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Holden Caulfield
11th August 2009, 22:51
A lengthy article stolen from a blog I read, the author of which stole it from another blog (the unorigional bastard)

I strongly suggest you read it




N.B From the category of things I wish I had written. The following article is from the latest edition of the magazine Red Pepper (http://www.revleft.com/vb/www.redpepper.org.uk/), I agree with practically everything written minus the positive suggestions bit.
For unrelated reasons blogging on this site is suspended until further notice.

Give Up Anti-Fascism

The election of two BNP MEPs in the European elections has propelled the party onto the national stage and initiated a debate about why they’re achieving historically unprecedented results (or in some cases, even whether they are doing so), what is driving their recent performances and crucially, how they may be stopped and what the lefts role is in this – in a nutshell what our relation to anti-fascism is and should be in today’s conditions. There is one question that is not being asked though – is anti-fascism the answer to the BNP?

Some brief facts and figures to situate the debate first. The BNP now has 60 local councillors and around the same number of Parish councillors. By comparison previous fascist groups had managed 3 councillors in total in the previous 80 years – this is without counting the seats won and lost by the BNP. It has one member on the London Assembly, and it has two MEPs. It’s vote in Local, General and European elections has risen from a non-existent level to averaging around 15% in the first, winning deposits in the second (there are three constituencies where the aggregate ward votes at the 2008 local elections puts them in first place) and polling a million votes in the last. They had 10 000 members at the end of 2007 – a figure that will have risen since then, providing them with an expanding national activist base. They are, by national standards not a huge party, they are ‘a large small party’ – at best the 6th biggest in the country. They are not an immediate threat, they have zero chance of gaining any serious power – their real danger lies elsewhere – as will be outlined later. If their absolute vote is giving pause for concern it is its trajectory that is truly worrying, indeed, one anti-fascist group in 2007 estimated that it’s vote in local elections had risen 97-fold since 2000. [1] This trend has continued in the elections since then – the European elections seeing a circa 20% rise in their national vote from 800 000 to 950 000 – them and the Greens being the only serious national parties to actually increase their votes, and this in a falling turnout. The tiny meaningless fall in the two areas in which they returned MEPs (2000 and 6000 votes) is more than compensated for by the successful elections themselves and the large rises in their other target areas.

Failed approaches

Contemporary anti-fascism is represented by two main groups with broadly similar approaches. Firstly, Hope not Hate, an umbrella group for unions and individuals within the broad area of the labour movement but open to all. This group was formed by the Searchlight Network. Secondly, Unite Against Fascism (UAF) an SWP front group designed to continue in the same vein as the now mothballed Anti-Nazi League (though not shy of relying on the ANL’s reputation). Both groups concentrate their activities on two main activities/approaches; 1) exposing the criminal records and political beliefs of leading BNP members and local candidates and activists and 2) calling on people not to ‘vote Nazi’ – to vote anyone but BNP (with slight differences in how this is interpreted by each group) in an attempt to raise turnout and block the BNP electorally this way – this approach formed the basis of both groups failed intervention into the London Mayoral and European elections.

What is wrong with these two approaches? The most obvious objection to an anti-BNP strategy centred around these tactics is that they don’t work today and they haven’t worked for some time. This isn’t to say that they haven’t worked in the past, just that they cannot form the central core of an anti-BNP strategy in today’s conditions.

Exposing the BNP’s various criminal and political records has had no discernible impact. In a country in which over 40% of all males have a criminal conviction [2] pointing out to voters in the sort of areas the BNP targets that a candidate has a conviction for assault or theft is likely to have zero impact. If this were not the case then we would today be seeing declining BNP votes and councillors not being returned post-exposure. But we’re not, we’re seeing a steadily rising vote and increasing re-elections.

This tactic has been pursued over the last 10 years on a scale never seen before – every section of the mass media has got in on the game, every candidate has been hammering home their oppositions convictions. If it was ever to make an impact it would have done so in these almost ideal conditions, instead the far right vote continues to rise. We have to conclude that this approach is ineffective.

