Lenin’s Tomb
You are right, Lenin. In my office the general tenor is that Griffin was bullied and treated unfairly by the BBC, Dimbleby, the other panellists and the audience ganging up on him. Sample quote: "I'm not saying I support him but..."
Word. As somebody commented on the previous posts, check on the comments on the Daily Mail writeup.
These are depressing times. It appears as if no one has learnt from history and will once again allow for the rise of fascism. Hopefully, however, most people will try and fight this insidious group of barbarians before they ever have a hope of taking power.
Lenin is right. It's bad news, guys. People I’m talking to didn’t think he came across as nervous and shifty - cocky if anything - and they were impressed at how brave he was standing up to the establishment. Ganging up on him like that by the panel and the West London audience has backfired.
Metropolitan inner London is very different from deprived areas like Dagenham, never mind run down northern and Midlands towns.
Last night was a victory for Griffin. We have to come to terms with that and figure out what to do about it.
All true. A surveyor just came round to look at my house and said that Griffin might be crazy but he made some good points. He cited immigration and the disgust at seeing two men kissing. I argued with him but he summed up by saying 'but everyone hates the main parties dont they'.
griffin even scored a point when he pointed out that straw had the blood of hundreds of thousands of iraqis on his hands.
i think the whole thing was a disaster from start to finish. as i said on another post, the whole panel agreed on the substantive point of immigration
The left's elitist distain for ordinary people is palpable in this post - just read it again - it boils down to 'we weren't fooled, but the British public might be' - jesus wept - how do you expect to win over ordinary people to progressive politics if you hate and fear them so much? I mean, it coukd be argued that it is surprising, given the contempt that lab con etc are held in, and given the lack of any viable left alternative, that the vote for the BNP could be higher (particularly given the way it is spoken of in such fearful ways which can only enhance its reputation for being an alternative to the mainstream), yet only a small % of the British public vote for it even at the height of the hatred for mainstream politics. The main response from people to politics at present is not some mad upsurge in nostalgia for the Third Reich but is actually extreme apathy - but hard to engage with that problem, I guess, whilst being so fearful of the public, I guess.
I also ask - what should the left 'do' about the 'appalling' racism of the mainstream politicians? From whence, surely, the main anti-immigrant thrust of British politics comes from? Just shouting Nazi scum off our streets does not remotely begin to deal with the problem - but at least the debate 'exposed' straw, huhne etc for the anti-immigrant bigots they are, and for this we should be thankful not fearful.
Europe has been on a rightward trajectory since 1989. Last night was just another token of this. If anything, the fash have been rather late in having a surge in Britain. But they are having it now.
What do you know about the ordinary people steve? Many of those ordinary people are non-smokers who like smoke free restaurants and work places. Many of them are concerned about the environment, many of them have never hunted fox and don't mourn fox huntings passing.
Actually no Steve. The post says that Griffen's audience are racists, and that his job is to provide a focus for racists. Not to win over the population. And that the BBC provided him with a platform to provide a focus for racists. And that hardened racists (a large proportion of BNP voters and potential support) don't respond the same way to arguments as those who are not hardened racists. This is a point entirely missed by those who think that the only danger is that Nick Griffen might become Prime Minister (and because they think this is unlikely, think that the whole thing is a bit of a laugh).
Attila's comments also leave me entirely dumbfounded, particularly: "Ganging up on him like that by the panel and the West London audience has backfired". We have now reached the stage where arguing forthrightly with a fascist is considered unfair and elitist. Secondly how on earth does Attila know it was a "west London audience" and does he think there are no workers in west London?
There really cannot be anything more middle class then this extraordinary attitude to "salt of the earth" real workers, who seem to be a composite cross between Dickens and chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins. I guess the product of the roots of New Labour in the class.
I think Question Time demonstrated that there is a base for a mass anti-fascist and anti-racist movement in this country. It also demonstrated why we desperately need one. Griffen now has a platform which will give confidence to every racist thug and fascist in the country. And the mainstream politicians imagine that an appropriate response to racism is to appease it.
My favourite comment of the night was the asian bloke who suggested that Nick Griffen be sent to the South Pole an appropriately coulerless landscape. My worse moment was all the guff about freedom of speech and democracy, in which any criticism of anything anyone says leads to a discussion of whether people have a right to say it, rather then a discussion of the substance of what they said.
I think the arguments that Steve makes actually epitomise this.
Sguy - what do I know about ordinary people? The same as you I expect, particularly given the passing of mass political movements/parties. Your embrace of new lab's nanny state is amusing in one who, I imagine, thinks of himself as a radical. I would think that those faux populist issues you mention are part of the reaosn new lab is disliked - not because of each issue as such, but because many people see the issues you raise as essentially pr exercises designed to make it appear that the government has some kind of agenda, any agenda, in the absence of any genuinely transformative project...but if you think the smoking ban was a major step forward for ordinary people...good luck. Maybe you genuinely think that Jamie Oliver could reviev mass working class politics again through his important campaign for home cooking?
Well I'm a country boy myself and in working class rural areas there was mass support for the Countryside Alliance and contempt for metropolitan London. I don't entirely approve of fox hunting myself but the fact that the Labour left was prepared to devote all that Parliamentary time to such a marginal issue rather than say housing, control of usurious credit card companies or anything that really would challenge vested interests and improve lives for ordinary people says how degraded Labourite politics has become.
Gee whiz if they were really bothered about animal rights why not a crackdown on factory farms and support for small farmers practising good husbandry. But that would cost serious money and require standing up to big business and the EU.
Some of us 'ordinary people' would rather not have nazis inciting hatred on my compulsory licence fee, either. I may not be a fan of Russel Brand or Jonathan Ross, but then they don't advocate the repatriation/incarceration/extermination of me and nearly everyone else I know.
But then I'm expecting much engagement with 'ordinary people' (or indeed reality) from yourself or your trollrades either, Steve.
Steve is right - I hate 'ordinary people'. They are disgusting, the lot of them. Of course, most people don't fall into that category, as it just happens to be one of those ideologemes invented by reactionary politicians as a sock puppet for their own idiotic views. In this case, 'ordinary people' are whoever agree with steve banks, which is probably not enough people to fill out an average-sized telephone box. So, yes, I hate ordinary people. They're stupid, navel-gazing, pompous and unutterably boring.
Well I'm a country boy myself and in working class rural areas there was mass support for the Countryside Alliance and contempt for metropolitan London.
Ah, the idiocy of rural life.
So Johng - the lesson you learnt is that there is a need/basis for an anti-fascist anti-racist movement in this country - but you are blurring two separate issues are you not? There is a mass anti-fascist movement in this country in that the mass of the population are either indifferent to or hostile to the BNP. There is not a mass anti-racist movement and that is where the problem is - the mainstream politicians were all united in their views over immigration - until that is tackled then teh anti-fascist campaign is pretty much an irrelevance. I notice that you have ignored that part of my post (and indeed of Lenin's original post) - what is to be done about the mainstream's appaling racism - this, btw, is one of the reasosn I have always been dubious about the swp - they always seem very militant about soft targets such as griffin - but go easy on people like straw - surely a much more dangerous and 'respectable' racist.
Yes Lenin, the people who produce your food. Oh well fuck em, the Tories can have all their votes, lets just stick to our academic and media ghettos and forget about serious politics.
Don't take yourself so seriously, you troublesome rural oik, or I shall have you hung from a pike shaft.
Not much brotherly love between workers and peasants in the SWP's red army - some of us are displaying Maoist tendencies...
BTW the recent influx of white immigrants from Eastern Europe has meant the terms of the debate have changed - you can't automatically assume that those who express concerns about immigration are racists if mixed race, black, white and Asian people are competing for jobs and housing with Poles.
What is the SWPs position on immigration? Are you against all immigration controls and if not what criteria would you use to judge who should be allowed into the country?
BTW the recent influx of white immigrants from Eastern Europe has meant the terms of the debate have changed - you can't automatically assume that those who express concerns about immigration are racists if mixed race, black, white and Asian people are competing for jobs and housing with Poles.
Excuse me, but who says they're 'white'? Whiteness is a hugely elastic discourse. Irish people are considered white, didn't used to be. Ditto Italians, ditto Jewish, ditto Poles, ditto Hungarians, etc etc. Increasingly Mexican people are considered 'white' in America. Racist resentment doesn't work according to schematic categories of who is white and who is not. Incidentally, if you accept that model in which different 'races' 'compete' for the same jobs, then you are opening the door to racism. It happens to be untrue that they are all competing for the same jobs anyway. Eastern European migration actually *created* jobs that wouldn't have existed, raising employment in the country as a whole.
What is the SWPs position on immigration? Are you against all immigration controls and if not what criteria would you use to judge who should be allowed into the country?
The SWP is against immigration controls.
The SWP is opposed to all immigration controls. Obviously, since it's a revolutionary socialist organization in the tradition of Marx and Engels. I though this was generally known on the left.
Steve, passivity and indifference do not make up movements, although given your overwhelmingly passive approach to politics I'm not surprised that you can't see this. The racists talk about a politically correct concensus. What they mean by this is that through the confrontations of the 1970s with the Nazis, community campaigns against police harrassment, and the inner city uprisings of the 1980s (amongst many other things) anti-racism forced its way on to the political agenda, and this was accompanied by shifts in what was and was not acceptable at the level of everyday life for millions and millions of people.
Millions and millions of people benefitted from these changes but there are also millions of people who deeply resented and despised such changes. Most of the time though such people feel atomised and helpless (hence the endless tedious victimology, cranky conspiracy theories, and private bigotry over gin and tonics). When Nick Griffen appears such people are rallied. They exist Steve. You might live in some fantasy world made up of media events and impassioned debate about 'enlightenment values' but in the real world we live in a polarised society in which some would love to drive people back to the 1950s and further.
Broader anti-racism is neccessary but not to see the threat of organised racists spouting their filth over the airwaves to be recieved by hundreds of thousands of actually existing racists who can be organised is stupid in the extreme. How many people read Spiked Steve?
I actually think the whole left is too complacent about this as it happens, Steve just representing a stupider variant of this complacency.
Well, Lenin, I would have thought as a historian you would know that campaigns for censorship have historically always been based on fear of the masses and what might happen if they hear/see the worng message. You may reject the charge but if you re-read your post what does come across is a fear that somehow - despite his obviously woeful performance and the obvious dislike of him in the audience that somehow somewhere, out in the public, is a vast audience just ready to see Griffin as some kind of saviour - this audience, I would suggest, just doesn't exist - particularly when the mainstream parties are already competing to see, as you yourself point out, who can be the toughest on immigrants. Your solution is to suggest that we shut down such discussions, and if we follow Sguy's suggestion we should do so on some spurious bureaucratic license fee argument, in case, some how, the mysterious masses are captivated by Nick Griffin - I suggest that the debate exposed not only Griffin but also Straw Huhne et al and would give us a brilliant chance, if the Brit left weren't so myopic and fearful, to illustrate why all the mainstream parties are entirely reactionary on the issue of migration and immigrants.
somehow somewhere, out in the public, is a vast audience just ready to see Griffin as some kind of saviour
I didn't say it was vast. It just has to be big enough to substantially increase the membership and voting base of the BNP, thus raising the danger to non-white Britons, gays, trade unionists, etc.
this audience, I would suggest, just doesn't exist
Then you're just deluded.
'Well I'm a country boy myself and in working class rural areas there was mass support for the Countryside Alliance and contempt for metropolitan London.
Ah, the idiocy of rural life.'
Did Hal Draper not reckon that 'idiocy' was a mistranslation for 'isolation'?
Given that no-one is advocating censorship its really hard to know what you are talking about Steve. And if you are trying to suggest that the entire anti-fascist tradition is a right wing conspiracy based on exploiting peoples fears, might I suggest that you've gone a bit potty? I know you have strange ideas about how the problem with contemporary capitalism is that it has lost confidence in itself and what we need is a new kind of Thatcherite revolution of boldness, an end to the nanny state, campaigns against state intervention in our health, and learned treatise on the horrors of Jamie Oliver: But please. No one wants to stop you saying such things. Its not neccessary for you to re-gurgitate Nick Griffen's propaganda about himself to protect yourself from it.
Oh the audience exists, steve, be in no doubt about that. The vast majority of such people don't actually want to harm British Pakistanis but would love to wake up one fine morning and find they've gone back to the subcontinent.
That is why those who oppose all immigration controls are never going to get a serious hearing among the working class. It is utopian.
And lenin, immigration controls are not automatically racist. Chauvinist perhaps, racist no. It all depends whether they are based on civic or ethnic nationalism
The BBC is claiming over 8 million people watched Question Time last night. If just 1 in 100 of them was impressed by Griffin, that's 80,000 new BNP fans out there. If just 1 in 500 was impressed enough to join, the BNP more than doubles in size.
"Don't take yourself so seriously, you troublesome rural oik, or I shall have you hung from a pike."
Ummm shouldn't that be:
"Don't take yourself so seriously, you troublesome rural oik, or I shall have you disembowelled, hung in your own tripes, and then prodded with a pike"
I'm pretty sure it should be that :-)
As bat020 points out, it really doesn't matter if the overwhelming majority of viewers were repelled by Griffin - a platform like QT still allows the BNP to reach enough people to give it a boost. That's an important part of why anti-fascists opposed allowing Griffin a platform at all. Whatever is or isn't said in the 'debate' is of secondary importance.
Ah, thank you bat020 for making the point I in fact came to make.
I've been reading around a fair bit this morning. In general I think people on "the left" (and I use that term very loosely) in the UK are being a bit complacent.
I keep on thinking of the early efforts of the Dansk Folkeparti which were similarly derided here in Denmark. Now the bastards hold the balance of power.
steve you can't type a post without bullshit, you claim the left only bangs on about the NHS often enough yet it can be easily proved that there are many other issues that focus the left, although without a doubt health care should always be on the top 10. You throw me in as a Nulab supporter meanwhile you use that right wing canard 'The Nanny State' should I assume your right wing because of your fondness for that fuck wit term? Hey better a nanny state then a dead beat dad state! By the way look up passive smoking some time, you might learn something steve. Of course its a step forward, fuckers like you would have been arguing against laws that restrict the right to exploit child labour for 14 hours a day because it gve power to the ebol beuracrats. Why not oppose gay marriage too on the principle that it gives the state more power, that some grey suited grey faced functionary will enter gay marriage in to the laws of the land! :O Seriously a lot of the time you sound like the chumps in the Tea Bagger movement. Unlike you though Im not going to say you definately are just because I have my suspicions.
Anonymous, you say 'Whatever is or isn't said in the 'debate' is of secondary importance.'
If anything summed up the anti-intellectualism of the Brit 'left' and its contempt for debate, than this statement does (oh yes, and Peter Hain's laughably bureaucratic
attempts to prevent Griffin appearin on QT). What is said, I would suggest, is or primary importance in whatever arena progressives find themselves and rather than trying to dictate what and where those arenas might be - a little more time spent trying to refine what is to be 'said' in those arenas might be useful...just a thought....
Malcolm: 'These are depressing times. It appears as if no one has learnt from history and will once again allow for the rise of fascism. Hopefully, however, most people will try and fight this insidious group of barbarians before they ever have a hope of taking power.'
I was on a PO picket line this morning, where a determined (and surprisingly large) scabbing operation was also underway. Some of the scab labour might have been foreign, possibly Polish; certainly, no-one had seem them before. Neither Griffin nor the BNP were mentioned, but there was a discussion along the lines of 'British jobs for British workers' (though the slogan wasn't raised at all).
Over almost a decade of selling SW at the sorting office, I've never known any racism, and some of us took up the point. I won't say that everyone was convinced, but some were, and no-one came back to it, while I was there at least. It wasn't a racist point, but an anti-scabbing one, but you could see how the Nazis could use it.
