I think this is a victory. They’ve also issued a statement equating protesters against these thugs with the thugs and threatening to hunt down and arrest those who fought back against their intimidation (specifically referring to Asian youth). This has to be resisted. The State will always be biased against us. What decides things is the balence of forces. And therefore the main arguments have to be how to ensure that the largest number of people as possible are united against the fascists. And this is a perfectly legitimate debate. But I’m not interested in debating democratic rights for Nazi thugs to intimidate Black people (which in practice is what we are talking about here: as anyone who watches the footage can see). Why should this be allowed?
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
Armchair I wasn’t suggesting that all those who disagree with no platform are against fighting the fascists. I was simply pointing out that a large number of people who write into blogs doing so have no strategy aside from suggesting that our politicians debate them: which does imply passivity. Its also true that large numbers of them continue to talk as if the BNP’s base are disenfranchised Labour supporters (when polling suggests that this is not true), whilst the establishment talks about the need to recognise that the BNP are a legitimate Party with a point of view. In the process we see the Labour Party (if such a thing is possible) shifting to the right on the issue, whilst a number of unlikely figures, some of them in the Labour Party some of them not, seem to be rediscovering their old anti-racist credentials, dusting them down, and defending the idea of ‘no platform’. I think this is significant. We do need a real anti-fascist movement. We’re not there yet. But a movement against the fascists will ultimately have to confront them. And this is what we have to build towards.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:19 pm
“Has anyone noticed that arguments against no platform seem to assume that resisting the BNP helps them? It seems in practice a strategy for demobilisation.”
This is compounded by a complete lack of evidence for a coherent and credible alternative to the no platform strategy. The presumption being that either anti-fascists should adopt an undefined alternative strategy based on faith or supposition or follow one of giving fascists a platform which facilitated the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
“The arguments also seem to reflect an acceptance of a whole range of stereotypes about their voting base which socialists should not share.”
I does appear that despite providing the only research conducted about the BNP’s vote and membership some people prefer to rely on unsubstantiated stereotypes.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:22 pm
#52 Armchair, I’ve been collecting links and stories in the comments on the last relevant thread for the Birmingham situation;
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4594
Comment by Eddie Truman — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:29 pm
#56 and looking at the thread again now, lots of good material from Ger Francis.
Comment by Eddie Truman — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
Ray: why do you say no platform facilitate Hitler coming to power? The situation then, and the tactics that w ere pursuant were of several orders of magnitude different. I fear you are fetishising the phrase ‘no platform’.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
“No Platform is not only a slogan, if it was it would be so bad. No platform was part of your reasoning calling for a ban of EDL last weekend. THe Bham unity event was ‘banned’ not the EDL march, the call for the ban had the effect of demobilising the anti edl forces, as a last minute counter demo was called, after the unity event was ‘banned’. So a real example of No platform forming part of a strategy that effectivel demobilsed the anti facist movemnent.”
I don’t see the logic behind your reasoning. First you are against no platform because you claim it doesn’t work and now you chastise anti-nazis for calling for an EDL ban instead preparing for another punch up.
There was a large counter-demo against the EDL that involved violence and forced them to abandon their demo. The EDL called another demo and those anti-nazis who organised the first successful counter-demo asked for it to be banned on the grounds that it would cause violence. There was never any call for not confronting the EDL if their demo did go ahead.
The result of the EDL demo was, as predicted, more violence and 90 arrests. A counter-demo did occur but it was not worth 90 arrests. The principle that all nazi protests should be allowed based on spurious grounds of freedom of speech or building the anti-fascist movement was not vindicated by allowing EDL thugs to attack passers by. In fact, quite the opposite.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:44 pm
VPS refers to a “no platformist strategy”. No Platform is a tactic, not a strategy: the strategy against fascism is to build a political alliance of all those communities and sections of society most threatened by it, based on mass action and public campaigning. Black and Asian communities must be a central part of this due to the central role of racism and Islamophobia in the BNP’s policy and propaganda.
But the fact that ‘no platform’ is a tactic doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter: you don’t concede ground when you don’t have to. The BBC’s invitation to Griffin plays directly to the BNP’s most cherished aim of achieving mainstream respectibility and acceptibility for it’s ideas. This in turn will widen the scope for it to promote more openly racist propaganda (of the ’sink immigrant boats’ variety), fueling an increase in racist attacks and campaigns against mosques etc. The logic of VPS et al’s argument is that Griffin and the BNP are secretly dreading going on Question Time while publicly welcoming it. Presumably they also hate getting elected as it just attracts publicity that will lead to them being exposed.