Exposing past political views – for instance, Griffins flirting with Holocaust denial in the 90s – has suffered the same fate. Griffin simply points out that he no longer believes what he once did, that he was wrong to do so. Issue effectively neutralised, but at this point the interviewer is likely to press on regardless allowing griffin to turn the tables and ask the interviewer if they want to talk about politics. The same thing happens on a larger scale electorally. As above, if this approach of bringing up death camps or Nazi Germany was going to have any impact it would have done so in the especially favourable conditions of current fevered mass media scrutiny of the BNP by now. This approach did find success in the 3 or 4 decades post WW2 when a real folk memory of the sacrifices made by millions was kept alive – today, in different conditions, it cannot, has not and will not make any inroads.

Appealing to the status quo

These, though, are merely tactical problems, bred by past success and turned into conservative substitutes for real active intervention – but precisely as such, they can be developed into more substantive forms of exposure. (More on that later) Far more damaging on a strategical level is the second approach, calling on the electorate to ‘vote anyone but BNP’.

This is a de facto status quo position that effectively calls on people to support the social conditions that have given rise to their radical discontent and to support the very same parties that have introduced and are pledged to maintain these conditions. In the bluntest terms, people will simply not vote for the parties they now blame for their situation and no amount of cajoling or mentions of the holocaust will change that. The collapse in the labour vote over last 5 years makes this patently clear (figures here). This position helps ensure that the conditions which are producing the BNP are going to remain in place and we’re back at square one. And it allows the BNP to make all the running as the anti-establishment party during a once in a lifetime time opportunity for anti-establishment parties to make a real breakthrough.

The way to undercut this is to work towards dealing with the root causes of the BNP support – the political abandonment of much of the working class in pursuit of a tiny C1/C2 swing electorate and their interests (interests that are rarely the same as those of traditional labour voting areas), the deliberate setting of parts of the same community at each others throats in the fight for resources under the name of multi-culturalism, the closing down of schools, hospitals, wages being driven down, debt, sub-standard housing, rising rent, under funded services – all the conditions of our social life being attacked and commercialised by a class that’s shown itself incapable in the most basic terms of being able to run the system for the benefit of all. This what needs to be challenged as a priority, not peoples reactions to those planned and deliberate failures know as neoliberalism

And this is where pro-status quo anti-fascism is falling down and demonstrating both a misunderstanding of where we are today and a real lack of political courage. A call to ‘Vote Anyone But BNP’ or Vote to Stop the BNP’ is, in most areas where it is raised, a disguised call to vote Labour – that is why the unions are funding the millions of leaflets delivered by Hope Not Hate. (We can dismiss the suggestion that this slogan is also a call to vote Green, the BNP and Greens are not competing for the same vote. Nor will we dwell on those areas where the slogan translates into ‘Vote Tory’ or ‘Lib-Dem’ beyond asking you to imagine how an implied call to ‘Vote Thatcher to Stop The National Front!’ would have been met?) An anti-fascism tied to support for the parties that have imposed the conditions people are protesting at is already a failing anti-fascism that is sacrificing all credibility by joining hands with the very establishment that people are fed up of and working to get rid of. In conditions where large sections of the electorate have abandoned all the mainstream parties, (combined party membership of mainstream parties has dropped from over 3 million in the late 60s to barely half a million today and is still falling, whilst the drop in labour party votes is not met with substantial rises from the lib-dems and Tories, whilst popular participation in non-formally political organisations is skyrocketing [3]) for anti-fascists not be supporting or initiating local projects that confront rather than support the labour party is to politically abandon these communities to the BNP in the same way as the Labour party already have – albeit they’re now belatedly waking up to the dangers. Being involved in those activities aside from election times does not square the circle either, the same contradictions are there writ just as large. Open participatory public confrontation with these conditions, not collaboration or lesser-evilism, is the key to re-energising the political life of working class communities on a path that logically and dynamically leads to squeezing the BNP out. Sharply put, it’s time to shit or get off the pot.

No platform?