What I'm saying is that, where there are people to 'fight it', as you say, there will be progress. Where the mainstream media and politics are so craven, as with Question Time, racism will flourish, and Griffin can use it, and fighting it is harder.
I don't know how Question Time has gone down in wider opinion - a few anecdotes are not enough, and I've heard some 'plucky little Nick' comments, and some saying he came over as a liar ('I'm not a Nazi, and never have been'). I do think that it wouldn't have been as good as it was, which wasn't good (for the reason Lenin indicates), without the demonstrators: but the central truth to me seemed to be that liberal democracy really has very little answer to fascism. Also, on BNP support - I think Lenin's right that QT may well have deepened their sense unfair treatment; there's also the point that the demonstrations would have dented their confidence at the same time.
Will someone please remove Steve's batteries and put him back in the box?
The audience were better than the fucking panel to be honest. But shows you how poor an orator Griffin really is when he was sat alongside such an insipid grouping - and still comes across as a sweaty, bumbling buffoon.
Agree, though, that he could get the sympathy vote for being the lone (albeit mad) voice. The pandering to the Daily Mail world view on immigration was truly awful by the lib dems, new labour and tories.
His hardcore support will see his treatment as nothing more than victimisation - and their world view will be proved correct in a warped kind of way. To their fevered minds, there really is a liberal elite out to crucify their fuhrer.
The BBC is a fucking disgrace for peddling this shite. An entertainment programme dressed up as political debate.
"I can't be the only who is already sick to death of all the news and commentary about Nazi Nick's appearance on Question Time." ?????
And this is your nth article about it???
And you even took the time to join in the protests???
Methinks you are so owned, Lenin, my friend :-)
>>> It appears as if no one has learnt from history
This is a refrain we always hear when someone is trying to justify a war.
Actually it appears that for both the right and the left, for everyone from Churchill to Trotsky, there is only one "lesson" from the entire course of human history and that is "we must oppose fascism/dictators before it is too late".
(No matter how many millions end up dying in the process.)
We now see antifascists producing posters of British warplanes with the legend "This machine kills fascists".
From Hitler to Saddam, "antifascism" gives a populist gloss to imperialism.
I say give lenin a ride in a Spitfire and let him pretend he is shooting down jerries.
Maybe then he can get the obsession out of his system.
'Harry Hotspur' - are you Nick Cohen in disguise?
But Harry the BNP IS actually a Nazi party.
Let's examine steve 'Give me Smoker's Liberty or Give me Death cough cough cough hack' banks' crude anti-statism. Apparently if you support certain reforms then you lub the government in question all the way. Therefore according to the steve banks logic school (try to restrain your laughter) anyone who supports Medicare or Medicaid in the US has Vietnamese blood on their hands, Im sure you know about LBJ and dont need any more explaining. If you support OSHA or the EPA then you love Nixon. Heck if you support any kind of social reform you should be labelled as a disciple of Bismark, after all didn't he get the whole social reform ball rolling?
Yeah damn the Nanny State, It's a good thing in America they've largely done away with it. And with absolutely zero problems resulting, if you've bought Cancer Stick Banks' logic so far you should have no trouble swallowing the last.
There is no argument defending free speech for fascists. Once you become one, you exclude yourself from old JS Mill's freedom of speech argument. Even he argued there were limits to freedom of expression. The real confrontation with the fash is manifestly not intellectual. To defeat them, their entire infrastructure should be physically destroyed - offices, computers, files, transport, and their cadre physically assaulted and intimidated. Then the rest of us can enjoy freedom of speech. Because if they somehow 'win' - it'll be us on the receiving end instead of them. And yes, this is violent and unpleasant, but what else can you do with knuckle-walkers like this, something hinted at by 20C European history.
"Don't take yourself so seriously, you troublesome rural oik, or I shall have you hung from a pike."
Ummm shouldn't that be:
"Don't take yourself so seriously, you troublesome rural oik, or I shall have you disembowelled, hung in your own tripes, and then prodded with a pike"
I'm pretty sure it should be that :-)
Probably what Nick the Dick and his people would really do to the likes of me if they took power.
Even the bearded one was capable of making the odd crass remark. I don't like Marx's contempt for rural life. Nor did Chairman Mao by the way, and whatever you think of him he was one of the most successful Marxists in history whose power base was the peasantry.
There is no instrinsic reason why places like Cumbria or Cornwall can't elect culturally conservative Labour figures committed to anti racism and workers rights but who don't share the liberal elites penchant for refusing to allow the police to deal effectively with juvenile delinquents and allowing the Court of Criminals Rights in Strasbourg to overrule British democracy.
But neither metropolitan liberals nor Marxists are interested in the country bumpkins. Nick Griffin would welcome their votes. As long as there is nothign on the left but PC Blue Labour hacks and sectarian far leftists the only effective antidote to the BNPs poison will be either UKIP or the Tories.
attila -
Have you been drinking absinthe all day? You're comments are becoming ever more deranged.
I may also be a country bumpkin (although one exiled to the Great Wen), but even I know that Mao wasn't a Marxist. As Attila could see if he read what he himself wrote. If Mao's power base was the peasantry (and that's one way of looking at it), he quite clearly wasn't someone who worked for the self-emancipation of the proletariat.
Consistency may be the hobgoblin of petty minds, but it does help sometimes, particularly within the same sentence.
A springboard for Griffin and a tipping point for fascism in Britian, hence the reason why the BBC's attempts to 'mainstream' the BNP is so important.
As lenin points out on the 'media lens messege board', the election of Thatcher marks a watershed in the process of escalation and radicalisation in mainstream politics, but is only part of the process.
Decades later, after the extremism of neo-liberalism and foreign military adventures, it is being made to seem almost respectable to have debates with overt fascists and neo-Nazis about 'immigration' on BBC flagship political programmes broadcast to the rest of the nation.
The late great Eqbal Ahmad talked about similar 'radicalising' effects with respects to the Vietnam War on the domestic politics of America -
The Lessons of Vietnam in The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmed (1965).
His conclusions reminds me of current day politics in Britian and how wars abroad are used to justify treating former 'mainstream' parties as no different than growing far right-wing ones. A corruption of politics whereby domestic and foreign policies, once seperate, are made to collapse into each other. Why vote for any of the mainstream parties when they're just as bad as the very far right?
An ever radicalising/escalating process as anyone who knows their history of the growth of fascism and nazism will recognise and aunderstand.
Great work lenin!
erratum
'The Lessons of Vietnam' (1965)
in
The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmed (2006)
all the best
And while we were all getting wound up by Nick the Dick the neoliberals were launching the real attack on civlised British values.
www.carerwatch.com/mhealth/
Of course this ambominable Bill and the success of the BNP are connected in that both are a result of Blue Labour's total contempt for the working class and the poor in deprived areas. Blair, Brown and Lord Mandy of Scabber thought they were losers who had nowhere else to go.
So embrace market fundamentalism (the liberalism of the right) and get filthy rich while pretending to be progressive by being ever so PC about identity politics.(the liberalism of the left)
If you’re black, Asian, Jewish or gay we’ll celebrate your identiy. If you are a mentally ill or uenployed black, Asian, Jewish or gay person you don’t have any identity worth spending taxpayers money on.
I’m all in favour of a cosmopolitan Britain. But it is no substitute for a common national identity based on social justice. You don’t even have to be a socialist to believe that - Christians such as John Donne were appealing to common humanity back in the sixteenth century. No man is an island entire of itself. We are all minorities at times we are all vulnerable to life’s disasters….
No thanks to the left there was some excellent progress in the Welfare Reform Bill debate in the Lords yesterday. Liberal Democrat baronesses did it. It’s still a terrible Bill but they got as much protection as they possibly could for the sick and mentally ill.
Disability is now linked to the lone parents issues – lone parents had charities fighting for them all the way and the Disability Benefits Consortium finally woke up and joined in.
Disability type with proper medical diagnosis is now back at least in the monitoring and is due cause for appeal against sanctions.
So medical diagnosis got back on the face of the bill. Conventional medicine is no longer abolished by this government any more than boom and bust was – it’s been let back in and rehabilitated.
Moral is forget about an elected House of Lords. Keep it as it is with people who are not "accountable" to some party hack in thrall to what the Sun says.
Zero press coverage. Everyone was following some poor sad little fascist plonker called Nick Griffin instead of watching the really dangerous politicians bringing in the Welfare Reform Bill.
On the back of Attila's comments, can I take the opportunity to advertise something?
Public meeting on the 18 November at the SCOPE national office on Market Road, near Caledonian Road Station. It ties the above issue of the Welfare Reform Bill with other issues, including new policies on care that threaten Attendence Allowance & DLA, as well as the new Equality Bill which threatens to undermine the rights of people with invisible/ fluctuating impairments.
Entitled "Disabled rights under threat: Fight for a real Equality Bill". Organised by London Autistic Rights Movement.
It seems that the implicit meesage here suggests that leftists think that their violence and thuggery are acceptable and indeed is a form of moral virtue as they believe themselves to be motivated by the best values and that anyone that demurs is not simply wrong but wicked and immoral.
Go on someone be honest and admit part of the pleasure of far left politics, its jouissance if you like, is in the enjoyment of revengeful violence against "scum" such as the Roger Scrutons of this world. Seriously anyone with a worldview like a Scruton or a Theodore Dalrymple would be either shot or in the gulag under a Socialist regime - just be honest about it.
I know I am a recovering ex-leftist and much of my reason for being so was a deep bitterness towards the world and the jouissance of thinking about who would get it once revolutionary fury had been unleashed.
And Richard when will we see your nrxt book? I suggest "The Socialist Defence of Mass Murder" perhaps?
Until the extreme left honestly take-on their own history of extreme misanthropy and love of mass violence I find it hard to take the moral posturing remotely seriously.
"Until the extreme left honestly take-on their own history of extreme misanthropy and love of mass violence"
Do you have an example of this in mind? Or is this yet another piece of liberal / right-wing waffle / trolling?
He's a troll. Although I am impressed by his use of the word "jouissance". Probably written over and over again on the walls of his bedsit, next to the pasted up pages of the bible... :)
Just to be clear, 'Tony D' is an idiotic stalker who has previously posted as 'Dr Theodore Dalrymple', 'Graham Lister', etc. He was never remotely on the left.
Yes, but he's a better standard of troll, he tries to use words of French derivation. I bet he hangs out in Left Bank cafes, and drinks absinthe while cultivating his Third Position.
I think he should be encouraged. Trolls and hobgoblins don't need to be semi-literate and monoglot, you know. Let's see if we can get him to use other French words, like "mouchard", "priapisme" and "passepoil".
"Did Hal Draper not reckon that 'idiocy' was a mistranslation for 'isolation'?"
I live a rural life - my village newsagent has four different vintage tractor magazines available.
If he didn't write 'idiocy', he should have.
I think he should be encouraged. Trolls and hobgoblins don't need to be semi-literate and monoglot, you know. Let's see if we can get him to use other French words, like "mouchard", "priapisme" and "passepoil".
Faust | 23 Oct, 16:44 | #
And when his amusement value runs out you can see to it that he is
"pendu dans ses propres tripes" "pour encourager les autres"
Stalker deleted.
Oh shut up tony you fuck wit who thinks gay marriage will wreck the nuclear family. You would have been burning witches at the stake not so long ago talking about the witches tradition of misanthropy and penchant for violence.
Harry Hotspur - I'd been wondering when somebody would bring up that wonderful old ultraleft argument that the real problem is "antifascism" (= a cover for imperialism etc.).
Reminds me of a guy from Lutte Ouvrière (pardon my French) I met on a demo in Paris (not trying to be intellectually superior, I just live here) the other day who went raging on about how supporting the Palestinian resistance was reactionary because Hamas are a nationalist organisation, nationalism is a bourgeois ideology etc.
It just proves you don't have to live in the country to be an idiot.
Oui, c'est un fichu metier pour le pauvre salopard. Zut alors! J'ai eu ce Jean-Marie Le Pen a l'arriere de mon taxi une fois.
I did get a bit of the "he was bullied", "I don't like him but..." routine from some folk - my girlfriend's parents today, for instance. Although they read the Daily Mail and are practicing Catholics, so maybe that doesn't say too much.
It's a bit grim. It seems like people are sort of having the same experiences.
Right enough, for a Marxist, I do tend to find myself surprised at quite how reactionary the company I sometimes keep can be (but, hey, you can't choose 'em, can you?!).
Is that all your epic intellectual odyssey comes down to TD, "right and left they're all the same"? Oh well. How dull for you. Anyway, to put you right - there's no 'mass violence' involved in physically confronting the embryonic fascist movement in the UK. They're not that big an organisation. And we aren't 'extreme' on the 'extreme left' - there's nothing extreme about wanting to eradicate exploitation, hunger, mass disease and war. You are an extreme bore though.
Well, I would go easy on him. He has definitely broadened my horizons. Look up "jouissance" in Wiktionary and you'll see what I mean.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politi...urnley-
reaction
Overwhelming sympathy for Griffin at Burnley market today, according The Guardian, even among non-BNP supporters. This could indeed have been a major propaganda coup for the Nazis.
The fact that Mao's Red Army was full of peasants in order to win a war doesn't stop him from being a Marxist who was committed to industrialising China. There were plenty of other things wrong with Mao but that fact isn't one of them.
The two key issues behind Nick the Dick's success are firstly immigration and its effects on housing and jobs and secondly crime.
Immigration
Immigration controls are not in themselves racist unless they are based on racial criteria. One of the reasons immigraton is such a hot topic now is because of the influx of East Eurpeans who are as "white" as anyone in Scumbag's party.
Of course most of the Poles were skilled grafters who were a huge boost to the overall economy but the fact remains all things being equal if you have a large influx of immigration there is bound to be a tendency to lower wages and increse pressure on housing. It's called supply and demand.
The free movement of labour is bad for unskilled workers in rich countries. It's also bad for poor countries if it creams off their most enterprising and best educated people. I used to be as PC on immigration as the SWP until I worked for an asylum and immmigrant law firm in Leeds and dealt with the case of a Sudanese who'd studying tropical medicine at London Univesity. He then decided he wanted to stay in Britain. Fact remains he was needed in his own country.
An open immigration policy can be another way of rich countries exploiting the Third World and weakening their domestic working class. There have to be controls just as there must be equal rights for everyone in the workplace once they're here.
Why do you suppose Blue Labour was so keen both to enlarge the EU and to remove all restrictions on East European entry? Partly because both they and the Tories saw the East European governments as a conservative ally undermining France and Germany in the EU. But also as a source of cheap labour.
Were the supply of Third World au pairs cut off middle class professional women might have to employ working class nannies who would be much harder to exploit. A British national can walk out the door if their employer is a vicious bully; a Filipino domestic servant whose legal status is uncertain or whose English is not fluent is much easier to abuse.
If you want to turn working class whites in Dagenham away from voting BNP you're not going to do it by opposing all immigration controls as racist.
Crime
If you are serious about persuading people on the estates to move left you're not going to do it by having a knee jerk hostility to the police, especially if they are being tormented by gangs of feral teenagers.
There is nothing progressive, left wing or Marxist about being soft on law and order because the chief victims of crime are the working class and the poor. If the lumpenproletariat chavs are not disciplined they will make the respectable working class lives a misery.
The Strasbourg judeges who forced Britain to abolish corporal punishment for school bullies are not affected by the consequences. The London media establishment don't give a toss becuase they live in posh areas and they can afford either to send their kids to public school or to buy a house in the right catchment area. Teachers have no sanctions on disruptive pupils and are liable to be suspended if they even defend themselves against physical assualt by teenage yobs.