Comment by greg — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:46 pm
Thing is we don’t even have to go back to the Hitler analogy (although the sight of actual fascists rampaging through a city centre has concentrated the minds of some on the liberal left previously given to fine tuned discussions about the enourmous differences between fascism today and yesterday). We just have to look at Europe. The argument against no platform tends to take (I accept that there are other variants) the form of liberal democratic arguments for freedom of speech, which in turn leads to criminalisation of those confronting fascists. Ideologically it leads to the whole idiotic nonsense about the anti-fascists being as bad as the fascists. This argument will be used, always has been used. The alternative to it lies with mass organised self activity by fascists and anti-racists. The establishment argument against confronting the fascsist does not work. Similarly claims that the BNP like to be victimised. Yes they do. Their whole politics is based on the politics of victimhood. Backing away from no platform will just vindicate them (ie we were intimidated by a politically correct establishment now they have been forced to back down etc). The point is how many people we can get behind us to cut through all this. The alternative is what you saw in most of Europe. These are still marginal political forces. Think how pleased those of us on the left of the left are to get TV appearences. They are relating to a minority. Unlike us thats all they need. About 10,000 hardened Nazis and they will be well on the way to establishing themselves as a major force (membership is still their weakness). They are emboldened every time the BNP take a further step into the mainstream. Treating them like a legitimate force just helps them. As it helped them in Belgium, in Italy and in France.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:52 pm
sorry thats by anti-fascists and anti-racists naturally.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 7:59 pm
“Ray: why do you say no platform facilitate Hitler coming to power? The situation then, and the tactics that w ere pursuant were of several orders of magnitude different. I fear you are fetishising the phrase ‘no platform’.”
The Nazis started out in much the same manner as the BNP. Hitler made it quite clear that if his opponents had smashed the nucleus of the Nazis and prevented them from controlling the streets they would never have grown and taken power. Compare the outcome in Germany to the no platform strategy that anti-fascists used to stop the BUF in the 30’s.
In what way am I “fetishising” no platform? What does this even mean apart from an obscure put down? I’m really not interested in off topic diversions manifesting out of your antipathy towards me or the SWP.
Comment by Ray — 8 September, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
Richard Seymour has an absolutely excellent piece on this;
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/09/case-for-no-platform.html
Comment by Eddie Truman — 8 September, 2009 @ 8:06 pm
This was always going to be one of the consequences of the BNP electing Euro MPs. Griffin’s achievement through election is to have forced mainstream society to cover the BNP equally according to their own rules.
Our London Assembly members or councillors are never given slots on Question Time, but our Euro MPs are. Now that the BNP have the same number as the Greens, the BBC’s impartiality clauses mean they have to cover us both. If the Greens had gained just 5000 more votes (0.3%) in the North West, we would have had 3 Greens and just 1 BNP (Brons). I think the BBC reasonably could have argued they didn’t justify QT.
On balance, I hope that the number of people that see Griffin and his abhorrent views for what they are, outweigh the number of bigoted but non-voting people who are attracted by “dog whistle” racism and the platforms he now benefits from.
Unfortunately in electoral terms, both in the North West and Yorkshire and Humberside, we need 12 more anti-racist voters to counteract each single additional person Griffin is able to attract. Otherwise, come 2014, the BNP will retain these two seats even on an increased turnout.
I have no doubt in my mind that with the huge additional Euro resources in these two regions, the BNP can poll a higher percentage of the vote in 2014, and the Greens will probably need a higher vote than in 2009 to beat them. You only have to look at North West council byelection results in 2008/09 to see how that the BNP can make use of resources to produce real increases in their vote.
Comment by Peter Cranie — 8 September, 2009 @ 8:33 pm
Would those advocating giving a platform to fascists also have advocated giving Oswald Mosley a platform if he was still around? It is disgraceful that the BBC should even consider allowing a disseminator of fascist idealogy houseroom. But there is method in their madness. Splitting the working people, diverting arguments and it goes very nicely with the BBC’s Islamophobia since the invasion of Iraq. The BBC’s right wing bias in all its current affairs programmes is well documented, especially on programmes like Question Time. The representatives of the left that appear each session can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Would the BBC allow Noam Chomsky to appear or John Pilger? Highly unlikely as the BBC one suspects has a list of those mainly on the left who are barred from appearing.
The left for once mount a united campaign to stop Griffin appearing. Labour, Liberal and Tories to if they have the nerve must be urged to boycott that programme. Protests should be held outside the BBC. Giving toerags like Griffin respectability is playing into the hands of the BNP.
Comment by Alfie — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
Alfie- ALL the guests on an addition of Question Time can be counted on the fingers of one hand. I don’t want to defend the BBC, and I do not want to see Griffin on QT, but if we are to devise a sensible strategy let’s have some sensible argument, which doesn’t mean implying that the BBC want to be in the position of having Griffin on the show.
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
Everytime racists are given air-time the number of racist attacks goes up. The left has a duty of solidarity to those who face such attacks and must not get sidetracked by abstract arguments about freedom of speech.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
Been hearing from a few liberals that Griffin on QT is a good thing as it will “expose his ideas”.
None of them seem to grasp what an intelligent and articulate defender of the indefensible he is, up to the point where he has made a programme of ethnically cleansing the UK appear like the voice of the silent majority.
If he goes on QT he will run rings round idiot liberals who will underestimate his intelligence.
Comment by AndyB — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:33 pm
#63 Ray - Hitler did not start out in much the same way as the BNP. He started out with a serious attenmted putsch. Try to think things through. Good tactics flow from an intimate analysis of a situation not from transhistorical formulae.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:47 pm
But in what sense DOES’NT the parrallel apply Nas? We all know that it is 2009 and not 1924, we all know that (thankfully) the National Socialist German Workers Party was a rather larger force in society early on then the BNP is today. We also know though that the BNP has its roots in the same tradition and it makes sense to look at the last time the tradition they want to revive, and have wanted to revive throughout their rotten history, was a significant force. Or not?