This brings us onto ‘No Platform’ – since Griffin’s egging the day after being elected it’s become evident that beyond the confines of those already politically opposed to the BNP this has very little popular support, and in a country where the myth of democracy has a great hold over public political imagination it’s potentially dangerous in a number of ways. Firstly it, via the functioning of that democratic myth, associates the left with authoritarianism, violence and telling people what they can and cannot hear/read – exactly the sort of high handed arrogance that many people are rejecting the mainstream parties for. Secondly, it acts as cover and support for top-down or state led manoeuvres such as the closure of the BNP’s bank accounts by Barclays, which led to a Palestinian Solidarity Committee’s accounts being closed as well, or the plans by the Equality and Human Rights Commission to investigate the parties constitution and membership rules. How easy to turn these initiatives against us? Already there are calls for a Berufsverbot for public sector workers, this plays directly into the hands of the establishment. Of course, a community led and supported refusal to allow the BNP to operate in their area is a very different matter, but we’re currently seeing the first two forms of ‘No Platform’ substituted for this effective one.

On a related note Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) are an attempt to continue the cultural fight of the ANL by holding music festivals and similar type events – again, questions need to be asked. The problem being that today they simply attract those who are already against the BNP. In the past they were real arenas of conflict, battle grounds for the hearts of young people, and they were battlegrounds because the fascists, at that point, clung to their ‘control the streets’ strategy, to staging highly provocative marches that were attracting sections of young people.

Today that context no longer exists and the far-right has no hold whatsoever over the young – they lost that battle years ago. Energy and resources channelled in LMHR would be better off directed at helping deal with the problems working class communities face as part and parcel of squeezing the BNP.

Missing the real danger

What the current anti-fascist approaches have in common is in missing the real danger here. It doesn’t lie in the BNP taking power, in the possibility of concentration camps or any of the other scare stories we’ve been hearing recently. It lies in them colonising the anti-mainstream parties vote and loyalty, thereby blocking the development of an independent working class politics capable of defending our conditions and of challenging neo-liberalism. Their approach is the one that is being normalised nationally at the minute with the consequent racialisation of social issues and a massive shift to the far right as the default starting position for politics. Each step they take forwards knocks the ‘left’ backwards. This situation represents an immense defeat for the left one that could take us decades to recover from and leaving us as outsiders (even more so than today) in working class communities – the very places that we all recognise as being key to real social change, unless the job of defending the needs of working class communities is seriously taken on and a counter-productive out-dated anti-fascism is discarded. And this needs to be done now whilst the BNP is still soft in many areas – although being rapidly hardened by the economic climate, a situation which is not going to go away for years yet.

So, can we tie these brief criticism together some positive suggestions?
1) The formation of ‘community unions’ not connected to labour, possibly funded by trade unions but with organisational independence assured, that work directly on helping to meet the needs of those politically abandoned working class communities where conditions are deteriorating by the day. Based around the self-identified needs and plans of those communities – which can only pit them head to head against the BNP and the rest of the political mainstream. The types of small victories than can be won on this terrain should be viewed not only as being worthwhile in themselves but also as contributing to the re-emergence of community confidence in its political self assertion, the necessary first steps towards rebuilding a meaningful change. The are already existing groups engaged in this practical activity such as LCAP, Haringey Solidarity, the IWCA and so on.

The need for these to be open membership union type organisations rather than party membership type groups is a simple practical one. People will join unions at work as they recognise collective needs that exist over and above the heads of political disagreements, and the same is true of community needs. And once there is widespread identification (even passive) of the needs of the area/workplace with the existence of the union it becomes very hard to shift, that identification becomes a power in itself. Parties are too narrow to play this role under today’s conditions – they exist on a different level – there’s no reason why they cannot play a role within these broader open groups though.

2) Developing the ‘expose them’ model into one that instead of revealing ineffective details instead concentrates on why their polices will not deal with the social problems driving people into their arms – if we cannot make this clear to those already intensely concerned with these issues then our propaganda is failing and is at best talking to those who would never vote BNP anyway. This will require a direct challenge to Searchlight/UAF and other mainstream anti-fascists as they continue to empty their publications of all but the most inane type of content we’ve criticised above. This, of course, needs to be linked to the activity of the ‘community union’ type groups mentioned above.

3) Searchlight need to abandon their default pro-labour position and use their existing networks and resources to get behind local campaigns, actively challenging the conditions that are breeding support for the far right. This is unlikely to happen.

4) Stop the marches/labelling/shouting etc Marching into an area that you do not know and have no continuing interest in, shouting what’s right for that area is alienating and counter-productive. People do not like being told what’s best for them and will kick back against or simply ignore this sort of activity.