The Labour party, having been captured by middle class graduates rather than being filled with working class trade unionists, has abandoned proletariat. Then to our utter surprise they vote for Nick Griffin. If he is the only one who appears to be taking their concerns seriously why should we be surprised?
That Guardian article is pretty wretched though. That was clearly the story they were after, and 3 or 4 interviews say very little.
Lenin - re attila @18.03. Really, he needs to be offed.
I did worry that Dimbleby, the panel and the audience might be influenced by the mob outside and over play their hand during the debate, and it does appear this has happened. Griffin seems to have scored a direct hit today with his complaint that QT changed their format to target him. It's undenable that the format of the programme was changed, giving Griffin a great propaganda point to run with.
Another great victory for the mob outside.
Sguy - yes, I am rather hostile towards the state aren't I...maybe becuase I have tended to subscribe to the view that...'The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.'
The one thing I would'nt criticise the BBC is changing their format. Nick Griffin is not a politician like any other and nor does he deserve a level playing field. He is a racist who wants to reach out to racists all over the country and organise them. The BBC in their wisdom decided to give a platform to let him do that. Notice how the argument proceeds. First of all it is stated that 'No Platform' is wrong. Then it is stated that even demonstrations against fascists are wrong. Then we are told that 'ganging up' (ie arguing with) a fascist is wrong. Apparently who he is ought to be ignored and we should just ask the fuhrer questions about his attitude to the postal service. Anything else is 'metropolitan' bias (a phrase probably never uttered anywhere outside of the metropolis). From there its a short step to suggesting that Griffin is not the problem at all, its too many immigrants, and too many races and customs in Britain. What a great strategy for combating fascism these useful idiots have.
You're right Len, with regards the legitimation of racist views.
To say: "Well Nick Griffin is obviously repellent and awful" *cue applause* "BUT, we do need to have an honest debate about immigration" *cue more applause* this was precisely the tack last night. Someone in the audience shouted out "We've got millions unemployed..." Cue Baroness Warsi who then said something vague about "resources" but very quickly returned to "look, let's talk about immigration, it's clearly an issue that we need to address"
Why when capital *might* just be part/most/all of the problem, is it never the solution to actually discuss it. "Millions unemployed eh?" Perhaps the need for a reserve army of labour etc etc ... "nah, let's blame the immiagrants"
Last night's QT was actually the finest example I can recall of a discursive formation, those that watched it actually witnessed the formation of dominant discourse.
Capital the problem = blame the immigrants as the [final] solution.
Fuckers the lot of them
Hmm odd. The general consensus of opinion within my circle was that he looked a total twat. My circle being mainly white, apolitical, working-class manual labourers. Perhaps I just don't mix in the right circles.
I can't think of many people who would describe the relationship between the tabloids and their consumers as one of "brainwashing".
The point about the tabloids attacking Griffin is that they will attack him personally on one page and then on the next page they'll have an article about migration that could have been written by him.
Angus: 'It's a very muddled area where confusion and hypocrisy reigns.'
Never a truer word. You're blaming the demonstration (which is what I'm assuming you mean by 'the mob' - your first confusion), when the BBC created the need for it by putting the real mob's leader on its prime politics show (2nd confusion). You're blaming left politics, when the panel showed how liberal democracy's ideas can set the tone for racism and fascism (3rd).
Angus: 'The voters put him on question time, not the BBC.' - no, fewer voted for them this time than last. The BBC has been craven in its policy towards both the BNP and racism for over a decade now.
And: 'Next time stop helping the BNP by aping their propaganda about mainstream politics and get out and vote against them.' - I've never helped them, I just disagree with you; I did vote, leaflet and organise against them.
More confusion, Angus, and just a smidgin of hypocrisy's second cousin, smugness, creeping in, I fancy?
Well said, len.
Evening all,
The argument that the BBC has a duty to censor the far right because its a state owned media provider and 'We pay the license fee' is wrong. The BBC, the Police, the Army OWE US NOTHING! They are part of the capitalist state directly or indirectly. The UN declaration of human rights, like the BBC charter, prmoises all sorts of magical things - no marxist argues the UN owes us the reality of the words.
The article complains about the 'tougher than thou' attitude of the mainstream bourgeois politicians that the SWP supports, on the grounds that they're not revolutionary socialists! Shhhurely the lesson shold be 'dont constitute yourself as the left wing of boring old bog standard 'Reaction' against the (small and as yet still patheic)'Fascism'! But hold on you might say, the BNP may well be small fry now but they could grow, and this BBC platform only helps them do this! The lack of a proper united communist party to oppose the BNP is the single greatest contributour to the rise of the BNP, followed by the fact that bourgoeis-natioanlist politicians are, shock horror, exactly that. If you support the soft-right liberal elite and refuse or scupper all prospects of a united communist party do you really have the right to complain about the bourgeoisie not doing what you want it As you support it - Tainting yourself and providing No Clear Alternative in the process.
It is this short sightedness that, in the long run, helps the BNP most - when marxists are fragmented and pretending to be anything but marxists. In effect we cease to exist as anything other than left-liberals in anything other than our own secret cult meetings when we're only with others 'like us'.
The existance of a united communist party would do away with all this, including the SWP's peculiar outrage regarding the BNPs use of Liberal language to cover its radical politics. The SWP is, in words, a revolutionary socalist party - yet its representatives, which are on the telly etc far more than the BNP using liberal style language, are never 'exposed' as wanting the overthrow of the BBC, Police, Army, State and so on. They go on as UAF, as Respect, as STWC but Never as themselves. I know the BNP are fascists, but still, raging double standards.
And round and round we go.
The CPB even wants laws against the BNP because of their extremism...the last time the tankies got their wish for anti-extremist laws the communists were the first in the firing line by these very same laws! We cant rely on the bourgeois state as a substitute for a united marxist party. Not that its not worth making demands that advance struggle/defend gains etc etc.
A united communist party standing on a communist programme!
But in the abscence of this , and with no other viable strategy, all that is left to do is shout for State censorship (With textual cover to hide this in the shape of the Charter fetish) and demand that all these bad people just go away because go away. There is no substitute for a Party.
PS At work the overwhelming view was that the corrput mainstream parties and the beeb did a number on Griffin and didnt give him time to speak (Even though people did say 'I dont support the BNP but...) on anything other than himself. Lefties might well say 'Good' to this fact. It is far, far from good. Had the no-platformers got their way the scale of the BNP victory would have been even greater. The BNP only appear 'normalised' on the media in the abscence of communists exposing them -NO ONE ELSE WILL DO IT WELL ENOUGH. Again the need for a mass communist party not standing on social-demcratic programme is screamingly obvious. That the SWPS recent 'unity call' was a call for 'unity with and programmatic concessions to the Right!' shows nothing is changing in the SWPS attitude to the rest of the Left, or to marxism, and the rise of the BNP is unlikely to change this either.
I still really love your blog though, keep it up comrade!
regards, MC.
Dan Swain - There are many good reasons to condemn the Guardian but the story about the reaction in Burnley Market dovetails with the experience of a number of comrades posting here. It also vindicates the stance taken by the SWP and other anti-fascists.
My own conversations today were equally depressing. A black guy I work with was more interested in slagging off the government for lying about immigration than condemning the odious fuhrer. The BNP is pulling the whole debate into ever more dangerous and reactionary territory. And don't even get me started about the two morons in my office who think the English Defence League is standing up for the English.
The recession is making things even more toxic - and the left is weak and divided. I'm more fearful than at any time in my political life.
I've just watched the programme and I feel violently sick. Not because of Griffin but because of the smug complacancy of those sat next to him on the panel. This is dog whistle politics. People just do not listen to Staw. Then the mainstream parties get into a fight over immigration - while sat next to a Nazi. A Nazi. So Straw is defending a "points based system" ie if you have highly developed skills desperately needed in developing countries, then please come in. If you are a victim of rape and torture, tough we're not going to train you we're going to accuse you of lying. And the Tories. We're not going to pull up the draw bridge. We're going to cap the number of people coming in. And when we reach the cap we'll... pull up the draw bridge. The mainstream media today is claiming the Nazi choked but the "elite" and the liberals among them were an absolute shower. The BBC could not, apparently, find a single politician that was in favour of immigration. Where is the balance? So among all this noise racists - and people so royally stuffed by Labour that they turn against people less well off than themselves - would have heard the whistle. Many will join. This will pay for literature and websites full of lies. And more votes until we're all in a gas chamber somewhere celebrating our commitment to freedom of speech.
'Angus' = Mike. please delete.
Tony D - well, nobody will drop being a communist because of your arguments. Isomorphism? Come on, quit jerking off on your five dollar words.
Fascism is about eliminating all organizations, publications, thoughts independent of a state acting in the interests of boosting total national profitability.
Communism - even in its third worldist stalinist varieties - was about finding ways to liberate populations from the brutalities of international capitalism. Stalinism in Russia was a different kettle of fish and the Stalinism of Mao in power, trying to develop the Chinese national economy in the global market is also a different kettle. Those are about an abandonment of the left - generally through force and counter-revolution - in order to subordinate human need and raise to supremacy the "national interest" in the form of capital accumulation.
And the "communism" of the author of this blog and most of the commentators is about strategizing to find ways to liberate humanity.
Your argument is to accept the status quo - as if the status quo doesn't mean death to 30,000+ children every day from preventable causes, or the dismemberment and bombing of Iraq, or the sweatshops of Asia, or the overthrow of democratic governments in Central America, or the 5,000 people a month in the USA who die from lack of access to healthcare.
Spare us your sanctimonious hand-waving.
"Hmm odd. The general consensus of opinion within my circle was that he looked a total twat. My circle being mainly white, apolitical, working-class manual labourers. Perhaps I just don't mix in the right circles."
I agree. I'm a student at an adult education college in central London where a number of students who I discussed QT with today thought Griffin came across as a devious liar and a dangerous idiot. Even though some of them had thought Griffins appearance on QT was acceptable after they saw him on QT they all thought it was a bad idea to give him a platform.
Most of these students are middle aged white people working full time while studying part-time. They're not overtly political and are struggling since the crisis. Griffins appearance definitely didn't engender sympathy in them. If anything, they found it worrying.
As for the Guardians article have you ever read the comments following any Guardian article supporting no platform? Many of the replies are from traditional left liberals who pander to Islamophobia and secretly go along with reactionary ideas about Muslims and immigration. They try to disguise their bile with the freedom of speech argument. I'm not claiming that the Guardian is racist but it knows what buttons to push to pander to its readership. In a recession it can't afford to alienate too many of its liberal customers.
I think we need a sober assessment of Griffins appearance. Not least because if we get too caught up in wailing and the gnashing of teeth we are in danger of loosing perspective and becoming demoralised.
There is no doubt that the BBC handed Griffin a gift as Le Pen has described it but Griffin is no Le Pen and the BNP do not have the street presence of the FN. The FN apparently have groups in many colleges and uni's in France. The BNP are no where near this yet.
I also wouldn't under estimate the power that the postal strike has in undercutting Griffins support. The strike is a gift for socialists and workers. There's everything to play for and the large and vocal demo outside the BBC on a week day night shows that significant numbers of people are willing to oppose the nazis.
A couple I know who went on the demo told me that the protesters nearly broke through the gates a couple of times. Perhaps an extra couple of hundred people could have made that possible. We need to get the message out that the balance of forces is very delicate and can tip in our favour at any time depending on our continued concerted effort to oppose the BNP.
The comments in SW from those involved in stopping the NF in the 70's in the face of what must have seemed very difficult odds shows how it's possible to turn Griffin's little victory yesterday around. I remember when Beacon got elected in the Isle of Dogs it felt like such a defeat but six months later after a lot of hard and nail biting work we got rid of him.
As others have commented, the BNP need foot soldiers to build their organisation and control the streets. A TV appearance may contribute in a small way to building this but most of the support generated by his appearance will be from those who might now consider voting BNP. This does not necessarily translate to building their membership much less a cadre of street thugs.
On the streets anti-nazis hold sway. We have consistently out manoeuvred and overwhelmed the EDL and the BNP. Griffin had to get a special police escort to appear on QT and he had to enter by the back door. Let's not forget that the nazis are cowards who will only risk a fight if they significantly out number anti-nazis. We clearly intimidate them and we shouldn't under estimate this power by over exaggerating the fall out from Griffins appearance.
It's terrible that there will be racists crawling out of the wood work after Griffins appearance. Inevitably there will be racist attacks. But the worse thing we can do is dwell on the fallout because even if our predictions are correct our course of action must still be the same.
I know I shouldn't feed but...Tony D's grasp of Marxism is like a toffs grasp of so-called "common people". He a baby with his first Fisher Price vocabulary set. If he wasn't such an odious dick his political malapropisms would be rather sweet.
Seymour: I think your argument can be boiled down to "Don't trust the working class: they're too stupid. Us university-educated lefties will tell you proles what you can and can't be exposed to."
Correct?
"Right enough, for a Marxist, I do tend to find myself surprised at quite how reactionary the company I sometimes keep can be (but, hey, you can't choose 'em, can you?!)."
Good grief, I know what you mean. I have a brother and his girlfriend who think the poor should be prevented from having children on the basis that it's irresponsible to have children if you haven't got the money to look after them.
Google Insight suggests a 10-fold increase in searches for BNP and also for Nick Griffin in last two weeks. BNP claiming 15m hits on site in three days (no doubt exaggerated) with 3,000 applications to join. More on the-sauce.org here: http://is.gd/4y5vU (don't worry, I wouldn't link to the BNP site).
Does anyone know why BNP membership has been suspended? Part of a split?
'Seymour: I think your argument can be boiled down to "Don't trust the working class: they're too stupid. Us university-educated lefties will tell you proles what you can and can't be exposed to."'
No. I think it's precisely the opposite.
It's the university-educated toffs of the BBC management who foist fascists into our living rooms. Just like their equivalents did with Hitler in Germany in the early 1930s. They ended up foisting Hitler onto the German population. Let's stop them doing that in Britain.
I'm an ordinary person and support Steve.
;)
Geez, I come here to see what is with the intellectual left in Britain and the topics are racism, suppressing splinter parties, and fox hunting!
I guess a colonial past is a heavy weight. Ideological purity and disdain for difference are a universal tick...
Lenin's blog is quite good most of the time, I enjoy reading it.
I never said that it had been "prone to excess". You would be more convincing if you didn't rely on straw arguments.
My point about third worldism is that it was a response to western imperialism and an attempt to break out of the misery of the oppression and underdevelopment. Somehow you can find the energy to declaim against resistance to imperialism but you spare no words for the millions killed by colonialism and capitalism. That makes it clear where you stand.
sorry, that was a response to tony d
People I’m talking to didn’t think he came across as nervous and shifty - cocky if anything - and they were impressed at how brave he was standing up to the establishment. Ganging up on him like that by the panel and the West London audience has backfired.
Jesus, it's like the Olympia Rally in reverse.
Ah, the schoolyard taunt, followed by an argument that is precisely the one you contemptuously accuse others of holding. I only remind you that above you claimed that I said: "communist politics is basically good but has been "prone" to excess mass murder. But violence and having hate groups is central to marxist political action"
And then now you say: "has transformed 100's of millions of people's life chances for the better - more to do but the travel of direction is unmistakable. The economy is not a zero-sum game or we would all still be living in caves "enjoying" primative communism."
So, the mass murder of black slaves or Latin American peasants or the indigenous population of the Americas or Jews or Iraqis or Vietnamese, et al is ok. And the sweatshops that lead to death from occupational injuries and disease as well as trapping 100s of millions in poverty - these are all OK because we're heading in the right direction?
See, that's why you're an idiot - because you don't even realize what a hypocrite you are.