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 9:55 pm
The parallel doesn’t apply because Germany was a militarised society in the twenties; there was no press/media comparable to ours; the polarisation in society was extreme; the notion of legality was very different; the scale of events was enormously greater; the forces which could stop the Nazis were greater stil; a third of the working class adhered to self professed Marxist paries; and much more. Read Trotsky on Germany. Try to extract a method rather than a slogan. The same method led Radek and Gramsci to different tactics in the early twenties. They might all be wrong. If so the lesson is even more clear: engage with political reality rather than fall back on fetishised thinking. You’re attempting to do that, I accept. Ray and so many others are not.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
Armchair your argument does not make sense. Question time panels are mostly right wing,eurocentric white and exclusive to the three main parties. Often the audiences are far more progressive than the panel. The questions are carefully selected by Dimbleby.
No doubt the programme that Griffin is selected for will have a carefully vetted audience and will be prerecorded at a location kept underwraps.
Comment by Alfie — 8 September, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
Nas, the slogan of ‘no platform’ is not lifted off the experiance of the 1920s. That formulation probably comes from the late 1970s (I’d be happy to be corrected here), but the practice probably has deeper roots in the British anti-fascist tradition (and I don’t think its just an SWP thing). Its true that the Weimer Republic was not the same situation as Britain today, but I don’t think that leaves out the question of parrallels. I accept the distinction between method and tactics, but its clear that there is a debate about this tactic which is considerably broader then simply a debate between the usual suspects on the left: its polarised sections of the Labour right, its also polarised sections of the liberal press, and its likely to be a lively topic in trade union branches (particularly if the BNP continue to grow). I therefore don’t think that the debate is quite as SWP specific or indeed hackneyed as you think it is. Respectfully and everything.
Comment by johng — 8 September, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
Just a few points.
What I have not done is
* Defended the BBC’s decision to let Griffin on Question Time
* Said the BNP have a right to “free speech”
* Repudiated the necessity for the BNP to be dealt with by the labour movement
* Pretended to have written a serious analytical piece.
But I’m not convinced the traditional no platformist strategy (i.e the raising of no platform from a tactic to a principle by some sections of the anti-fascist movement) is the best way of countering the BNP, especially when they *already have* a platform. It also worries me that too many comrades seem to think dishing out leaflets about the holocaust-denying proclivities of BNP candidates strikes major blows against them. Sure it annoys and rattles the BNP’s activists but it does not challenge their political arguments. If I’m not politically savvy and some of the things I read in a BNP leaflet *appears* to chime with my experience, is a leaflet informing me of Nazi Nick’s 1998 race hate conviction going to convince me to give one of the mainstream parties a punt?
To me, anti-fascism appears to dwell too much on containment. It is a reactive and sometime moral approach to anti-fascism when what we need is politics.
Lastly, the post suggests there is an element of what #49 calls prolefear underlying some strands of anti-fascism. I mainly have Labour and liberal-left types in mind here who denounced the 900,000 who voted for the BNP in shrill and elitist tones.
Comment by A Very Public Sociologist — 8 September, 2009 @ 10:33 pm
Johng: the slogan is, aas I recall, from the eighties - after the political battle about the nature of the NF was won and when they weren’t a threat. There was a debate in the SWP student section in the mid to late eighties, you must remember, over why the tactics of opposing the fascists were not to be deployed in opposing hard right Tories. There was, I recall, a nuabced discussion about how to effectively respond to a speaking tour by Enoch Powell. A bit of tactical nous is in order today too. A line argument which says we are defending a slogan while the centrists are running away would be a big mistake. And you, and the SWP, should humbly take account of previous big mistakes. That awful demonstration last May following the GLA elections is one. How you ended up with the Left List is another. I’m sorry, but these things need to b considered.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 10:55 pm
VPS- while I have much sympathy with your desire to have a fresh debate on these questions, and with your clear desire to engage those working class people who are vulnerable to the bnp due to their abandonment by New Labour, I do think it is necessary not to pretend that the majority of those who vote bnp are not racists.
I had an intersting conversation with a neighbour before the Euro-elections. White guy, just retired from a job in a warehouse, mixed race wife.
He told me a bout how he “regreted” that he felt no choice but to vote for the BNP and went on to regale me with a number of injustices he had apparantly suffered as a result of immigrants at work who had been allowed to do things he wasn’t, together with the usual stuff about asylum seekers bsing given priority for housing and it being virtually illegal to fly the England flag.
When I asked him why he didn’t do something about the problems at work, his reply was -”you can’t say anything, or you’ll be called racist”. I innocently pointed out to him that if he wasn’t racist and his grievances were just, then he shouldn’t worry about that. If he was racist, then why was he worried?
I made the point about the case recently where some English guys in Salford were sacked to make way for the Poles they had trained, and then won an employment tribunal for race discrimination with the support of Salford TUC centre (was this story covered outside of Manchester btw?)
Needless to say, as the conversation progressed it became clearer and clearer that this guy was as racist as they come. His “regret” at voting for the BNP was like my regret at Wenger’s face the Saturday before last when Arsenal’s equaliser was disallowed.
I agree that we shouldn’t denounce anyone in shrill elitist tones, but let’s not have illusions about what a BNP vote means. Btw full repect to your comrades over the constuction/refinery dispute.