All of this can be performed without capitulating to racism of any kind whatsoever and without writing off vast swathes of the population. It has to be.

Notes

1) The BNP and the 2007 Elections – Unite Against Fascism
2) Social Policy Research #93, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
3) Power Inquiry, Power, Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, 2006.



Thoughts?

Pogue
11th August 2009, 23:24
I think this article is writ eon alot of places. I think some of the more notable areas are the one which deals with the sort of anti-fascism we need to focus on, which is our own organising. We can only fight back agaisnt and defeat fascism by pushing our own politics and organisation, as it says through community and workplace organising (in my opinion the two are one and the same, they cross over).

I think it avoids the fact that having an actual clearly anti-fascist movement seperate from this is neccesary too. I think we need to build anti-fascism out of our communities and workplaces, i.e. if the fascists are in our area or near our picket line we have to militantly get rid of them. This means if the fash march through a community the community opposes them.

The point on walking into an area we have no itnerest in is incredibly relevant and something AFA themselves mentioned. Often, if the NF marched in an area, the locals would side with AFA in opposing them because they recognise the NF were outsiders hear to cause trouble and were not representative of the community. But in the same area some anti-racist demos would get similar treatment because the anti-racists were seen as invading a community they had no base in.

As opposed to mindlessly resorting to localism I think this means we need to build a base in those communities, through residents assocations and grassroots working place organisation (i.e. union activity independent of the breucracy and heirachy). I don't think it is wrong for anti-fascists to travel to far off places ot show solidarity. I myself would travel to any corner of this world to fight fascists. And I would welcome anyone else. The point is the context in which this is done.

If say, there was a fascist march in East Manchester, then East Manchester's working class organisations should respond to it. But this organisation should be federated to alot of other local, working class organisations on a national level. So when we arrive from say, South London, we are showing solidarity with other working class people as part of organisations that are linked, not parachuting in as outsiders from a monolithic and unorganic party.

The stuff on LMHR is relevant. Very few young people who like the sorts of bands who play there are going to be racist anyway. I think the events are nice, but they do not really apply to the demographic whom the BNP focus on, and if your working class you don't want to listen to music, you want a good job and good housing. Oncemore I think our grassroots organisation and solidarity across the class can build this and only this can build this. Quite simply the far left is not appealing to the sorts of issues which affect ordinary people. The BNP does this, but they do it from a shit perspective they don't mean - they blame lack of jobs and houses on immigrants as an example. We have the right and better responses to these issues, we need to forward them.

The article is spot on about the 'chanting nazi doesn't work'. It simply doesn't fit the way the party presents itself today and doesn't deal with the issue of why people vote for them. I think most people here recognise this.

The point on calling the state to do no platform for us is sound too. of course the state can't do this for us. Only liberals want it too as well. They can fuck off. The state is as much of an enemy as the fascists, calling for its supprot is useless, and quite simply it does not work. Just as how only the working class can build socialism, only the working class can smash fascism. This has been validated by history and also fits the proper analysis of the role of fascism and the working class in regards to it.

This article essentially does outline the views of myself and a number of other involved anti-fascists. The diea of community unions is sound. We need to rely on working class organisation and self management and solidarity. This by its very nature defeats fascism, an allows us to undercut them. It offers working class solutions and alternatives to the far-right as well. This is opposed to the idea of 'voting anyone but the BNP' which totally ignores why people voted for the BNP in the first place and is essentially a non-solution and a betrayal of revolutionary politics.

The 4 points the article makes for dealing with the fascists is brilliant. Searchlight has alot of resources but its veyr existnce depends on the state and status quo. Hoping it becomes radicalised wont work. I'd like to think the UAF, led by the SWP,c hanges its ways and does become more militant and class based. I think it would take something massive for this to happen and I doubt it would or even could happen anyway. I think our only hope is by building up the working class movement through the grassroots workplace organising and community organisations, from which we can branch out, in defense of this intrinsicly anti-capitalist, anti-fascist and working class revolutioonary organsiation, to actively have a directly anti-fascist organisation. Obviously community organising is in itself anti-fascist btu from this we can build up a militant anti-fascist movement which can defend against the fascists. This could be a mass organisation, as I like to call it, the anti-fascist wing of the workers movement. I think this will be neccesary and also easy as it will come from the working class.