Good post Michael C - Sguy, any response - I think he makes some good points about relying on the state, but that's just silly old me.
small correction. The second paragraph should begin: And then now you say: "[capitalism] has transformed 100s...etc"
Ray - spot on. I can't help thinking that those who have encountered sympathy with Griffin mix solely with the middle classes. I see no evidence of any growth in support. I think their impact is being seriously overplayed by the media etc
Brendan: Does anyone know why BNP membership has been suspended? Part of a split?
Do you mean this?
http://www.channel4.com/news/art...eviewed/
3388142
Im very much in agreement with Michael Cs comment. Fascism and its bedfellows of chauvinism and imperialism can only be effectively opposed by the working class through a combative explicitly socialist/communist party with roots in the very places that the fascists have developed theirs.
Rays comments about UAF outmanouvering and beating the EDL are ludicrous. They bare no resemblance to what ive seen with regard to the EDL. The present composition of the left suggests that the EDL could face down [if plod wasnt ubiquitous] the UAF with probably a half or even a quarter of the numbers that UAF mobilise.
Ron, that may well be true. I haven't had an opportunity today to speak to anyone other than philosophy students (who are largely fucking hopeless) or political activists. But I stand by my criticism of the Guardian article. It didn't really say anything of substance, and played into Griffin's 'if only they'd let me in front of the real England' line. They went to Burnley to get that story.
Sorry, that should clearly be Don, not Ron.
That's ok, Dan - what's a name between comrades?
Does anyone know if the UAF is planning to oppose the EDL counter-demo against Islam4UK in London on the 31st? That would provide a positive focus for anti-fascists and boost our morale at a difficult time.
He's not looking to convince anyone, just be to legitimated as a politician. Of course it helps that the other politicians helped in the process by debating his politics instead of ignoring the fucking worm. And not just debating them, validating them, as you noted.
"Ah, the idiocy of rural life."
Actually, that guy had a fucking good point. How many metropolitan types who rail against the wickedness of fox hunting enjoy a nice chicken sandwich as they shout the odd? I suppose chickens aren't as cuddly as Reynard though, hey?
Guess what everyone, Tony D is right, you need to have a body count before you become a socialist! Like the red cap of myth every socialist must dye an item of clothing in human blood. Also we must collect scalps for the sake of our Brad Pitt resembling socialist kill master. Me Im especially bad, even Jason Vorhees thought I should tone it down. Halloween is coming up, I may just rampage in your town! muahahahahahaha!
That was meant to read soon to have his own tv series on Showtime.
"the BNP's voters are overwhelmingly racist, far more so than the population at large. [...] Just because antifascists watching this thought Griffin came across as a sleazy dishonest windbag doesn't mean that everyone thought the same. Polls show that 40% of British people think that white people are the most discriminated against group in society, and a plurality think that Muslims are the most privileged."
which is it? although the stat sounds like bullshit, 40% is quite a lot.
but you seem to think any kind of immigration policy/discussion thereof is "appallingly racist" and refuse to distinguish between fascism and not-fascism, so it is hard to know what your objection is.
"Rays comments about UAF outmanouvering and beating the EDL are ludicrous. They bare no resemblance to what ive seen with regard to the EDL. The present composition of the left suggests that the EDL could face down [if plod wasnt ubiquitous] the UAF with probably a half or even a quarter of the numbers that UAF mobilise."
You obviously weren't on the demo in Manchester otherwise you would've seen the police protecting the EDL not the other way round.
It's truly pathetic this macho posturing about the EDL being too dangerous because they're so-called blokeish thugs while the anti-nazis including women, gays, blacks, asians etc. are characterised as too "vulnerable" to defeat them.
Where were you fiannanahalba when 500 of us gays were marching in 1980 for Gay Pride surrounded by jeering crowds of thugs? Did that stop us? No it fucking didn't! I used to shit myself and the LGBT's on the demo who had started doing this in the early 70's used to laugh and tell me their horror stories of 50 people on a Gay Pride march in the middle of London getting bottled and jeered.
When do you think hooliganism was worse - now when it's organised by petit bourgeoise white blokes with season tickets or in the 70's and 80's when the hooligans were lean, mean fighting machines and all tooled up? Get some bloody perspective and a bit of bottle you useless man.
Stop talking up the nazis and talking down our power. I've been standing up to these cowards for donkeys years and one thing never changes, they only attack when they're sure they out-number us. Our job is to never be in that position and so far we've had bigger and bigger turn outs of anti-nazis. Our power is in our numbers and don't the nazis know it. The EDL organisers might be thugs but they're also seasoned strategists who don't fight battles they're going to lose. And if a ruck does kick off that's one of the risks. It certainly never prevented me from campaigning for gay rights in situations that even Rambo would balk at. Was I scared? Too fucking right I was. Did it stop me? No it didn't!
And don't get me started on the sob story of what it was like after the Tories got in and AIDS kicked off. You want to know fear? Try watching all you're mates die off and wonder whether you're next in a political climate of witch hunting not seen since the Inquisition.
Yeah, we've all had it tough in one way or another but that doesn't mean we run off and hide. Some of us have had no alternative but to fight for our rights.
Consider this a good talking too and buck yourself up. Wimp!
I was there in Manchester Ray. The police were in total control of the situation- the EDL were between 700-1,000 and looked like a fairly decent football firm.The UAF/Anti-fascists were mostly young students - im glad the police were out in good numbers kettling both main bodies because it would have been a terrible physical defeat for anti-fascism if they hadnt.
The EDL imo will need to be either completely ignored and left to get bored with no opposition/publicity or be physically defeated in Leeds and Glasgow- and that can only be done realistically by muslim youth and anti-fa hooligans rather than by UAF as presently constituted.
I respect your courage and wasnt belittling it merely stating the reality of the two sides if it came to physical battle. Birmingham and Harrow were defeats for the EDL albeit not decisive, due totally to muslim youth, whilst Manchester was a victory for EDL.
As often happens, these discussions on left blogs tend to become increasingly surreal. The usual contributions from people in left groups so tiny you need a microscope to see them talking in grand terms about 'communists say this' and 'communists say that' and why opposing the nazis is a waste of time because what we need is a workers party with a marxist programmme etc, alongside frankly bizarre contributions from people who seem overly concerned with the safety of Roger Scruton should a socialist revolution happen in Britain.
So, thankyou to Ray for his timely contribution here breathing a little sanity and perspective into things.
Yes, the BNP will recruit out of this. But the fact that it wasn't treated as a 'normal' QT is testament to the strength and tradition of anti-fascist feeling in this country. That's a positive thing. Yes, some people will feel Griffin was 'picked on' but others will be concerned and perhaps willing to join in anti-fascist campaigning. These people won't be beaten by a witty riposte from Bonnie Greer, but in the vsame way they were before. Anti-fascism in the '70s did necessarily involve street confrontations but it was also the fact that wherever nazis or those influenced by them raised their voices there were those organised and confident enough to challenge them. I was at school at the time and even in my comprehensive out in the sticks we bought in Schoolkids Against the Nazis material and argued with teachers that they should put ANL posters up on the walls. We need that sort of organisation again, that reaches deep into every community, workplace, trade union etc.
The situation today is perhaps more difficult than back then. But, as someone pointed out, the BNP are still not nearly as strong as the FN in France.
1. This evening I popped out for a packet of cigarettes, only to find the shop door being locked due to about ten youths banging the door shouting 'fuck off pakis' at the family running the shop (I've never seen this in person before, and now have double my usual self-loathing for not doing anything out of sheer fear).
2. I expect the entire 'third' sector (in which I normally work, and which has been largely the only way for working class people to make a decent wage since the death of manufacturing) to be completely decimated with the election of Cameron. And of course any other service used by the working class will become privatised beyond reasonable use - the post office being the current 'test case'.
3. The level of outright, proud, bigoted stupidity among ALL classes in this country has become accelerated and terminal in the past decade or so. I'm particularly terrifed by the level of blinkered, ahistorical celeb/P.R. gibberish among the under 30s. I even feign interest in sport to avoid yet more racist but antiwar, pro-gay but anti single mother etc. etc. confused crap.
4. This, matched with the various mental and personal disorders among (consatntly stoned) 'activists' - those prattling about 'resistance' (ie. me eating mutton pie is as - quote - 'evil' as the nazis on fucking 'public service' TV) makes political discussion with those on 'my' side as depressing as reading the Daily Mail. Yes, I know its a stereotype - maybe this isn't the case in London or Glasgow, but its definitely the case where I live.
5. Ditto the rate of idiocy and irrelevant sidetracks on comments boxes, letters pages, blogs, newspapers, workplaces etc. Muslims in European ideology are now what Jews were in the early 20th century.
6. 'British' and 'resistance' are words poles apart, and shall remain so for at least several generations. the likeliness of any 'resistance' is more likely in this country to be about petrol tax, mutilating foxes, the right to beat up your kids or - of course! - immigrants than anything class-conscious.
7. The BBC has finally given me the courage to leave this shitty, rotting little island forever. I'm fully aware that right-wing, racist neoliberal scum are in the ascendancy in the majority of nations, but at least I can enjoy the novelty of being a tourist before that heart attack. Beats suicide or bungled assassination attempts anyway.
So where were these squads of Muslim youth and AFA in the late 70's and early 90's to protect us all? Young Muslim men and women have always been part of the anti-nazi movement but there have always been thousands of different types of people at the forefront of the campaign all of whom are responsible for stopping the NF and the BNP. It's not a squaddist vanguard that will stop the EDL but force of numbers and consistent confrontation.
I was a student in the late 80's/early 90's and have seen students who you disparage break up racist and fascist meetings and demos. I have been part of groups of women and men who aren't seasoned street fighters tear down union jacks and break up nazi marches. When Le Pen came over to speak at a meeting in the early 90's it was students who blocked Trafalgar square and stopped him leaving his hotel despite a heavy police presence. When women students organised women only discos in our college in the 80's and 90's and the local Neanderthal rugby club turned up to smash it - it wasn't AFA or the police who sent them packing. The women students did it. Please don't patronise anti-nazis by assuming that we can't defend ourselves.
The EDL are a small core of thugs and a big fat flabby underbelly of wannabes. We've seen it all before but perhaps it's all new to you. The same warnings about how confrontation will lead to disaster were ringing in the ears of those who broke away from the Lewisham march and confronted the NF demo. They certainly weren't AFA but a mix of people who decided not to let nazi intimidation or defeatist predictions stop them. The rest is history.
You are telling a lot of porkies about Manchester. Many anti-nazis were arrested and attacked by police dogs because we were trying to break through the police who were protecting the EDL. If, as you claim, the EDL were sure to batter us then why did their generals not seize this strategic opportunity? You are the one underestimating their ability to get past the police if they thought they stood a chance. They are not stupid nor without guile.
Your assessment of the situation and your knowledge of tactical decisions when confronting the nazis appears pretty poor. The EDL are banking on this to make a break through so it's just as well we have experienced anti-nazis leading our campaign.
My last comment was directed at fiannanahalba in case there was any doubt.
Angus you need racist deprogramming urgently. Which gang was at the BBC demo? The Crips or the Bloods?
What strikes me about blogs sometimes, usually after a set back, is that it encourages worriers to indulge in their favourite past time of dwelling on disaster.
When we had a set back while organising against the nazis before the internet we would either go down the pub and get drunk or go home, invariably alone, and have baked beans on toast (with cheese if you could afford it) and watch The old Grey Whistle Test.
Nowdays people get on blogs or social networks and silently scream at complete strangers. I've been just as guilty of this and it's not clever. Sometimes a bit of solitude or copious amounts of flat beer in the company of other inebriates is far better therapy.
Wedge, rent out an OGWT dvd, switch off the central heating, cook and eat some cheap baked beans and white bread in your bedroom, smoke a roll up with a cup of weak milky tea and imagine yourself in a bedsit in 70's/80's Britain. Once the OGWT is over there's nothing else on telly. Drag yourself into bed (you're sitting on it already) pull a pile of coats and jumpers over you because duvets aren't available. And breath in the condensation and damp.
Things might not be that great right now but at least it's not government policy to be openly homophobic and racist. All I'm saying is it could be worse.
One last comment, the crucial difference between Le Pen's FN and the BNP is that the French anti-nazi movement at the time did not have a policy of no platforming Le Pen.
It wasn't Le Pens TV appearance that allowed the FN to grow it was the failure of the anti-racist movement to confront the nazis that allowed him integrate into the establishment.
The situation for Griffin in the UK is very different. There is a very vocal and visible anti-nazi movement that has confronted the BNP and the EDL at every opportunity. It is very difficult for Griffin to appear respectable while this continues and it's vital that we continue to confront the BNP so that Griffin cannot blend into the establishment like Le Pen did.
I have some sympathy for wedge's comments, but I doubt he will find things better elsewhere. Compared to some countries, the far right is still weak in Britain, though it may not stay that way.
I have been in countries like Austria where a far right party is well off enough to buy advertising space on street hoardings, or in a place like Turkey where far right organisations, more violent by far than the BNP, are able to run offices and social centres in districts of big cities.
Check out Peter Hain's article
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/new...91466-25002818/
spot on
Re Le Pen, French politics are different. The left is traditionally stronger than in Britain, but there is also a far right tradition of some strength, going back at least as far as Action Francaise, and the anti-Dreyfusards. Le Pen, I believe, first stood for election in the 1970s, and had a constituency among former French colons in Algeria, who were embittered, right-wing and racist.
According to Wikipedia, Le Pen first got into France's parliament in the 1950s, as a Poujadist (a right-wing populist movement). Before that, he had links to the monarchists of Action Francaise.
"Meanwhile, an opinion poll carried out after Mr Griffin's appearance suggests 22% of voters would "seriously consider" voting BNP in a future local, general or European election."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/
8322322.stm)
Well, apart from anything else, the programme reminded people the BNP exists (even mainstream parties often get a "bounce" in the polls after televising of their conferences).
I wonder if the BBC, and the establishment generally, are actually trying to make the BNP a mainstream party, for motives of their own?
You have a point there Faust. Wasn't there a Brown Bounce one upon a time? Was he actually midly popular at some point?
'I wonder if the BBC, and the establishment generally, are actually trying to make the BNP a mainstream party, for motives of their own?'
I very much doubt it.
I think the more mundane explanation for inviting Griffin to appear was to boost ratings. Cynical and grubby commercialism rather than anything Machiavellian.
Whatever the motivation it's pretty clear that the arguments of the 'no platform' advocates have been vindicated. Increased publicity and support for the BNP.
For me one of the most shocking aspects of this whole mess has been the realisation that Question Time is regarded as a serious political programme. I had always assumed it was meant to be light entertainment.
"Polls show that 40% of British people think that white people are the most discriminated against group in society, and a plurality think that Muslims are the most privileged."
Oh, Jesus Christ, this makes me want to kill myself. Could you throw out a link?
i suspect the news of increased support for the BNP will increase support for the BNP
And what do you say to these new supporters to dissuade them?
Hyper-ventilating about a politician. What a waste of time. They're all the same underneath; they think the same, they want the same.
The only reason every political prat denigrates Griffin is so they look like 'decent' people, with proper 'values' and correct 'morals'. All the while supporting the bombing of dark skinned Arabs and pushing for more wars.
And another thing....how on Earth Jack Straw can call Griffin 'dangerous' while he is partly responsible for an illegal war that took over 1 million lives is a fine example of our dystopia. He should be in the dock at the Hague, not on QT.
Except all politicians are not the same. Some Labour Party politicians are our enemy. All BNP supporters are our enemy.
Support for Griffin will have risen. That's what we argued and why we tried to stop him. But out of the 22% who may now vote for him how many have become hardened nazis?