Comment by Armchair — 8 September, 2009 @ 11:27 pm
‘Those on the left who have a morbid fear of acknowledging the BNP’s support among the people we should be picking up are actively sabotaging any real fight against fascism. It’s nigh time we faced the truth - the BNP has hoovered up the votes we can’t even begin to attract.’ Very true Joe and it will get worse. Contrast with Scotland where the BNP are no where. Would an English Parliment draw the Fascist fangs?
‘No doubt the programme that Griffin is selected for will have a carefully vetted audience and will be prerecorded at a location kept underwraps.’ No it wont Alfie it is easy enough to get on Question Time and in numbers too. However dont turn up as group. Dont ask any questions in the dress rehersal. Dont turn out as suave as a pail of shite. Dont all sit together. You might then get the chance to ask a question. Make sure you ask a question not make a statement.
I find the No Platform debate here a little too late Griffin will be on Question Time. I doubt in this climate the techies would pull the plug so best try and show him up for what he is. Ideally a clever question that gives the other numpties on the panel a chance to get stuck in.
I would imagine the rest of the panel will be from the established parties and I expect Griffin to be able enough for them.
Comment by Christy — 8 September, 2009 @ 11:32 pm
Arnchair: and the racist totems are widespread. Just look at the popular papers which castigate the BNP while trailing their racialised arguments. The posh/liberal commentariat is not far behind. The race question is central.
Comment by Nas — 8 September, 2009 @ 11:37 pm
“The parallel doesn’t apply because Germany was a militarised society in the twenties; there was no press/media comparable to ours; the polarisation in society was extreme; the notion of legality was very different; the scale of events was enormously greater; the forces which could stop the Nazis were greater stil; a third of the working class adhered to self professed Marxist paries; and much more.”
Actually, in the late 20’s early 30’s Germany was still paying reparations for WW1 and was demilitarised unlike the UK today which is fighting wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The press/media were alive and well in Germany during this period. There was mass circulation of newspapers and periodicals and they had political influence just like they have today. One could find differences between the 1930’s, 1970’s and early 90’s. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t parallels. It’s the Marxist tradition to learn from history.
Comment by Ray — 9 September, 2009 @ 12:08 am
Ray- Political organisations at the time in Germany had mass paramilitary groups with uniforms and even weapons. If that’s mot a militarised society (as opposed to state) I don’t know what is.
Do you know the significance of the Horst Wessel Liede?
Comment by Armchair — 9 September, 2009 @ 12:33 am
I’m quite prepared to take account of mistakes although I’m a bit puzzled by the reference to a demonstration as being on a par with the Left List dabacle (there you are its out!). But I don’t really see what that has to do with the topic under discussion. As I tried to say, I think your treating ‘no platform’ as if its the property of the SWP and therefore bad. In this context I’m uninterested whether people think the SWP is bad or not and would just suggest that its a wider debate then that (certainly it is in the media, and certainly it is even in sections of the Labour right). I suspect that this will grow and grow, and I also suspect that as the climate changes much of this will be lifted out of the current kinds of internal discussions we seem to be having. I also just think that the constant misrepresentation of the BNP vote by those who are opposed to no platform isn’t helping to clarify matters. Again. The BNP vote was overwhelmingly that of people who usually voted Tory (across classes). This is not grounds for complacency. They could break into Labour voters (and after having broken into Labour areas this will be their target). We have to stop that from happening. But it hasn’t as yet happened on a large scale. All the evidence is that it was a low Labour turnout combined with Tory voters switching to the BNP in large numbers. This is why its a harder racist vote then would have been the case if the media picture of disaffected Labour voters provided the bulk of the vote. The idea that this is the case is partly whats fueling this notion that we ‘have to listen’ to the BNP, debate the ‘issues’ etc. All that will occur if this approach is unchallenged will be a further shift to the right, more racism and a bigger BNP. Its no different to the demand that there be more discussion about ‘immigration’ or the ‘problems of multiculturalism’ etc. Oddly I think Sunny Hundal is entirely right about this (even if he was an offender on the latter). The argument over no platform in the wider society is really about this, and not about some internal squabble between a bunch of leftists. The BNP know this.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 12:39 am
If they invite GEORGE GALLOWAY at the same time as the BNP.. i’d pay alot of money to see those fireworks.. otherwise meh bnp doesnt deserve a voice on the panel.. would love to see them on with GG though that’s what i’m waiting for..
Comment by Tabish — 9 September, 2009 @ 12:47 am
Currently (as I post at 1am) over 70 per cent of those voting in the Metro poll (published tommorrow) say NO the BNP should not be allowed on QT.
http://www.metro.co.uk/polls/results.html?in_poll_id=16137&in_page_id=1&in_question_id=15457&in_exists=N&in_answer1=17469
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 1:05 am
In reply to VPS at #75:-
The SP’s theoretical rationale for questioning this is contained in Hannah Sell’s article in “Socialism Today”:
where she says:-
“…Although the BNP has had to distance itself from its fascist origins, its leadership would still undoubtedly like to build a fascist organisation if it was able to. In that sense, it is correct to attempt to prevent them from being offered a platform. However, while it is valid to argue this point of view, this does not overcome the problem that, through its electoral gains, the BNP has established a platform. In this situation, it does not make sense, for example, to refuse to share a media platform with them, as the UAF has done, if the net result is that the anti-BNP arguments are not put. ”
http://www.socialismtoday.org/131/bnp.html
She makes some valid points with regard to the differences between now and the 1920’s-30’s.