All in all solid article expressing alot of views I share. I obviously have my own unique perspective on this influenced by my libertarian socialist perspective and my experiences but I think this article shows what is clearly a mature and dare I say post on analysis of anti-fascism in the UK and the wya it has to go, I think it could be expanded upon further and needs bits added to it and refined which I have tried to do in this psot and will continue to do on this forum and in real life to anyone lucky [sic.] enough to meet me and listen to one of my real life rants, swearing and all.

holden was ere

Holden Caulfield
13th August 2009, 22:44
*bump*

Melbourne Lefty
17th August 2009, 03:22
missing the real danger here. It doesn’t lie in the BNP taking power, in the possibility of concentration camps or any of the other scare stories we’ve been hearing recently. It lies in them colonising the anti-mainstream parties vote and loyalty, thereby blocking the development of an independent working class politics capable of defending our conditions and of challenging neo-liberalism.


BOOM....

Thats the Bunny.

The BNP has the entire political establishment against it and that situation seems highly unlikely to change in the short to medium term. They get exposed in the newspapers and their members are banned from certain positions and have it known that they will get hassle in certain others.

To all effects and purposes they are a proscribed political party. That has massive stigma with it that will make it almost impossible for them to reach the mainstream before demographic changes kill off their core vote.

But all of the above makes them the perfect protest vote in poor white communities, the very communities that have been hit the hardest by neo-liberalism.

The very communities where the left should be, laying the foundations for future solid working class areas.

The BNP creates division amongst the groups we want to appeal to, that is the danger, and it is a very damn real one.

The idea of community unions is great. Imagine your locla group gets a local or parish councillor, that councillor then goes door to door getting people to join the union by explaining how it will lead to better services and will make sure the place is not ignored, the councillor could then help run letter writing campaigns and make sure every member recieves a regular newsletter explaining what the union is doing [with a little light education as well].

This union could be turned into a social thing, especially since many of its members would be OAP's who might enjoy popping down to a local hall for a chinwag and a complain about local issues. The roots from this sort of activity would go very very deep, and since the co-ordination people would be in constant contact with locals they would be able to dispell any racist myths put out by the media. Not to mention being able to keep an eye on the area to help deter criminals, everyone looking out for each other.

Imagine if the BNP tried to have a go in such a community? They would find the entire place up in arms against them and would probably run a mile. Any local members they had managed to recruit through the net would either change their opinions or leave.

Now imagine hundreds of areas like this all up and down the country. In a world with political parties almost totally cut off from the grassroots it could be earth shattering, and its not like the British left lacks the people to do this. Its just that they are told that changing the world is as easy as marching up and down with a Lollypop.

Holden Caulfield
17th August 2009, 10:25
Its just that they are told that changing the world is as easy as marching up and down with a Lollypop.

You are bang on, and before any UAF defenders I can prove that (albeit it don't have the figures off the top of my head and am relying on people trusting a fellow internet user to not lie to them :s) it doesn't work. The SP have stood again the BNP on many occasions, and have stood in areas the BNP would target but didn't have the support to stand candidates in in the past, such as Currock in Carlisle 2001. On most occasions the SP has campaigned in the normal way, using some of the methods you describe, and by actively being on the political offensive. From this they have done very well in relativety, gaining high turnouts in their favour and beating the fascists, or at least drastically cutting down the vote for other parties.

The last set of elections the SP stood in, I can't remember where google it, and used the tacitic of UAF: marches, anti-racist stuff, and other defensive and pointless tactics, and they didn't even make anywhere near as much impression in the vote as they had in times past.

People want an alternative not to hear how bad the BNP are, in Carlisle in the euro elections no2eu and the SLP gained almost the same vote as the BNP. This is by two parties with minimal funds, and who lack the massive national brand and activist base, but who, in the case of no2eu, engaged people on issues they care about. The BNP had Griffin up, a two page spread in the Independant, countless leafetting squads out, had intimidated anti-racist groups who tired to organise against them, had a stall most Saturdays. etc

Pogue
17th August 2009, 10:31
BOOM....

Thats the Bunny.

The BNP has the entire political establishment against it and that situation seems highly unlikely to change in the short to medium term. They get exposed in the newspapers and their members are banned from certain positions and have it known that they will get hassle in certain others.