When we were organising to get the BNP out of Brick Lane in the 90's our first demo got attacked and we had to retreat. It was pretty demoralising. I remember the stall holders in Brick Lane (white blokes) were very hostile to us claiming that the BNP paper sellers were "good lads" etc. After the second demo where we managed to boot the BNP out they were saying a different thing entirely. The point is that peoples opinions change depending on the balance of forces. Once the veneer of respectability is peeled back and the thuggish nazi element is exposed this scares off people who might sympathise with the BNP. That's why it's crucial we keep on no platforming Griffin and the EDL. This constant pressure will eventually make them crack.
Re several comments on the Front National
1) The FN definitely received a boost in 1984 when Le Pen was first interviewed on L'Heure de Vérité (worse than QT as this programme had only one guest who was treated as a major politicial figure) and then invited again on a number of occasions. According to one version his rise was deliberately encouraged by the Socialist president Mitterand as a weapon against the main right-wing opposition. I think there was also the fact that Le Pen's appearances were good for the ratings (helped by his knack for creating publicity with his notorious one-liners such as describing the concentration camps as a "detail of the history of the Second World War").
Le Pen was able to manipulate the media in this way (while at the same time posing as a victim of a liberal media conspiracy to marginalise him) because the Left completely failed to oppose him. On the one hand, the revolutionary left underestimated the danger (some like Lutte Ouvrière preferring to deny it completely), on the other hand the reformists set up SOS-Racisme on a soft anti-racist basis, concentrating on celebrity pop concerts which were a lot less radical than RAR or LMHR. (Interestingly, Lutte Ouvrière, which openly attacked SOS-Racisme when it was something like a mass antiracist movement ended up marching alongside it in 2004 in support of the ban on the Muslim heaedscarf.) There were a number of important counter-demonstrations in the 1980s and 90s, but no serious national campaigning organisation like ANL or UAF. The IS group which was set up in 1985 was unfortuantely far too small to have an influence.
2) Le Pen is a Nazi with a two-pronged strategy - using parliamentary institutions and building a combat organisation. But the success of the first strategy acted as a brake on the second - he has always held his street-fighting wing in check (there were of course individual incidents). His annual march on May Day was an attempt to shift towards a more openly fascist strategy, but over the years it has become smaller and more geriatric. May Day is still treated in the media as essentially a day for trade unionists. Incidentally there was never any serious attempt to counter-demonstrate by the Left. There has not been anything like the EDL in France, even when the FN was at its peak.
3) Subsequently the FN has had its ups and downs and undergone several splits. Le Pen's success in 2002 in coming second in the presidential elections and forcing Chirac to a run-off was probably more of a reflection on the state of the Left and the record of the Socialists in power than the result of real growth in the FN. Today the FN still has a substantial electorate, but the organisation is much weaker on the ground than it used to be.
I don't think it's true that the FN has a lot of student groups. They are certainly completely irrelevant when there is a big wave of strikes and occupations in the universities. There is a hard right-wing student association called UNI but it is not the student wing of the FN.
4) The main long-term effect of the rise of the FN has been to shift French politics to the right on a number of questions (especially immigration and law and order). After 2001 they were not particularly prominent in encouraging islamophobia - much of the work was done by the liberal intellectuals and ex-leftists of the Bernard-Henri Lévy sort. The main beneficiary has been Sarkozy - in itself a major set-back for the Left, but not fascism. Of course this doesn't mean that the FN or something similar can never take power - it's just that all the conditions haven't yet come together. Antifascism is not the first priority of the French left at the present time but we have no reason to be complacent.
I wasn't simply thinking of the BBC, though it is a pretty good indicator of ruling class thought. Politics have generally moved rightward, not just in the UK. Some of this is the post-1989 weakening of the left I allude to elsewhere, but I wonder if it is also the ruling class covering its bases, especially amid economic turmoil.
Despite some socialistic posturing, fascism is not anti-capitalist. In fact, it is the form capitalism can take in crisis. So while the ruling class has its array of "mainstream" parties defending its interests, it also has an array of xenophobic, anti-immigrant, racist forces it can resort to if needed. Indeed, the latter can exert a rightward gravitational pull on the "mainstream" parties. So you get Straw et al. abhorring the BNP overtly, while each competing to be more tough on immigration than the other.
"Polls show that 40% of British people think that white people are the most discriminated against group in society, and a plurality think that Muslims are the most privileged."
This depressing statistic and many others that show the extent of racist attitudes in British society (especially on the right) can be found in YouGov's huge survey of 32,000 voters taken just before the June elections.
http://tinyurl.com/megapoll
Colin's analysis of the FN is very welcome in this discussion because a lot of comparisons are being made between the BNP and the FN. Some of these comparisons have been based on misinformation (mine included) and this can become scaremongering which I don't think is helpful. The media is certainly making the most of this especially the BBC.
While it's important not to be complacent after a blow like QT it's a time when we really need to have a clear analysis of the history of the fighting the nazis and base our strategy on what was successful if we're going to win people to no platform.
I think that the fantastic demo outside the BBC is being lost in the rush to predict the worst. When people talk of leaving the country (even if it's in jest) it's a symptom of not understanding that, just as in past anti-nazi struggles, we won't win this battle in a month. There's probably a long way to go yet.
Thanks bat. Urgh. The statistic is slightly wrong - 40% of people think that white people suffer unfair discrimination, rather than 40% think they're the most discriminated against group - but the actual results aren't any more lovely (this is still massively higher than the next highest group - women at 29% - and over double the proportion that think this about non-white people). Wtf?!
Are we in the SWP ever going to stop pretending like our traveling circus romp of 'rage' through Brighton was the 'beginnings' of a united front for economic justice big enough to fill the neoliberal void the Nazis are now rapidly filling?
The comrades in Moscow support you:
http://www.vpered.org.ru/comment192.html
This is from the website of the Vpered ("Forward!") Socialist Movement.
Actually I know of no-one who thinks that the beginnings of initiatives that the left is undertaking are in the position to fill the vacuum. Despite allegations to the contrary you will find no triumphalism or chest-beating on this side of the divide. But that we have to get our act togeather to try and fill that vacuum is a constant theme. No-one but the left will be able to do that (the whole left with all of its inadequacies and actually existing problems).
Its also very important, as Ray has stressed, to emphasis this as a long term project. The tendency to dump everything in the absence of instant results needs to be rejected. There is no reason to expect instant results. Patient, consistant and long term work are what is needed.
Ideologically, I think it would be useful to have a detailed and historical account of no platform and the reason why the left adopted this strategy. There are too many mythologies and misunderstandings of this policy around at the moment. Its a battle for ideas which we have to win, but its also true that it will only be won if those who currently have doubts about it are effectively won over...
The whole thing was a non-event. Griffin got far more publicity than he deserved, thanks to the chattering classes.
Far from being "the new Hitler" he turned out to be a boring non-entity.
But it seems the BNP is just about the only think left that gives you leftists a purpose in life.
"Jews Sans Frontieres banned me for asking this inconvenient question."
Probably because, looking at your website, you're clearly a nazi engaged in shit-stirring.
rocobley - 'ou're clearly a nazi' - could you make some attempt to justify that outrageous claim?
"you're clearly a nazi" - do you think http://palestinethinktank.com is Nazi too? These Palestinians publish my stuff and engage in civilized debates about it.
I think the BNP and EDL are a godsend for the SWP and the UAF as it allows for much frothing about the nartzis to young middle class students who will join for a while - allowing the SWP to stay around the 2,000 member mark.
On countering the EDL my advice to the SWP/UAF is stay very close to your friends in the police.
"Except all politicians are not the same. Some Labour Party politicians are our enemy. All BNP supporters are our enemy."
I sometimes wonder whether Johnny G actually "gets" politics, including *working class* politics at all.
fiannanahalba one of the funniest things I have seen in my life was a crowd of SWPers chanting "police protect the Nazis" for an hour outside a BNP meeting - and then asking the police to escort them back to the tube station after their demo.
Some amusing stuff about the SWP and Nick Griffin at Ian Bone's blog.
http://ianbone.wordpress.com/
These Palestinians publish my stuff and engage in civilized debates about it.
- Jay Kott,
Italian antisemite Mary Rizzo isn't Palestinian and neither was Atzmon, who seems to have gone to racist pastures new.
fiannanahalba is some Scottish nationalist, standing up for the English - a traitor and collaborator if there ever was one!
fiannanahalba one of the funniest things I have seen in my life was a crowd of SWPers chanting "police protect the Nazis" for an hour outside a BNP meeting - and then asking the police to escort them back to the tube station after their demo.
Anonymous |
Anonymous must have had one fuck of a boring and monotonous life if that's one of the funniest things he's ever seen.
Why's that Jim? You think BNP supporters are your friends?
'Some amusing stuff about the SWP and Nick Griffin at Ian Bone's blog.'
I thought Bonehead was dead.
And looking at that link I think I was right.
"On countering the EDL my advice to the SWP/UAF is stay very close to your friends in the police."
If your advice is as misinformed as your analysis of the SWP then don't hold your breath. On second thoughts please do.
fiannanahalba and Anonymous demonstrate how cynicism is really the BNP's best friend.
joe its my internationalist duty to help my english comrades in our common fight against Brit nationalism, chauvinism, imperialism and brit fascism.
All hail the coming English Workers Republic.
Aw Ray you know its all about common sense health and safety than cynicism.
Btw why is Martin Smith moonlighting every week on Sghooting Stars? Hes doing a good job though, never knew comedy was his forte? Well maybe thats not quite true......
Jim Denham accusing someone else of being ignorant of politics, its always good to start one's day with a laugh!
joe90 kane - more unsubstantiated allegations - claiming people are 'antisemitic' and 'seem to have' become racist. It's pathetic to make wild allegations without even a single quote to back it up - preferably a quote in context!
"Aw Ray you know its all about common sense health and safety than cynicism."
Look I know the EDL frighten you but protecting those fears onto others is unhelpful and a bit unedifying to be honest. We know they have a core of dangerous thugs but the soft underbelly are no match for thousands of anti-nazis.
Why you think that the inexperienced BNP activists who organise the EDL are any more dangerous than the seasoned NF/BNP thugs who organised during soccer hooliganisms heyday you've not explained either. We stopped the nazis then and we'll do it again.
Considering your misrepresentation of UAF and the SWP it appears that your warning is really a ploy to have a pop at us.
Actually the poll doesn't say anything new. There was a poll a few years ago saying around 25% of people would consider voting for a party with the BNP's policies, but they selected this option without knowing these were the BNP's policies. If you tell them they are the BNP's policies then the support goes down to a couple of percent, which is bascially what this polll says. They like the message but not the messenger.
Sadly I spoke to one person today who said that he might now consider voting for the BNP to piss off all the people that are trying to stop them.
exit polls from the European elections back in 2004 showed that 20% of the British population said they "might vote BNP". so there's always been a pool of racists that are potential BNP voters.
key point about Griffin's QT appearance is not that it increases this pool significantly, but that it increases the BNP's traction within it.
Ray reckons UAF/SWP are led by experienced anti-nartzis. So why didnt all that experience lead them to realise that Nartzi Nick would go in the back door at the BBC? The purpose of the protest was to no platform Griffin was nt it? What a failure.
"What a failure."
2000 demonstrators is a great turn out for a weekday. At least the UAF had a go which is more than can be said for you.
The purpose of the demo was to show that there are many prepared to mobilise against him. Just as he has yet to mobilise the whole of the racist constituency, anti-racists and anti-fascists have yet to mobilise the whole of theirs. We need to get going. He is. With the aid of large parts of the political establishment.
So just another demo without an immediate result. In this case to actually prevent Griffin appearing on QT and thereby no platforming him. Two thousand and UAF couldnt put a few hundred around every entrance to the BBC. I think its all about posturing with the UAF - you love Griffin, the BNP and EDL it gives you something to do and keeps the pot boiling for more guilt ridden liberal middle class recruits.
We see that UAF are trying to organise a multicultural diversity fest in Glasgow Green when the EDL come to town. Great get all the activists kettled and let the polis keep you all safe from the EDL hooligans. Real antifa wont be falling into your trap.
Ah, the macho posturing of "antifa" nonsense. All about the boys puffing up their chests like tough guys (which the women stay on the side) and having a go at the nazi boot boys, thinking that a punch up is good for anything except giving the nazis some free combat training.
Talk sense redbedheid. I d expect the SWP to be attempting to block or occupy the space the EDL want to occupy, alongside others, be they Celtic Soccer Crew, young Muslims, Antifa, Irish Republicans, Scottish nationalists, SSP etc etc
Any physical will be defensive and anything else will be away from the demo.
Gender or sexuality are no impediment to antifascism physical or not. Some of the women i know are more than capable of knocking out a man.
"could you make some attempt to justify that outrageous claim?"
Yes. You claim racist attacks are invented by "anti-fascists" and that "anti-facism" is a front for 'the jooos'. And your site is called the Psychology of Anti-Fascism. Case closed. You're a nazi. Piss off.
"Some of the women i know are more than capable of knocking out a man."
Of course there are women who are capable of knocking out men. But that really isn't the point is it? The point is to politically defeat the BNP, not to win Olympic gold medals. Mass mobilisation is the key, not the physical strength of this or that individual. And mass mobilisation takes time and patience to build. Posturing - verbal or physical - doesn't help.
Mass mobilisation is what we all want, however if that mass mobilisation is coralled by police in Glasgow Green as the UAF in Scotland seem to be leading us towards, then that is not going to stop the EDL but then thats not the purpose of the UAF is it?
Thankfully the UAF and their friends in the British state dont control or monopolise anti fascisnm in Scotland and wont be heeded.
Manchester showed me how inept the UAF/SWP are in their efforts to stop the Nartzis and the attempts at London BBC just confirmed its all just a recruitment jamboree- if the EDL or BNP didnt exist youse would need to invent them.
rocobley is right. delete, delete, delete.
Curiously, the history of the name that fiannanahalba has adopted reveals certain truths about what he's saying. The Fianna na h-Alba were a Scottish paramilitary outfit that had, as its aim, the independence of Scotland. They dissolved themselves on the advice of Michael Collins. who argued that they were just not strong enough to achieve their aim and that they had absolutely no conception of the forces they were standing up against. Whether our fiannanahalba was aware of Collins' views before he adopted the name I obviously don't know, but they do seem apposite given what he's saying.
He agrees that mass mobilisation is the key to opposing fascism, but he won't tell us how he's going to achieve this. Apparently, the masses will turn up with no preparatory work.
Quite honestly, if he was right then that would be lovely. Indeed, if this were true, then it's highly unlikely we would be having this discussion. Capitalism would be long dead. Unfortunately, he isn't right, and I have to agree with Michael Collins, that fiannanahalba doesn't understand the forces he's standing up against.
Fortunately, for our friend, there is a solution. He should read Socialist Worker regularly and try to understand what is argued there.
If only 2% of voters had shifted their votes to Peter Crainie the left-wing green candidate in the Euro elections, Griffin never would have been elected.
Isn't it about time the left has some idea about burying the sectarianism and working together to offer something positive for people to vote for?Socialist Worker and UAF rightly exposes the nazi BNP in a negative sense.But that isn't enough.Socialist Worker should had the grown up sense to campaign for Crainie. I agree with posts here, the utterly frustrating thing about QT was the measley mouthed responses from the rest of the panel who conceded the immigration debate on griffin's territory.Confronting the nazis at every turn is essential but squadism isn't the answer. There is a huge constituency out there for a left wing alternative.If we don't do it now then when comrades, when ?
Nobody here is advocating squadism (well aside perhaps from those hostile to this blog). Yes left unity is important which is why its important that we address problems in the way seriously, rather then resorting to accusations of "immaturity" and the like. One of the difficulties is that electoralism seems to breed a kind of competativeness which makes co-operation difficult between often relatively small organisations which otherwise are quite happy marching and protesting alongside each other. We need more then simply calls for everyone to vote for their party. Calls like that are pretty easy to make but don't really address the issue. I'm hopeful though about peoples minds being focused enough to move beyond this sort of thing in the coming months.