For instance, the BNP doesn’t act as an “anti-labour militia” in the way that the blackshirts and brownshirts did then.
Hannah Sell makes reference to instances of Marxists debating the Nazis in Germany.
But she ought to be aware that this tactic was a failure and in some cases helped the Nazis pose as part of the workers movement.
This was reinforced during the “Third Period”, with the intense sectarianism of the KPD in relation to social democratic workers.
The Nazis didn’t grow on the basis of “democratic debate”, but inciting hatred against minorities in Germany, simplistic economic nationalism and violence against the unions.
This helped them get the support of a significant section of the ruling class who saw them as the ulitmate guarantee of their class-rule by 1933.
Unfortunately, Hannah Sell’s article also snipes at the record of the ANL, which undoubtedly was correct in exposing the NF and building the mass mobilisations against it in Lewisham, Southall and Leicester.
These demonstrations were a political victory which built the left and helped drive the hardcore fascists in the BNP underground for more than a decade.
If the left were able to organise demonstrations of a similar size against provocative racist demonstrations it would be a very good thing!
It’s not a question of boycotting opportunities for using the mass media and leaving it wide open to the BNP, it’s a question of organising mass protest against the media for giving racists like Griffin a platform.
The SP played a good role in stopping them getting an implantation at Lindsey. So it should draw the same lesson about the BBC and the Media.
Deny them a platform! Don’t let them get a foothold to use their insidious arguments across.
On the question of “state-bans”.
There has been a long term demand by Muslims in the unions for laws on religious discrimination, because unlike Jews and Sikhs, they are not defined as an ethnic group.
Partly as a result of this, we now have a law against incitement to religious and racial discrimination law.
There were always some negative implactions to laws against religious discrimination, but these have generally been taken into account in framing the current legislation.
So I don’t think it’s such a bad thing to demand that the government implement it in relation to Griffin and the EDL demos.
This of course should be backed up by mass demonstrations and if, public order laws are used against anti-racist, or anti-war demonstrators, we should of course, oppose this.
Finally, the BNP and their like pick up votes on the basis of disillusion with Labour. So there needs to be a political alternative which captures this vote and heads off the development of racism. That means fighting around mass socialist politics and not simply “anti-racism”, or “anti-fascism”.
Comment by prianikoff — 9 September, 2009 @ 9:36 am
Bt we now know that this isn’t true, based upon the extensive reserach carries out on voters in the Euro elections.
BNP voters are typically hardened racists who prefer t vote BNP, even when a viable left alternative is offered.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 September, 2009 @ 9:59 am
johng: relevance of demo last year - poor judgement of those who called it combined with moralism and dishonesty about its results.
No platform is not the property of the SWP. But I do fear another bout of your party, or at least the Ray end, making a slogan or tactic a bitter line of division. That’s of legitimate concern, given the role the SWP plays in UAF.
As for the Left List debacle - of course it was a mess. Isn’t the issue how a perspective and leadership be so badly wrong? You see, I think some of those problems are still there. Martin Smith’s article in last week’s Socialist Worker talks of a rising curve of militancy outweighing the conservative union leaders. He goes on to say that not everything is going left, the right are gaining too. Too bloody right they are, they are the main gainers, not the aberration in a left moving political picture resting on a wave of worker militancy.
I think a misassessment of political reality like that is very dangerous and leads to mistaken tactics.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 9:59 am
“No platform is not the property of the SWP. But I do fear another bout of your party, or at least the Ray end, making a slogan or tactic a bitter line of division. That’s of legitimate concern, given the role the SWP plays in UAF.”
Nas, your obsession with the SWP isn’t very helpful in the fight against the BNP. Nor is your attempt to split SWP comrades into good and bad ones. It turns a discussion about whether or not the anti-fascist movement should stop Griffin from appearing on Question Time into another pointless SWP bashing thread. Your attempt to characterise what I’ve said into a fabricated warning about the SWP is pretty transparent and rather silly.
Andy, I won’t have internet access for about a week from this afternoon so if a ‘Ray’ posts then it won’t be me. Check the IP because I wouldn’t like to return to find some nazi troll had been posting again using my name. Thanks!
Comment by Ray — 9 September, 2009 @ 10:31 am
#88 ” whether or not the anti-fascist movement should stop Griffin from appearing on Question Time”
However, we probably cannot stop that happening, so the more importnat issue is ahat our response should be if it does happen.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 September, 2009 @ 11:25 am
Ray: the SWP play a significant role in the leadership of UAF and, from what I can gather, anti-fascism appears to be central to your party’s current activity. It is perfectly legitimate question your tactics and policies where one thinks they are wrong. The demonstration last year in London is a good example. I’m afraid many SWP members took the line that the march would galvanise tens of thousands and that those who cautioned against displaying weakness were just a bunch of pessimistic sectarians (Socialist Action being the main demons).
As it was, the march was terrible and those who warned that it would be dangerously weak were vindicated. Now there are further nuanced tactical discussions. I do fear, however, that people like you are likely to turn those again into some bitter line of division where tactics are mistaken for principles.
The whole point above, btw, about Germany being so radically different from Britain is that statements along the lines that the failure to “no platform” Hitler was crucial to his victory are ahistorical rubbish. Nothing remotely like what has been meant by no platform over the last 20 years would have had any relevance in Weimar Germany.