To all effects and purposes they are a proscribed political party. That has massive stigma with it that will make it almost impossible for them to reach the mainstream before demographic changes kill off their core vote.

But all of the above makes them the perfect protest vote in poor white communities, the very communities that have been hit the hardest by neo-liberalism.

The very communities where the left should be, laying the foundations for future solid working class areas.

The BNP creates division amongst the groups we want to appeal to, that is the danger, and it is a very damn real one.

The idea of community unions is great. Imagine your locla group gets a local or parish councillor, that councillor then goes door to door getting people to join the union by explaining how it will lead to better services and will make sure the place is not ignored, the councillor could then help run letter writing campaigns and make sure every member recieves a regular newsletter explaining what the union is doing [with a little light education as well].

This union could be turned into a social thing, especially since many of its members would be OAP's who might enjoy popping down to a local hall for a chinwag and a complain about local issues. The roots from this sort of activity would go very very deep, and since the co-ordination people would be in constant contact with locals they would be able to dispell any racist myths put out by the media. Not to mention being able to keep an eye on the area to help deter criminals, everyone looking out for each other.

Imagine if the BNP tried to have a go in such a community? They would find the entire place up in arms against them and would probably run a mile. Any local members they had managed to recruit through the net would either change their opinions or leave.

Now imagine hundreds of areas like this all up and down the country. In a world with political parties almost totally cut off from the grassroots it could be earth shattering, and its not like the British left lacks the people to do this. Its just that they are told that changing the world is as easy as marching up and down with a Lollypop.

Just a small thing I perhaps want to clarify on your behalf, I am sure you meant it but didn't type it - the white working class has suffered from eno-liberalism just as the black working class, asian working class, etc. In my area economically they are indistinguishable as with alot of places, its just that the white working class is obviously the BNPs target.

Mate what you said about the community unions and how powerfult hey are is spot on, and forms a core part of my ideology, and that of my organisation, L&S. The idea that we can aid in the establishment of organs of local working class power that will essentially challenge capitalism from its base, giving the working class organs to fight back (along with workplace organisations of a similar vein), so come a revolutionary situation we have the organisation and ideas neccesary to win out.

Killfacer
19th August 2009, 19:45
Great article and i do think it highlights why the BNP is a threat. The part about colonising the anti-mainstream party movement is spot on.

It's difficult how to work out how this kind of thing would work however. I mean it's all well and good suggesting the left set up "community unions" but actually doing it seems like a pretty fucking difficult task.


1) The formation of ‘community unions’ not connected to labour, possibly funded by trade unions but with organisational independence assured, that work directly on helping to meet the needs of those politically abandoned working class communities where conditions are deteriorating by the day. Based around the self-identified needs and plans of those communities – which can only pit them head to head against the BNP and the rest of the political mainstream. The types of small victories than can be won on this terrain should be viewed not only as being worthwhile in themselves but also as contributing to the re-emergence of community confidence in its political self assertion, the necessary first steps towards rebuilding a meaningful change. The are already existing groups engaged in this practical activity such as LCAP, Haringey Solidarity, the IWCA and so on.What exactly is this suggesting? "Community Unions" sounds nice but what does it actually entail? I've always said that the left needs to get off it's high horse and start getting down to the nitty gritty of really local politics, where real working people live. However, what is a community union, what would it's function be? Is it really likely that funding from unions would be forthcoming considering their over obligations?


The need for these to be open membership union type organisations rather than party membership type groups is a simple practical one. People will join unions at work as they recognise collective needs that exist over and above the heads of political disagreements, and the same is true of community needs. And once there is widespread identification (even passive) of the needs of the area/workplace with the existence of the union it becomes very hard to shift, that identification becomes a power in itself. Parties are too narrow to play this role under today’s conditions – they exist on a different level – there’s no reason why they cannot play a role within these broader open groups though.
The one problem with this is that alot of people aren't unionised. I work at ASDA and none of my colleagues, including myself, have any union membership. People just don't want to spend the money on something they consider unimportant.

Sam_b
19th August 2009, 20:39
I've not read the article in full as i'm going through a bottle of wine with friends as we speak, but a couple of points.