Fair point John, i'm not a green party member ora general supporter but in the Euro elections it seemed a pretty easy choice to make.I hope your right about the future, the left needs to get its act together.
rocobley - 'You claim racist attacks are invented by "anti-fascists" and that "anti-facism" is a front for "the jooos"'. Again - no actual quote from anything I've written. In fact, I claim SOME racist attacks are invented, SOME are exaggerated, and some are genuine. And I give lots of well-documented examples. I don't claim ANYTHING is a front for 'the jooos'. I criticize anti-fascism. That doesn't make me a fascist.
Jay Knott - You don't really expect me to engage with someone like you do you?
I am sure fiannanahalba can answer for himself re what Collins is reported to have said, but it has inspired some thoughts of my own.
Even if Collins told them that, why should that be assumed to be the last word? After all, Collins became involved in a civil war with many of his old comrades fighting on the other side, and his Free Staters were in receipt of weapons and probably funding from "the forces they were standing up against". He was killed by people who regarded him as a traitor who sold out to the British. You seem to assume it was wisdom that made Collins give that advice to Scots, but perhaps it was only pragmatism - and pragmatism has made many a reformist, and motivated not a few acts of betrayal too (not that pragmatism is always wrong).
And does the British left in general, and the SWP in particular, know the forces it is up against? Perhaps it does - which is why it seems to have trouble transcending minor propaganda and paper-selling, which the state hardly regards as threatening to itself.
The Fianna na hAlba were the Scottish youth movement like their counterparts in Fianna na hEireann,a counterpoint to the British imperialist Boy Scouts. Collins took very little interest in Republicanism in Scotland and was poorly informed.
Faust makes excellent points about Collins pragmatism being the forerunner to his reformism and capitulation. A fine intelligence director and soldier but not so great politically.
As youll be aware there have been meetings to organise anti-EDL activity, with over fifty anti-fascists representing a broad swathe of anti-fascism in Scotland, taking part. The UAF seem to have been absent, but still announced that they were setting up the multicultural Scotland United event at Glasgow Green, this was not endorsed by the meeting at Glasgow University.
The EDL are going to be holding their protest at Clyde Street and very close to the Mosque [ they have a plan B for Georges Square] so why are UAF trying to get the liberals and political elite alongside anti fascists in Glasgow Green- a fair bit away from the EDL and totally open to police controlling movement, as there are only so many bridges that allow access to where the EDL are likely to be and thats provided that Strathclyde Police dont kettle the UAF demo in the park?
Any physical attacks on fash will be conducted well away from the site of the demo unless theres a big militant crowd and the police lose control. Highly unlikely.
Anyway as ive said the UAF can hold their demo/celebration/vigil with lots of interminable liberal speeches/preaching and the SWP can sell papers and attempt to recruit/influence all they want, but i and hundreds of others will be attempting to close the space that the EDL are attempting to own.
This is all taking place near the statue of La Passionara which commemorates Glasgow/Scotlands antifascist Volunteers of the International Brigade, Glasgow gave more lives to the Republican fight against fascism in Spain than any city in these islands, we intend to maintain their memory by not allowing fascist feet to tred anywhere near La Passionara.
Nae Pasaran.
What did voters make of Griffin?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_po...ics/
8322626.stm
"Everyone I spoke to outside Dagenham Heathway tube station thought the BBC had been right to invite Mr Griffin on to the programme - but even those who did not share his political views felt he had been victimised, to a certain extent.
"I felt sorry for the guy really," said Bill, 64, an out-of-work electrician, who said he had never voted for the BNP."
As much as we detest the BNP, this puts them into context...here's what fascists do in Iraq....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/...r-bombs-
baghdad
Thank god we don't have anything near as bad as that here.
I seem to recall Copeland planting a bomb, and other British fash being arrested in possession of explosives, though strangely this has never given the fash a reputation for terrorism, perhaps because the media are suspiciously restrained in their reports about it.
Re Iraq, I do wonder about the motivation behind many of the more spectacularly bloody bombings, especially when they seem designed to encourage Sunni-Shia or other religious/ethnic conflict. Perhaps the bombings are not a million miles removed from the occupation forces themselves. Whatever the case, the country has clearly not been made into Shangri-La by the US-British occupation.
Andrew: '"Everyone I spoke to outside Dagenham Heathway tube station thought the BBC had been right to invite Mr Griffin on to the programme - but even those who did not share his political views felt he had been victimised, to a certain extent.
"I felt sorry for the guy really," said Bill, 64, an out-of-work electrician, who said he had never voted for the BNP."'
Read on, fool. There was a split in perception between white and non-white. They went to one of the few places where the BNP has been effective in building a base of sorts. Many of the comments are clearly biased, which we know because they're plainly wrong. The BBC went looking for a story, found it, and you've let yourself be taken in by it. I wonder why?
Do we really want to listen to the paramilitary blether of fantasists like fiannanahalba? How many of the 60 people who turned up at Glasgow Uni to discuss tactics could go toe to toe with the Rangers ICF thugs who will no doubt be providing security for the SDL demo?
The UAF has a plan to provide visible evidence of Glasgow's opposition to racism. What is your plan? Side street stabbings away from the police and the cameras? I just hope young anti-fascists don't get lured into your dangerous sectarian shite.
I agree with Glasgow Socialist. The idea that a few beefy Red Action types, Celtic casuals and associated squadists have the solution to fascism is palpable nonsense.
Fiannanahalba even admits that only hundreds (his estimate) will turn up to his unprepared demo. Allowing him his optimism, that's hardly mass mobilisation in a country of five million. It really only compares with the two thousand mobilised at the White City, which he criticises.
I accept there's an important debate to be had about the means to be used to mobilise opposition to the SDL demo, but he's avoiding it, just indulging in wishful thinking.
"The BBC went looking for a story, found it, and you've let yourself be taken in by it. I wonder why?"
Yes, the BBC wouldn't really go looking for confirmation of their decision to host Griffin to boost the ratings would they? Surely not!
I haven't come across one person who thought the QT fiasco was necessary. Some thought Griffin got a pasting and were glad but agreed that it was a pointless exercise in sensationalism. Everyone I have spoken to is worried about the BNP to the extent that it is easier to argue no platform now. I haven't come across one person who thinks Griffin should appear on TV again. Before anyone accuses me of moving in selective circles I have spoken to people from many different backgrounds some of whom hold quite right wing attitudes to immigration and multiculturalism.
"I accept there's an important debate to be had about the means to be used to mobilise opposition to the SDL demo, but he's avoiding it, just indulging in wishful thinking."
The point he ignores is that only force of numbers will really prevent the nazis attacking us. This is why squadism is so divisive because it fragments and demobilises the anti-nazi movement.
There is no guarantee that we won't get out-numbered at some point. But there have consistently been more anti-nazis than racists/nazis. It's also important not to be taken in by the core of thugs organising the EDL/SDL who hope to give the impression that they have organised a street fighting force. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is worth reading the investigation into the EDL on Searchlight for a more realistic assessment of the threat of the EDL.
That is the problem with squadists - they are obsessed with violence and see everything through the rubric of squadism. We need to have a more measured assessment of the balance of forces otherwise we will get caught up in the hysteria of fiannanahalba where a fascist hides behind every rock. His type of scaremongering breeds fear and passivity. Exactly the response that allows the squadists to grow and monopolise the anti-nazi movement.
fiannanahalba has made two highly dubious contributions to this debate.
One has been to smear anti-fascists: "Thankfully the UAF and their friends in the British state dont control or monopolise anti fascisnm in Scotland and wont be heeded."
The other has been to encourage the transformation of a cross-community anti-fascist, anti-racist initiative into a sectarian street fight involving the "Celtic Soccer Crew" and "Irish Republicans". Of all the political dead ends the left could go down in Glasgow, this is the most idiotic.
Come on fiannanahalba, why not just wait for the next Old Firm game and leave the serious business of fighting racism to therest of us?
And yet, in the 1970s, the SWP or at least its predecessor the International Socialists did have "squadists". Wasn't there a song, "We are the IS bootboys/
When there's any f**king trouble/
We're the first c**ts in."
No doubt there has been a line change, or maybe the SWP of subsequent years simply recruits a different kind of person, more reminiscent of Viz's "Student Grant" than the controversial film "Scum".
Im advocating an alternative to the UAF Scotland United jamboree in Glasgow Green. Its simple really - occupy the space where the EDL want to assemble.
Its not me who sees Nartzis under every stone - the EDL isnt overtly fascist most of its numbers are lumpen working class youth swept up by brit nationalism and its attendent jingoism, imperialism, islamophobia and racism. They are frustrated and want to have a swagger and a battle.
Most of the UAF/SWP are students and middle class liberals with a propensity towards preachy tones towards working class people. They dont do violence cause its not good for career progress to have convictions for violence.
If the EDL think they can walk the streets of Glasgow with their brit nationalist racism then im glad that there are youth both muslim and non muslim who will not settle for merely shouting at them behind police lines and waving placards at them. Oh how wevolutionary are the cadres of the not very Socialist, hardly any Workers, not really a Party just a cult - SWP.
Calling me a sectarian ie a bigot shows just how out of touch with republican socialism Glasgow Socialist really is.
Anyway as i said if MI5 arent paying some of UAF/SWP then you are giving your services for nothing.
Hmm - the only question over serial smearer fiannanahalba's loyalties is whether he is (a) an Irish republican dissident in the tradition of the Omagh bombers (b) a Scottish nationalist fantasist who cloaks his Tartan Army-style paramilitarism in pseudo-socialist garb or (c) a state asset whose stock in trade is accusing decent socialists in the UAF of being state assets. Perhaps even a toxic mix of all three.
Go and get your stanley knife, son - you can have a square go with the Rangers fans while the UAF is holding a serious raly against racism.
'They are frustrated and want to have a swagger and a battle.'
fiannanahalba, would it be cruel to suggest that you could be described in similar terms?
I suspect he wears a balaclava and battle fatigues for bed, on those cold Glasgow nights. Celtic cross bedspread? Probably sleeps holding his balls too.
Squadism is a term used to describe a political deviation. No-one calls themselves a squadist, anymore then people walk around calling themselves revisionists. And this kind of narrow sectarian nonsense is the death of any proper anti-fascist campaign.
>>> Most of the UAF/SWP are students and middle class liberals with a propensity towards preachy tones towards working class people.
Spot on. And the problem is that when do-gooder leftists come preaching, the kids' class instincts kick in.
Based on the principle that "my enemy's enemy is my friend", they are inevitably drawn closer to the BNP.
It's pretty obvious.
The fact remains none of my critics have answered how the UAF tactics at the BBC stopped Griffin getting on QT or was this not the express purpose of the protest?
Also weve had ludicrous claims by some that UAF have the EDL on the run ie Manchester.
An old tactic of some is to play the man not the post. Yes i am a republican socialist who supports and works for Scottish independence towards a socialist/workers republic likewise on Ireland and internationally.
Yes i firmly believe that the brit left including UAF/SWP are heavily infiltrated by the brit secret service and the ubiquitous twig [special branch] and actions speak for a million words/lies- its not a good record on the whole from the swp. There are other useless sectarian outfits but they are smaller.
Just to put the record straight i believe in using more than one tactic to defeat fascism but the primary one is mobilising the best numbers on a principled socialist anti fascist position and leave the uaf to appeal to the tories, labour, pacifists, religous etc etc
Hitler said that the only thing that could have stopped his rise was severe violence directed by the left at his nucleus of an organisation.
Of course the middle class brit left are physically and morally incapable but others such as Scottish and Irish republicans are not so squeamish.
A note of caution on the YouGov results:
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com...poll-
sting.html
'Of course the middle class brit left are physically and morally incapable'
As a rule of thumb, posters like fiannahalba who are the keenest to throw around these evidence-free assertions are usually incapable of recognising the working class even when they're driving the bus he's on.
Hitler did indeed say in "Mein Kampf" that the left could only have succeeded by ruthlessly smashing his movement at the start. But this only tells part of the story. At that point, most of his political activity was in Bavaria, where, since the crushing of the Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919 by the Freikorps, it was the LEFT that was ruthlessly suppressed, while the fledgling Nazi Party, then just one of a number of far right groups, was tolerated by the authorities if not actively sponsored. In fact, even as he wrote those words, Hitler was still benefiting from considerable state tolerance, as he was writing in a comparatively comfortable prison cell after being arrested following a failed rebellion in Munich. Had he carried out the rebellion attempt as a Communist, he would not have had a comfortable cell to write a book in afterwards. Freikorps or police would have played football with his body and then finished him off with a bullet to the head.
The left in Bavaria fought with Nazis but they were comparatively weak and up against not only the Nazis but also state forces and all the other right-wing paramilitary groups.
James O the evidence is overwheming. Once upon a time the SWP had a security apparatus which they expelled - Red Action, since then can you point to evidence of the SWP not being morally or physically incapable of such action?
Well, the IS had members in the 1970s who engaged in what would now be considered "squadism" by the SWP, as I noted previously. That is not an "evidence-free assertion" but a fact. Has there been some sort of sociological change in the SWP?
Personal observation can only go so far, but in those cases of violent confrontation at demos I have witnessed in recent years, it was not the left that was combative, but ethnic minority youth, usually Muslims. This was especially noticeable at the Gaza demos outside the Israeli embassy in January. Young Muslims are harassed by the police, treated as terrorists, and generally alienated. While it seems to me members of left-wing groups tend to have more to lose and their inner voice tells them not to be "squadist".
Id echo Fausts sentiments.
I think the SWP just has to be more open and realistic about its methods and why the role they will play against fascism is likely to remain behind police lines waving placards , distributing literature/papers, sloganeering and chanting etc
They can do a good job amongst liberals and students and continue to try to push the religous and the bureaucrats to the left.
They need to play to their sociological/demographic strengths and leave militant anti fascism to those who constantly face its physical attacks such as muslims and republicans.
Based on my experiences with Toronto Anti-Racist Action in the early 90's before it degenerated ( as usual ) into petty ideological nitpicking, it is important to confront fascism at both the "street" level and at the political level. Unfortunately, force and physical toughness are one of the few languages that fascists understand and when they are defeated on that score, they become less of a problem on the streets vis-a-vis the safety of visible minorities. This does not mean other forms of activism aren't valid ,as fiannanahalba, seems to be implying but that when dealing with fascism it's wise to be prepared for physical confrontation.
Also, there was a repeat episode of Panorama on a couple of hours after Question Time on Thursday night/Fri. morning which had an Asian couple (reporters)move onto a notorious estate in Bristol where they were subjected to horrendous verbal and physical attacks daily from the other white residents( often kids as young as eleven) all caught on hidden cameras. Unsurprisingly, this estate was one where the BNP had leafletted heavily and were quite active in the area.
I want to see a relevant working class socialist party/org developed that can get into the areas where the fash are developing roots and combat them with a socialist alternative.
I also want to see socialists and anti fascists defeat them on the streets both by sheer numbers and where tactically necessary by physically acquainting their heads with the pavement.
Is that clear enough for my critics?
I understand something like 70 people have been arrested since the January Gaza demos, as follow-up to the extensive filming etc. the police were doing of demonstrators. If any of the arrested had been members of left groups, the left blogosphere would be full of it. But it isn't. For example, when police on horseback charged on Jan. 10, it was young Muslims who pulled a chunk of crash barrier across the road, creating a barricade and preventing the police getting any further. The left was not in evidence. The sellers of Socialist Analysis continued to sell Socialist Analysis.
Much of the left claims to be revolutionary and, verbally, is very militant. The practice is rather different. But of course, it is "squadism" to say so.