Saying things like the lesson of the rise of Hitler is that we need to no platform the BNP is utterly unconvincing. It’s what I mean about fetishising a form of words, a slogan divorced from tactical consideration, and making it litmus test. It’s really unhelpful.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 11:29 am
#56/57 -Thanks for that.
Comment by Armchair — 9 September, 2009 @ 11:49 am
“I’m afraid many SWP members took the line that the march would galvanise tens of thousands and that those who cautioned against displaying weakness were just a bunch of pessimistic sectarians”
But surely you remember that 10,000 people took part? It must be true, cos one would never lie to the class.
Comment by external bulletin — 9 September, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
Nas, from #76 - the argument around ‘no platform for Nazis’ took place in the mid-to-late 1970s, precisely around the time when the NF posed their biggest threat. My student union took a ‘no platform’ position (moved by the Communist Party, seconded by the SWP) in either 1976 or 1977, following at least a year’s discussion in various forums.
Incidentally, if you don’t have a ‘no platform’ position, on what basis do you protest against the Question Time invite to Griffin?
Comment by chjh — 9 September, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
“No platform is not the property of the SWP. But I do fear another bout of your party, or at least the Ray end, making a slogan or tactic a bitter line of division. That’s of legitimate concern, given the role the SWP plays in UAF”
I really don’t think this is true Nas. I am aware that there is some friction going on about events in Birmingham, but I don’t think its the SWP trying to turn it into a huge line of division. I also think there does come a point where a long roll in the mud does no favours to anyone.
The whole left faces a serious situation and there is a great danger that we can be reduced to sectarian sniping at each other rather then think constructively of the way foward. My own position on No Platform is that it is a position we have to win all over again. The legitimate worries are that we are not strong enough to carry it off. This needs to be answered and there needs to be serious discussion in each given case about how to marginalise the Nazis. It would certainly be a mistake to turn ‘no platform’ into a line of polarisation amongst anti-fascists and anti-racists, but I also think its a mistake not to try and continue to win the argument about it.
But as Andy Newman notes (and I’ve been trying to stress repeatedly) the BNP vote is a hardened racist vote. The danger is that it can grow beyond that hard racist base. It is therefore mistaken (I think) to imagine that it is somehow a waste of time pointing out the Nazi politics of the BNP, forcing their thugs out into the streets so people can see what they are, or exposing their criminal behaviour and ultra-racist stunts.
There will always be hardened racists in our society (just as there will always be reactionary working class Tories, at present the BNP’s only route into the working class). The question is whether they are isolated and the majority are confident enough to do so, or whether they are gradually allowed to creep in from the margins to the centre of politics.
Given the general climate of scapegoating that exists of migrants, of Islamophobia, much of it sponsered by government and the media, these are favourable conditions for them, and their appearence on the media simply indicates a further shift in what is considered acceptable within that general climate. I think you are wrong in your interpretation of Martin’s article by the way, which was mainly a rebuttal of those who see recent headlines about a recovery as marking a decisive stabilisation of the system and politics, and also indicated (rightly in my view) that the task of socialists continues to be to build around struggles against the effects of that crisis (as opposed to, for example, passive propaganda excercises).
I understand why you might interpret the piece as you did but I think you are mistaken. I know SWP people working in UAF and they are not the kind of wild slogan mongers you seem to imagine.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 1:57 pm
Yes, cjhj. I think we might be talking at cross purposes. What I meant was that standing policy in student unions, etc came in on the back of those arguments. By the mid-eighties it was an established position, which first seriously came under challenge with the Enoch Powell tour. That required some nifty tactical thinking and a carefully developed argument about why debating fascists, and those who were working closely with them in that instance, was not the way to defeat them.
I don’t believe the BNP should be given air time, a platform, on Question Time. But I also recognise the changed political reality compared with 20 years ago. For example, Olivier Besancenot was given an invidious choice of either having no mainstream airtime during the presidential election or having to do so while going head to head with the National Front. He chose the latter. Given the BNP’s breakthrough, it is likely that similar situations are going to arise here. How we respond is a matter of tactics, not a principle.
In patiently arguing why the BNP should be prevented from organising, marching and, where possible, appearing in the media, it is vital that those who are as opposed to the BNP as the rest of us are not abused as liberal wimps, or quasi “Nazis”.
The unfortunate fact is that the political ground on which the “no platform” position rests is narrower now than it was 20 years ago. What I’m saying is that we should not narrow it further. That means sophisticated arguments, not sloganeering.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:09 pm
On that Nas I have no disagreement with you, and I don’t think SWP members in UAF have any disagreement with you either.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Incidently it seems that Metro twigged their results on giving Griffin a platform because they didn’t like the result:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/09/spot-difference.html
Obviously at one level these polls are meaningless, but I do think the constituency for isolating rather then caving in to the Nazis is larger then many imagine. However it does have to be organised to become effective.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
Thanks for that, johng. I agree with a lot of it.
On Martin Smith’s article, however, I think my interpretation is supported by a further article by Charlie Kimber in the latest Socialist Review, which again hypes up the level of resistance and talks of a turning point in the class struggle. This week’s Socialist Worker does the same.
I think it’s a dangerously exaggerated perspective. Crucially, it fails to place properly in the picture mass political consciousness. This is not moving left. I don’t buy analyses that go along the lines that there is a massive left wing constituency in Britain which is leading to the rise of the parties of the right, populist right and fascist right only because the a left political force has not “filled the vaccuum”. There political space for the left has to be rebuilt and extended from the very weakened footholds it has in society.