The last set of elections the SP stood in, I can't remember where google it, and used the tacitic of UAF: marches, anti-racist stuff, and other defensive and pointless tactics, and they didn't even make anywhere near as much impression in the vote as they had in times past.


That means absolutely nothing. If anything I would say its the changing of the CWI's politics which workers reject, and has absolutely nothing to do with the impact that UAF has.

Skimming the article, its major flaw is that it solely talks about electoral politics, and this completely negates the BNP's two-prong strategy of having a) a political presence and b) having the boot boys. This is why, for example, we don't label UKIP fascists - because they don't have or don't have the background of having a physical and violent presence on the street. Whatever you say about the BNP's vote or whatever, they don't necessarily need to be mainstream, nor arguably want to be in some sections of the party: groups like the EDF have the confidence to go and make a physical presence on the street, and this is down to (in part) electoral successes of the BNP at large. Is it a coincidence that the party seemingly condoned the actions of them in Luton etc, but distanced them from them after their defeat in Birmingham?

Pirate turtle the 11th
19th August 2009, 22:12
You post on revleft while hanging out with friends?

Jesus christ.

Pogue
19th August 2009, 22:14
Great article and i do think it highlights why the BNP is a threat. The part about colonising the anti-mainstream party movement is spot on.

It's difficult how to work out how this kind of thing would work however. I mean it's all well and good suggesting the left set up "community unions" but actually doing it seems like a pretty fucking difficult task.

What exactly is this suggesting? "Community Unions" sounds nice but what does it actually entail? I've always said that the left needs to get off it's high horse and start getting down to the nitty gritty of really local politics, where real working people live. However, what is a community union, what would it's function be? Is it really likely that funding from unions would be forthcoming considering their over obligations?

The one problem with this is that alot of people aren't unionised. I work at ASDA and none of my colleagues, including myself, have any union membership. People just don't want to spend the money on something they consider unimportant.

The role of myself and members of my organisation would be to show people why such organisation is important. Obviously these would be unions of a different kind so the issue of funding would be different to how it is now.

Killfacer
19th August 2009, 23:01
The role of myself and members of my organisation would be to show people why such organisation is important. Obviously these would be unions of a different kind so the issue of funding would be different to how it is now.

How would funding my acquired though? I mean without being a politcal party which receives donations it would be pretty difficult.

Parties receive donations because rich people with a vested interest or with similar politics. How many rich people have a vested interest with the left?

Pogue
19th August 2009, 23:14
How would funding my acquired though? I mean without being a politcal party which receives donations it would be pretty difficult.

Parties receive donations because rich people with a vested interest or with similar politics. How many rich people have a vested interest with the left?

Through the membership, out of ours wages, etc. The same way any workers organisation is funded.

The Ungovernable Farce
20th August 2009, 11:41
Skimming the article, its major flaw is that it solely talks about electoral politics, and this completely negates the BNP's two-prong strategy of having a) a political presence and b) having the boot boys. This is why, for example, we don't label UKIP fascists - because they don't have or don't have the background of having a physical and violent presence on the street. Whatever you say about the BNP's vote or whatever, they don't necessarily need to be mainstream, nor arguably want to be in some sections of the party: groups like the EDF have the confidence to go and make a physical presence on the street, and this is down to (in part) electoral successes of the BNP at large. Is it a coincidence that the party seemingly condoned the actions of them in Luton etc, but distanced them from them after their defeat in Birmingham?
But the BNP's been trying hard to disassociate itself from the boot boys. The whole point of the EDL is that they're not openly linked to the BNP, surely?

Hit The North
20th August 2009, 12:37
But the BNP's been trying hard to disassociate itself from the boot boys.

Well, they would, wouldn't they? They're making a push for respectability. As anti-fascists who recognise the BNP as fascist and understand that fascism will always end up manifesting as street politics, it is our duty to expose their hollow "constitutionalism".


The whole point of the EDL is that they're not openly linked to the BNP, surely?

It makes little difference. The confidence produced by the BNP's electoral victories will be use by other fascist scum - whether affiliated to the BNP or not - to organise violently.

POUM
29th August 2009, 09:37
An excellent article, it might as well serve as an manifesto to the whole European left on how to counter the far right and to regain ground.
Antifascism - yes, but only as an extended hand of a real political alternative be it socialism or anarchism, or merely small actions in helping the working class community.