Stalin is reported to have related an anecdote about German Social Democrats. According to this, he saw some of them before WW1 at a train or tram platform in Germany waiting for transport to take them to a conference. They were late for it, or according to another version of the tale, missed it altogether. Why? Well, there was no one to stamp their tickets, so they didn't board the train or tram. In theory they wanted revolution. In practice they loved order, as they showed in 1914 and afterwards.
'James O the evidence is overwheming.'
Indeed, so 'overwhelming' that you've failed to produce any.
"They need to play to their sociological/demographic strengths and leave militant anti fascism to those who constantly face its physical attacks such as muslims and republicans."
If we left it to the likes of you we'd be hiding in some alley waiting to jump a couple of nazis rather than building large demos that out number them and push them off the streets.
Red Action din't stop the nazis in the 70's and didn't even exist in the 90's. The fundamental problem with your analysis is that you don't accept no platform as a way to stop the nazis. Despite the evidence that demonstrates that it works you would rather engage in individual acts of violence against the nazis. This will only encourage them to attack individual anti-nazis endangering all of us. Exactly the result you accuse no platforming of doing.
Your caricature of working class people like me is offensive and your attempt to caricature the SWP/UAF as middle class students is a pretty desperate ploy. Even if we all were (and socialists who are middle class students make some of the best anti-nazis) at least we've been able to stop the EDL which is more than you and your insignificant macho thugs have done.
Red Action did exist in the 1990s - I remember buying copies of its magazine in the early part of that decade.
It didn't exist in the 1970s, but there were the "IS bootboys" - it is odd that nobody but me refers to them. They are alluded to by Peter Mair in a description of the anti-Nazi clashes of the time, when the NF had a paramilitary wing called either the "Honour Guard" or the "Leader Guard" and the IS seemed to feel the need for something to counter it.
Ray, you are wasting your time debating with fiannanahalba. The boy is obviously far gone on fantasies of sectarian confrontation. Beating up some lad for wearing the wrong football shirt is about his level of ideological sophistication.
Anyone who knows the recent history of Irish Republicanism in Glasgow will find his accusation that the SWP is heavily infiltrated by the state so exquisitely ironic that they might die laughing.
And if they're still alive, his claims about the physical potency of the SCOTTISH republican movement (two men and a west highland terrier wearing a wee tartan waitcoat) will surely finish them off.
"Red Action did exist in the 1990s - I remember buying copies of its magazine in the early part of that decade."
In someone's bedsit maybe but on the ground they meant nothing. I was heavily involved in the late 80's and early 90's, especially on the Isle of Dogs, and if Red Action did exist they kept well away from the front line.
"A note of caution on the YouGov results:
http://lancasteruaf.blogspot.com...poll- sting.html"
I've emailed YouGov about this and await a reply.
"Ray, you are wasting your time debating with fiannanahalba."
You're right he's not listening or learning from practice. After the failure of the EDL/WDL in Swansea and Newport and the growth of anti-nazis in these areas it's just more ammunition for no platform and demonstrates that squadism is irrelevant and counter productive.
I am pretty sure one of the occasions I bought their magazine was on the day of the poll tax riot in Trafalgar Square in 1990. On that occasion, some of the people arrested did have a connection to left groups (I don't know if any of their members or supporters were arrested). Anyway, you flatly claimed Red Action didn't even exist at the time. They certainly existed to the extent of circulating a publication at a demo, which is the level most left groups are at in Britain.
On the subject of Jan. 10, I was talking to Muslim youths while waiting to be released from the "kettling", and they seemed incredulous that people were opposed to what the Israelis were doing in Gaza, without being Muslim. And certainly most of the lefties had long since vanished before the cops decided they liked us so much they couldn't possibly allow us to go.
Lenin once said of the British Communist Party that if they were to takeover the railways they would all patiently wait in the queue to buy a ticket before carrying out the takeover. The CPB were a thousand times more potent and rooted in the working class than the SWP ever have or will be.
On an earlier point regarding anti-fascism or its cousin anti racism/sectarianism where were the SWP -Stop the War when 30 mostly young Republicans in Glasgow stood in Georges Square against British imperialism on Armed Forces Day to be attacked and battered by loyalist thugs?
Republicans in Scotland are very aware of physical attacks by fascists/loyalists on our members - we have encountered their violence against our marches for decades- and supporters and that is why we stand shoulder to shoulder with todays bogeymen for the Brit nationalist fascists - thye muslims of Scotland.
Yes Denis Donaldson the tout was involved in work against republicans in Scotland and im sure the British state is working overtime to infiltrate and defeat us, but id say that its mission accomplished by them when it comes to the likes of the SWP- Brit left academia is full of agents- control of the social sciences faculties of the unis is easy for them.
FFS the SWP got infiltrated by two Sun journalists during the miners strike and not so long ago in Manchester the fuckin BNP got two of its activists inside the local SWP up to delegate level and who can forget they get free rides on your buses to antifascist demos- dont try and lecture Republicanism on in filtration by the Brits and Glasgow Socialist smearing me as a bigot wont wash- im a Republican Socialist or are we all bigots in your not so revolutionary eyes?
Talking about state infiltration is a little like talking about how big an iceberg is - most of it is invisible anyway, (below the waterline), so you have no idea how big the problem is.
Some of the claims that the left has little in the way of infiltration amount to saying that the left is just too marginal, weak and peaceful to be of much interest to the state. And I do think the state would be rather reassured by people who regard Michael Collins urging disbandment as the height of wisdom.
My own view of the left is that, the minute it starts to look like it is actually getting somewhere is the minute any state or other infiltrators will start getting active.
I remember the case of the BNPers infiltrating the SWP, alluded to by fiannanahalba. But this too is nothing new. A woman member of a small Nazi sect (the kind that thought the NF was betraying fascism by being too moderate) reportedly managed to infiltrate the SWP in the late 1970s.
fiannanahalba asks "where were the SWP -Stop the War when 30 mostly young Republicans in Glasgow stood in Georges Square against British imperialism on Armed Forces Day to be attacked and battered by loyalist thugs?"
The SWP did not participate in that particular fiasco, just as it didn't feel the need to join the cartoonish 'Butchers of Basra' demo by Anjem Chouhdray's Islam4UK in Luton. That's because socialists who are serious about politics don't charge screaming and yelling into the middle of a crowd of ordinary people who have turned out to welcome home British soldiers.
SWP cadres have a clear understanding of why the Armed Forces are instruments of imperialism and should not be in Iraq or Afghanistan but we don't think that hurling abuse at returning squaddies in front of their families is the way to win the political argument. In fact, it is deeply counterproductive.
Whoever planned the demo in Glasgow on Armed Forces day is a complete arse. Of course there were mobs of loyalist thugs out for the parade - what did you expect? Naive young lads, probably recruited through Celtic supporters clubs, were encouraged to chant abuse at soldiers and, as a result got smashed up by bystanders AND arrested by the police. Great result - if you're a loyalist.
I'm sure fiannanahalba will be advocating the same sophisticated and effective tactics for the SDL demo. And he wonders why the UAF won't follow his advice!
I know this is mere abuse rather than an argument but fiannanahalba really is a tragic fantasist.
RSF organised the protest against British imperialism and of course there was a high likelihood of attack by loyalists, but you cannot [well knowing the SWP you probably can] condemn their bravery.
When the Brits organise their next triumphalist jamboree for their imperialistheroes more republicans and genuine anti-imperialists will be out to counter them and next time security will be better.
Your lot have barely if ever thrown a punch never mind any other physical resistance in your lives against imperialism- if capitalism and the british state could be challenged or defeated by tedious debate and sloganeering alongside sneering - the SWP would be forming a socialist government.
Its you Glasgow Socialist who is the sad fantasist- your orgs politics are utter wank- you are enraged liberal middle class poseurs and have had more opportunist political summersaults than an olympic gymnast.
BTW RSF have grown due to their militant anti imperialism in Scotland whilst the SWP continue in their longterm political cul-de-sac attempting to curry favour with a constituency that treats them as the useful idiots that they are.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/2009...ts-
6323e80.html
As I noted above, it would be interesting to know if any are from left groups. Based on what I saw on both days, I doubt it.
"Anyway, you flatly claimed Red Action didn't even exist at the time."
They didn't in any meaningful sense. One magazine seller doesn't make an organisation. In our day to day activity during that period they took no part in any joint work. So as far as I'm concerned that makes them irrelevant.
Perhaps a couple of them steamed into a group of nazis at a demo once in the 90's but you'd be none the wiser because they operated as a secret squadist sect. A usually white male macho elite who condescending dismissed the majority of us as wimps and collaborators with the state.
Very similar to what fiannanahalba is doing now.
He does seem to have annoyed you.
It takes some kind of organisation to produce a magazine, and distribute it. I wonder if it is just a case of preferring to ignore a split/expulsion from your organisation?
Nobody has offered any insights on the "IS bootboys". It is true that that was c.35 years ago, and the SWP is known for its high membership turnover, and so there may be a failure of organisational memory about the events of last year, much less well back in the last century, but still, I would have thought someone remembered that period.
If by IS boot boys you're referring to the people who subsequently became known as squaddists my recollection is that the outer London group was founded and organised by a schoolteacher.
I'm not sure how that fits in with super prole fiannanahalba's view of the world.
Having been in Manchester when the squadists were active, before they left / were expelled from the SWP, I certainly remember it. They were members of the SWP but dissident ones. I don't see why people who are members of the SWP as it has developed should be expected to defend their activities. You might as well expect SWP members to defend _Fight Racism, Fight Imperialism_, since it should be remembered that they too were once part of IS. Former Labour MP Ian Gibson was once a member of the SWP. Where do you stop with this?
It may be worthwhile analysing debates and splits from years ago, but you're going the wrong way about it. And not just any old wrong way. A very confused wrong way that tangles you ever more deeply in confusion.
"He does seem to have annoyed you."
I think fiannanahalba is politically dishonest which is annoying. Don't you get annoyed when someone makes things up about you or the organisation you belong to?
"It takes some kind of organisation to produce a magazine, and distribute it. I wonder if it is just a case of preferring to ignore a split/expulsion from your organisation?"
I'm telling you my experience of that period. I don't care whether someone sold you a magazine, they were not involved in our day to day activity in London. No amount of speculation about cover ups by the SWP or accusations of me lying will alter that fact.
If you want to find out about the SWP's involvement in the ANL and the issue of squadism in the anti-nazi movement then there is abundant information from various sources on the internet.
RSF - what a joke. Wee laddies in Celtic strips who were too stupid to realise they were placing themselves in grave danger: that's not bravery.
If you really want to show your bravery then why not organise a counter-demo to the big Orange walk through Glasgow (not just a small one-band parade at the Gallowgate)?
The SWP offers a serious analysis and organisation. The RSF offers bravado, bullshit, bigotry - and bruises when they come off second best to their loyalist mirror images.
"The SWP offers a serious analysis and organisation."
That would seem to be a matter of opinion, certainly not universally held on the left. The SWP member in the 1990s who told me there had never been a better time to be a socialist had an analysis, all right. It merely filtered out uncomfortable realities. And if anything, it has been even more difficult in the new century.
As to analysing debates and splits from long ago, I think this is key. I first became aware of the far right and anti-fascism in the late 1970s, hence my interest in that period, and the fact that I even know something about the "IS bootboys" to begin with (not necessarily the same as Red Action, who I believe came later). The left, not just the SWP, has in my view made the error of thinking it is still confronting the NF of the 1970s - hence the need for analysis.
"It may be worthwhile analysing debates and splits from years ago, but you're going the wrong way about it. And not just any old wrong way. A very confused wrong way that tangles you ever more deeply in confusion."
That's your viewpoint. Further up the thread you cited some deep-dyed pragmatism from Michael Collins in the early 1920s as the summit of wisdom. An opinion that would render revolution impossible, because you would be transfixed by the sight of the ruling classes' formidable array of strength, everything from naked force to the subtler use of touts, the media, the education system etc. I believe even Trotsky said there were those who thought the October Revolution was foolish in advance because Kerensky had all those troops, junkers, Cossacks and so on.
As youll be aware Glasgow Socialist Glasgow has more Orange Parades per year than either Belfast or Derry. Thats a situation that most people in Scotland abhor or at least feel relatively uncomfortable about. There is a growing opinion that their number of parades should be cut by 90% and one way for that to occur which is being actively looked at by the SNP Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council is to make them pay for the enormous costs of policing similar to the football clubs having to contribute to policing costs.
Im not an RSF member but have support/sympathy for them as fellow republicans and they correctly oppose sectarian marches particularly where they intimidate and disrupt the lives of Scottish people.
A comrade of mines friend was very recently put on life support in Dumbarton by loyalists. All republicans in Scotland are determined to oppose anti Irish racism, sectarianism and fascism because it is our people who too often are at the sharp end of their hatred. We do this on many levels - from the petition right through to physically opposing these reactionary bigots.
BTW football colours are actively discouraged by anti gfa republicans on marches, protests etc
You will see that on Saturday on Clyde Street when republicans commemorate the Scottish Volunteers of the IB at La Pasionaria statue.
One last thing a chairde antifascists of the socialist variety must never lose sight that our primary enemy is the capitalist class and their British state, not the relatively small and incoherent forces of the EDL and if the SWP wont break from its popular front UAF and develop a working class united front against capitalism/imperialism and its reactionary spawn like the EDL then we wont be found wanting in our efforts.
Nae Pasaran- Adelante.
fiannanahalba says,
...antifascists of the socialist variety must never lose sight that our primary enemy is the capitalist class and their British state, not the relatively small and incoherent forces of the EDL...
- Samll and incoherent for how long, given 22% support for them in a YouGov poll after Griffin's appearance on the BBC's flagship 'Hitler Time programme?
Scottish civil society comes together to tackle far-right
Scottish Islamic Foundation News
19 Oct 2009
This morning saw the launch of the 'Scotland United' initiative, bringing together faith groups, trade unions, community organisations and politicians to celebrate Scotland's multiculturalism....
....We want to build as large a list of Scottish society supporting this initiative as possible. To add your organisation or name to the list, please email scottishislamic....
Just like the SWP, the great and the good of Scottish society don't seem to appreciate your view of the relative unimportance of home-grown fascism.
I was under the impression that loyalism in Scotland (and the north of Ireland) IS fascist, or at least contains people with such tendencies.
You are correct in your impression Faust.
You won't see the Orange Lodge out protesting about the BNP's appearance on Question Time.
Although, you won't necessarily see Loyalists being islamophobic - they're anti-Irish anti-Catholic.
Otherwise, they tick the fascist boxes - I understand it was loyalists who have attacked foreigners from Eastern Europe in the north of Ireland earlier this year.
They have sometimes waved Israeli flags, but that is no proof of anti-fascism and is mainly a reaction to the pro-Palestinian sentiments expressed by Republicans.
Who are the real barbarians?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=5...feature=related
Bit much saying that Orangemen are ipso facto fascists don't you think? How far does this go - any Prod from NI or Scotland ehhh?
Just a little reminder to the "free speech" and " after-all-thay-are-a- democratic- party " brigade that BNP MEP candidate for East Anglia David Lucas has just been arrested for possession of explosives and weapons and ammunition. What was that about engaging them in argument...?
"Squadism is a term used to describe a political deviation. No-one calls themselves a squadist, anymore then people walk around calling themselves revisionists."
I wouldn't compare the term to "revisionist" so much as to terms like "social fascist" or "Trotsky-fascist". Just as the Stalinists used the term "social fascist" during the Third Period to discredit the united front alliances with other socialists that was needed to stop fascism, they have used the term "squadist" to discredit militant anti-fascism.
Its genealogy is in Italy, in the repression of the Arditi Del Popolo, the autonomous mass working class resistance movement to fascism, which the CPI tried to close down when they could no longer control it.