The IS tradition used to be very astute in avoiding the orthodox Trotskyist myth of a working class straining at the leash which was held back only by conservative officials, labour lieutenants of capital and reformist/stalinist traitors. There is not simply a crisis of working class representation. There is a crisis of working class organisation. The last 30 years have seen the “unmaking” of very significant sections of the working class and a very sharp decline in the organisations and culture that were associated with them.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:23 pm
“There is not simply a crisis of working class representation. There is a crisis of working class organisation.”
Significantly, there is also a crisis of working class ideology.
It is not sufficient for the fundamentalist left to counterpose “revolution” as the solution to social and economic problems. What is need is a detailed, credible and acheivable programme of how the government can and should act in the interests of working people.
Comment by Andy Newman — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:26 pm
Indeed, Andy, there is also an ideological crisis and that means serious strategic thought about how the values and ideological positions of the left are reintegrated into a very changed political and social climate.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
Again Nas I understand what you are saying but I just don’t agree with your interpretation of it. SW is reporting a number of disputes whose conduct shows a break with the past. Its neccessary to ensure that SWP members orientate towards those struggles and try and generalise from them in their own workplaces. I don’t think anyone is arguing that the revolution is nigh or that we are in the middle of an upturn. But it is a part of the picture, and needs to be integrated into the bleaker picture of the far rights rise (which also though should not be exaggerated, re: earlier points about their actual base, but also of course the real dangers). I have not come across any arguments suggesting that it is just a question of raising the banner and millions will flock to the left from the BNP (indeed the realistic analyses of the BNPs strengths and weaknesses which we both seem to share would preclude that for other reasons). I do think though that it is important to say that there is a basis for some kind of left challenge at the next election and that its important that it happens (and as far as I can see this is all that is being argued).
Andy’s portrayel of the ‘fundementalist left’ etc, I don’t recognise and seems his own equivilant of recanting “as Trotsky says”….
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:52 pm
On this “raising the banner” question, well I think any reader of the paper knows that the Open Letter signalled a break from a method of work which had unfortunately begun to distort our perspectives.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 2:54 pm
johng:
According to Martin Smith: “We are seeing new, more militant methods being used in trade union struggles – occupations, sit-ins and all out strikes.
“Some of the conservatism of the past remains – reflected in one-day strikes, consultative ballots and even abject surrender.
“But there is not an equal balance between the two. The new struggles are having the greater impact and are inspiring trade unionists and activists.”
And Charlie Kimber: “The experiences of Waterford Glass and Prisme and Visteon and Linamar and Lindsey Oil Refinery and Vestas have changed the atmosphere of the class struggle. They have defied the anti-union laws, challenged the hesitations of union leaders - and won.”
I think this is a rosey picture which gets the “balance” between inertia and militant action entirely the wrong way round.
There’s no argument that we should all support resistance to job losses, pay cuts, austerity programmes and so on. But it is a long way from that to saying that is a distinct minority experience, which has not universally led to victories (Vestas?), is having a “greater impact” than the pay freezes, pay cuts and job losses meekly accepted that are, unfortunately, still the experience of by far a greater proportion of workers in Britain.
The balance might change - and we all hope it does. But it has not changed yet.
Comment by Nas — 9 September, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
On the question of ultra-leftism etc, for the historical obscurists amongst us, this text, a translation of a text by the French syndicalist turned Bolshevik Alfred Rosmer gives an account of the reception of “Ultra-Leftism: an infantile disorder” amongst delegates at the second congress of the third international. It remains an interesting read for those who like to throw these terms around, and a useful innoculation against dogmatism.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/rosmer/1953/moscow/lenin.htm
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 3:13 pm
johng @ 94: “there will always be reactionary working class Tories, at present the BNP’s only route into the working class”.
What evidence is there that the only working class people switching to the BNP are ex-Tories? Can someone produce an opinion poll, a survey, some data? Cos what I see is documentaries about the rise of the BNP in areas like Tameside and Moston and Oldham in Greater Manchester (or Salford at the time of the Hazel Blears departure) where interviewee after interviewee says something along the lines of ‘I’ve always voted Labour but this time I’m voting for the BNP’ - anecdotal and spotty, true, but where is the hard evidence to show that the BNP is not converting one-time Labour votes in significant numbers?
BTW, there must be a shed-load of working class Tories in these areas, because UKIP (who I would expect to pick up disaffected Powellites, golfers, blimps and Freemasons) picked up twice as many votes as the BNP in the North West, and the Tories still came top of the poll. If the Labour vote keeps dropping and the non-Labour vote keeps rising, its going to be harder and harder for people to continue arguing that there is some secret reservoir of labour aristocrats that props up the fascists, and perhaps finally get around to acknowledging what is more likely - that working class voters, whose class credentials were never previously brought into question, have begun to vote for the fascists. This is exactly what happened in France, when PCF voters crossed over to the NF.
And then… once we admit that this is what is happening, and on a significant scale (perhaps not so yet, but increasingly so), only then will there be any point in us trying to work out how to recalibrate our politics to reconnect (or in some cases, connect for the first time) with those voters who should be ours.
Comment by Another Dave — 9 September, 2009 @ 4:33 pm
it’s not ‘no platform’ to not go on and tackle them- it’s an unchallenged platform.
Comment by sooz — 9 September, 2009 @ 4:35 pm
we admit that this is what is happening, and on a significant scale (perhaps not so yet, but increasingly so), only then will there be any point in us trying to work out how to recalibrate our politics to reconnect (or in some cases, connect for the first time) with those voters who should be ours
How would you suggest we ‘recalibrate our politics’?
Comment by anti-Eurocommunist — 9 September, 2009 @ 4:39 pm
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/06/fascist-vote.html
It is indeed true that there is a danger that there could be significant defection, in working class areas, directly from Labour to the BNP. But the evidence is that its not happening yet on any significant scale. Note this is not at all the same as saying that the BNP doesn’t get working class votes. Or, for that matter, that there is not a serious danger of this growing if the BNP’s politics come to be regarded as somehow normal or legitimate.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 4:54 pm
And incidently I don’t think its right that we should wait around until the situation is clarified and only then recalibrate our politics and re-connect with working class voters (it isn’t as if the left has ever connected on a large scale electorally in this country anyway). We don’t want a repeat of what happened in France. Thats the whole point.
Comment by johng — 9 September, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
107 anti-EC: 1. By going back into communities on a sincere basis (ie. not leafleting an area once every six months and pretending that makes a base, but by doing what the BNP does - and does well, according to voters - identifying areas most receptive to our message and doing long-term, consistent face-to-face work with voters. That of course begs the question: what is the message? So 2. I think we have to move away from identity politics back to class politics or at least a politics that recognises the concerns of numerically significant communities that are in alignment with a basic class undertanding. So this isn’t about pandering to racism or reaction, but this would seek to understand working class concerns about crime, anti-social behavior, and situations that make the already miserable lives of millions of Britons worse, and which can be dealt with on a low-level basis while we’re all still pushing for the bigger picture of the eradication of inequality under capitalism.
The older I’ve got, the more sympathetic I’ve become to the ‘fundmentalism’ of groups like the Socialist Party and the IWCA. Their approaches seem to ring more true of the types of concerns of ordinary working class people of all cultural backgrounds, than what I see as the abstract theorising of groups like the SWP. (And I was an IS/SWP traditionalist many many years ago).
I’m torn on RESPECT. I think Salma is impressive as a local politician and I wish her well. George is a showman, but that doesn’t entirely bother me - we need more Georges to get people looking our way at all. Certain communalist aspects concern me, particularly in Tower Hamlets, but to me RESPECT has possibly the best chance of putting forward a non-Marxist broad left broad appeal that could attract deep rooted community support if activists are ready to put in for the long haul.
How long? Well, I’d say it took the BNP about 10 years of serious work in some of those northern areas, not always moving forward (remember how the some on the left were crowing - even on this site - about how the fash had been beaten back in Oldham? - didn’t look like that when the Euro election results came through the other month…). When Blair came to power in 97, we should have started then - there was nothing we didn’t expect about how low New Labout could go. So we need to junk our shibboleths
about electoralism, and stop this fantasy about achieving electoral breakhtroughs by setting up yet another micro party just a couple of weeks out from an election.
We need to build bases. We need to find our areas - and perhaps we already have them - Coventry, Oxford, and dig in.
Comment by Another Dave — 9 September, 2009 @ 6:06 pm
Another Dave- interesting stuff.
Where are you based just out of interest?
Comment by Armchair — 9 September, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
Armchair 111 - East Angular, as they say; in the middle of bloody nowhere, alas. But I have strong and continuing links with Greater Manchester, thus my interest (tho I’m too shit scared to ask any of the relations how they voted…)
Comment by Another Dave — 9 September, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
The points Another Dave raises are obviously ones which are long running arguments on the left about orientation. My problem is not having these arguments (we probably need to) but that they leave out of account what we actually need to do now. In other words we can’t actually achieve the kind of left Another Dave wants to see, and nor can we achieve the kind of left Andy wants to see, and nor can we achieve the kind of left the SWP wants to see, outside of a timeframe of years. But if we look back to the last period of Nazi revival, this began and then mushroomed over about five years. It was beaten back during that period, despite all the manifest defects and weaknesses of the left at the time. Thats why I think there is a problem with the form of some of these discussions. We don’t have much else then how the left exists right now to fight these bastards in the short-term. And what happens over the next year is going to be very important in terms of what happens over the next five. Just a thought.
Comment by johng — 10 September, 2009 @ 12:02 am
I think it’s very important that we don’t accept the line being put forward by most of the media (and readily accepted by both the BNP itself and BNP voters) that working-class Labour voters are flocking to support the BNP because of Labour’s “betrayal” of the working class.
People vote BNP because they’re racists, it’s quite simple really. But, as Armchair relates earlier in this thread, many of these racists are more than happy to claim they’re voting BNP because Labour’s let them down and large parts of the media encourage them in this.
Yes, Labour has let down, betrayed, its core supporters and yes, we do need a left, working-class alternative. But this is needed anyway, irrespective of the BNP. Building a serious left, working-class political alternative is a strategy for fighting capitalism.
Campaigning against the BNP is different in my opinion, and this requires a separate strategy, one that recognises that the BNP’s appeal is entirely based on racism and builds the broadest possible anti-racist consensus to fight it.
Comment by Karl Stewart — 10 September, 2009 @ 8:12 am
In complete agreement with Karl.
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