The term re-surfaced in the late 1970s as an alibi for the SWP's turning of the ANL (version 1.0) from militant anti-fascism to the empty populist Popular Front gesture politics that UAF still employs today.
Of course the style of activity of the so-called squadists kicked out of the IS/SWP is no longer relevant today, because fascism has changed so much. This is why Red Action have totally turned against this sort of politics. However, it was the actions of Red Action, AFA and others (the so-called squadists) which drove the BNP off the streets in the 1990s, not the waving of yellow lollipops.
The lie that Red Action did not exist in the 1990s is laughable, and shows that some people are still fighting the same old Stalinist battles. Newspaper selling, or getting on TV for throwing eggs at BNP leaders, was never a priority for Red Action.
Nevertheless, I disagree with fiannanahalba that the answer to today's problems is a return to the street battles of 1979. The BNP have a totally different m.o. to the old NF, and street fighting, while it perhaps has its time and place, is as irrelevant as the silly antics of UAF.
"Any Prod" - no. But the interface between the UK far right and loyalists is a matter of record, going as far as the former travelling to the north of Ireland and joining loyalist parades.
"Just a little reminder to the "free speech" and " after-all-thay-are-a- democratic- party " brigade that BNP MEP candidate for East Anglia David Lucas has just been arrested for possession of explosives and weapons and ammunition. What was that about engaging them in argument...?"
Interesting. I wouldn't bet on it getting the BNP a reputation for "terrorism", though. For some reason, the media handle that aspect of the Herrenvolk with kid gloves, almost to the point of censorship.
"For some reason, the media handle that aspect of the Herrenvolk with kid gloves, almost to the point of censorship."
The reason, I suspect, is that many an editor have discovered that the BNP helps to sell papers.And the BBC lets nary a day go by without mentioning that the QT with Nick Griffin on it was their highest rated ever.
But there IS such a thing as squaddism, which is not the same as militant anti-fascism. Its the belief that the you can defeat the far right simply through physical confrontation. It is equally wrong to think you can defeat them without physical confrontation. My problem with the style of argument apparently still pursued by many comrades above is the way it counter-poses the two. Why is it that in many public confrontations the fascists hold back even when apparently confronted by smaller groups of anti-fascists? Well partly its because they know their history and fear a trap. But partly as well its because they know that politically, most people think they are scum. So they never really know how on-lookers are going to respond. Its still true today that in public confrontations (with anti-fascists) on-lookers never join their side. They always join the anti-fascist side. Thats important. And mantaining this situation is the first duty of anti-fascists.
Incidently on the Orange Order, they've certainly had connections with the far right. But I don't think they are quite the same thing. I remember a comrade telling me about going to a pit to give money to the NUM during the great strike and being confronted by the same bloke he was involved in a physical confrontation with on a Troops Out demo. Sectarianism in Scotland divides the working class but it does'nt preclude unity in other areas.
A similar wierd situation is unimaginable with a BNP member (well, lets say in that case the contradictions in his position would inevitabily lead him in the end to go one way or the other. Not neccessarily the case, sadly, with the NUM member also in an Orange Lodge).
I understand it was loyalists who have attacked foreigners from Eastern Europe in the north of Ireland earlier this year.
- Excellent observation Faust. That had slipped my mind.
I was thinking to myself at the time, I bet these East Europeans are Catholics.
Incidently on the Orange Order, they've certainly had connections with the far right. But I don't think they are quite the same thing.
- I think you're right there johng.
The real fault-line between BNP-types and Loyalists is with regards to the BNP's real affection towards the Nazis who were actually once the mortal enemies of the British Crown.
Same with Loyalism's seeming support for Israel, which is more apparant than real. As Faust points out, it's just something loyalists use to taunt Republican PLO-sympathisers with. Tell Loyalist's that zionist terrorists murdered British soldiers in Mandate Palestine, and murdered Churchill's mate Lord Moyne, and they ought not to approve.
Fierce loyalty to the British Crown and Union Jack flag comes first with the Loyalists and Orange Order - I can't see support for former enemies of the Crown, as embodied in BNP nazism and zionism, really catching on to any great extent.
I thought this might be of interest given the magnificent response, coverage and actions by LT bloggers and its regular commenteers -
Scotland United
Scottish Islamic Foundation blog
20 Oct 2009
We’ve spent the last number of weeks working on a suitable response to the SDL’s planned protest outside Glasgow Central Mosque.
Many opinions exist on the best course of action, much of it drawn from the experiences of protests already held in English cities. Direct face-to-face confrontation has led to clashes and arrests, with resultant headlines, images and public perception of Muslim youth and others involved in violence with far-right hooligans. On the other hand, the pleading of mosques and Muslim organisations to do nothing and stay at home has plainly not worked.
We’ve got a chance to make a different story in Glasgow. We’re delighted that the call for Scottish civil society to mobilise and lead has been heard. ‘Scotland United’ is the result with bodies like the Scottish TUC, Scottish Interfaith Council, Show Racism the Red Card and individuals like Aamer Anwar and Elaine C Smith backing it. The list of supporters continues to grow, and already it’s an impressive cross section of society.
I think the Orange Order are more fash than not, though their origins go back several centuries before the 20th. That they have some working-class implantation in Scotland does not contradict the idea of them as fascist. The BNP's voting base, if not its membership, seems to contain a lot of proletarians.
The NF/BNP parade their fondness of the Union Jack, and fascists historically are not necessarily anti-royalist. Mussolini, for example, kept the king in place, though he regretted it in 1943.
The Orange and loyalist base is a fertile recruiting ground for the BNP and the E[S]DL. British fascism is moving away from the old core of Nazi supporters and becoming more mainstream as it taps into the establishments imperialism, monarchism and patriotism along with all the jingoism, racism, islamophobiaetc which derive from the former.
Of course the higher up middle class leaders of Orangism/Loyalism are more shy of the BNP as Tories this is not surprising, but the Tory voting and the non voting base is definitely receptive. Witness the E[S]DLs latest pronouncement that it is opposed to Al Qaida, extremist Islam and Irish Republicanism.
jUST HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE MEMBERS OF THE ORANGE ORDER???
In Scotland its been reported around 50,000 members, i think actual members is between 15,000- 25,000 the rest are bandsmen and assorted camp followers. Fascism in Scotland has always been through the prism of loyalism and in the thirties there was the semi respectable Protestant Party under John McCormack and its street fighting wing under the Glasgow fascist William Fullerton - in whose memory is the sectarian song sang by some Rangers supporters - The Billy Boys song celebrating Billy Fullertons Brigton Derry Boys fascist/loyalist crew.
Thanks Faust.
Maybe you've picked me up wrong as I'm not disagreeing with you and certainly not saying Loyalist aren't fascist to some extent.
I was merely pointing to some currents in the BNP which don't seem to sit easy with Loyalism, ie zionism and nazism.
The Orange and loyalist base is a fertile recruiting ground for the BNP and the E[S]DL.
- I think it works mostly the other way fiannanahalba. I think the BNP are attracted to Loyalism mostly.
I was more reacting to johng.
Fiannanahalba is right to mention McCormack or Cormack. Arguably that was 1930s fascism in its Scottish garb, and his particular political base outlasted WW2 - he was elected more than once to Edinburgh city council, if I remember rightly. He was apparently a good ward councillor, but it was bigotry that was the basis of his appeal.
The orange order are violent, bigoted and sectarian. I'm just not sure they are fascists. The point of the story about the Panel member was not that he was working class, but that he was in a leading position in the organised working class, and at the level of economic struggle was a militant. He was at the same time a lodge member. I think this is a contradiction, but I think in fascist movements this contradiction would out sooner rather then later. Sadly (and I emphasis sadly) this does'nt seem to have been the case (in Scotland) with the Orange Order, where loyalism can co-exist with militant trade unionism. My only point is that this is not really imaginable with fascism.
The orange order are violent, bigoted and sectarian. I'm just not sure they are fascists.
- I don't think so either johng.
I would place them as conservative-authoritarian, although I bow to both your better judgement and knowledge in this area, johng and Faust.
Just as an aside,
my own parliamentary constituency voted the first communist MP to Westminster, J. T. W. Newbold in 1922, and also the first SNP MP, DR Robert Douglas McIntyre in 1945 - and it is an Orange stronghold, precisely because there are so many Catholics.
See -
The Communist Party of Great Britain
Marxist Internet Archive
Robert McIntyre
wiki
The Communist was beaten in the 1923 General Election by an (Orange) Unionist - go figure!
Motherwell (UK Parliament constituency)
wiki
All that said, sectarianism round here is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, by magnitudes at least.
"All that said, sectarianism round here is nowhere near as bad as it used to be, by magnitudes at least."
I think thats important as well. Scotland isn't Northern Ireland.
I think thats important as well. Scotland isn't Northern Ireland.
- Exactly johng.
And the West of Scotland isn't the whole of Scotland either, which has always been, on the whole, pissed off with the Catholic-Orange thing altogether.
I was told a story, of days of yore, of miners from Lanarkshire going over to work in the (East Coast) Fife mines, where they 'naturally' divided themselves into Catholic and Protestant - but the local Fife union men were having none of it, and told them in no uncertain terms, that it was completely unacceptable.
"The lie that Red Action did not exist in the 1990s is laughable, and shows that some people are still fighting the same old Stalinist battles. Newspaper selling, or getting on TV for throwing eggs at BNP leaders, was never a priority for Red Action."
Well laugh away sunshine because they represented sod all on the Isle of Dogs and in East London where the BNP had focused their campaign in the 90's. The trouble with squadists and their apologists like Bob is that they delude themselves that their punch ups with the nazis are what defeat them.
During the six months that it took to get rid of Beackon not once did Red Action or any of the other squadist goons show their face as anti-nazis from ANL, SWP, Labour and various other organisations and non-aligned anti-nazis went door to door arguing against the BNP.
Despite an active presense of the BNP in the area we were rarely confronted by nazis and when we were, Red Action were no where to be seen. But they do like to talk up the danger of campaigning against the BNP unless they are in escort. It gives them a reason to massage their own inflated egos and allows them to indulge in the most pernicious macho romanticism of their isolated violent exploits. Many of them a figment of their own imagination.
So lets see, Beackon and the BNP were defeated by Red Action who weren't involved in the area at all or by all us anti-nazis who put in an inordinate amount of work to get rid of them. Just speak with the people in the area at the time for confirmation.
The German Nazis had a trade union-type organisation in the run-up to gaining power, called the NSBO ("National Socialist Workplace Organisation"). They had no use for it when they became the government, but fascists, short of actually holding power, can use TU and industrial disputes to build a base in the working class. In certain circumstances, TU militants have been fascists. The NSBO was involved in late 1932 disputes where, controversially, there was some joint action with KPD militants. It may have played a part in the Nazis' losing votes in the Nov. 1932 election because some previous Nazi voters worried that the Nazis were too socially radical (in that election, some conservative nationalists who had drifted to the Nazis earlier drifted back to conservative parties).
It may be saying too much to call the Orange Lodges fascist, more that many of them think that way and it is a potential seedbed for fascism.
It may be saying too much to call the Orange Lodges fascist, more that many of them think that way and it is a potential seedbed for fascism.
- They've been on the go for long enough now though.
They're quite content with their British Monarch and their flag.
There's nothing they worship more except perhaps, King Billy on his White Horse, but that's about it.
There is actually a strain of anti-English in them.
Imagine if the British Monarchy were allowed to marry Catholics - that would be just brilliant.
The point about them having been on the go for a long time is precisely the point. Capitalism and its development throws up many different kinds of reaction, some with appalling consequences. Not all of them can properly be called fascist.
The point about them having been on the go for a long time is precisely the point.
- Exactly johng.
They've been around long enough to metastasise into something more malignant.
Early doors the Lodge/Masons/Orange Order were a very revolutionary lot of course, goes without saying.
Rabbie Burns was a very eager and enthusiastic member. The (Scottish) Lodge is even in Tolstoy as some kind of civilised, advanced organisation.
ps
LT and its regulars might be interested in this radio programme about a city-state revolution against the existing prevailing order -
The Siege of Münster
In Our Time
BBC Radio 4
Thurs 9.00-9.45
05 Nov 2009
In Our Time is worth taking seriously as, amongst its many attractions, its listeners voted Karl Marx their favourite philosopher.
You can't argue with that.
Sorry Joe but the Orange Order was not and never has been a revolutionary organisation. Its was set up by the Anglican establishment in Ireland as a counter revolutionary militia to counter the very revolutionary Republican United Irishmen under Wolfe Tone after the 1798 Rising. It was initially open only to loyalist Anglicans excluding Presbyterians who in great number were members and sympathisers with the United Irishmen.
It was imported into Scotland as a bulwark of reaction against the United Scotsmen republicans of Thomas Muir and later radicals.
Orange workers have at times been industrial militants but normally of the strictly sectional and economistic type. I have come across old miners who had a picture of the queen of England and a portrait of Lenin on the wall. Orange Communist Party members. They dont exist now id bet.
Thanks fiannanahalba.
I'm getting my MasonsLodgesOrders in a kerfuffle. Easily done.
...loyalist Anglicans excluding Presbyterians...
- It makes the head nip, this sort of stuff - but takes a discriminating and learned mind to know the difference.
Top man.
No problem Joe.
BTW i agree that the OO and sectarianism are on the wane in Scotland. Thankfully.
The OO are no longer supported by the Scottish middle class and most working class Scots either abhor them or find them an embarrassment. The last desperate, along with HMs loyal imperialist Labour Party, vestiges of reactionary unionism. Let Scotland flourish as an independent inclusive and welcoming democratic republic- Nae union- Scotland Free or a Desart.
Saorsa a nis.
What about Tom Gallagher?
Joe do you mean the Professor at Bradford uni? He is one of many senior academics on the payroll of Em Eff 5.
His attempts to equate the SNP with blood and soil reactionary nationalism are pure shite. SNP is civic nationalism and social democracy with commitment to withdraw from the imperialist British state, remove nukes from Scotland and withdrawal from NATO. I have along with almost all no quarrell with the English working class, but certainly oppose the British government and the British state.
That should of course read Em aye five the brit security service for countering domestic subversives like me.
It depends how far you push fascism back in history. I have known the Black Hundreds, whose origins were in the late 19th century in Russia, to be called proto-fascist. Besides the obvious anti-Semitism, they were designed to counter-act the developing revolutionary movement - a classic trait of fascism.
Somewhat changing the subject - any comments on today's unrest in Leeds?
Gallagher even had one of his articles published recently on 'Harry's Place' as well - and he's going on about the dark side of SNP induced Scottish nationalism !
I won't mention Neil Davidson of the SWP and his disdain for Scotland.
I think this is the biz though -
Scottish Nationalism and the Idea of Europe
Apologies Faust,
I crossed comments with you there.
Does Neil Davidson have "disdain for scotland"? Never noticed.
EDL are cock-a-hoop with their turnout and the way things went for them in Leeds. They appear to be feeling more confident about maintaining or even boosting their membership/turnouts for future demos.
er, no they're not. I won't provide the link but go to casuals united, where its admitted the turnout was less then manchester, and they are generally whinging. In addition they apparently had a fight with C18 on arrival in London on the way back, and there is a long bit about how everyone has to unite against the 'enemies of white britain' (ie UAF according to them). And oops the contrived mask drops.
I imagine they love one another almost as much as the left does. I didn't even know C18 still existed.
Well they seem to be (roughly) split three ways at the moment. On the one hand there is the BNP pursuing the electoral strategy and trying unsuccessfully to cover up that they are Nazis. Then you have those who think this is a sell out. Then you have those funding and trying to organise the EDL who want a 'street army' and see Islamophobia as a new anti-semitism to mobilise on the street. But they all drink in the same pubs, sing the same songs (if you look at the grotesque EDL adverts for their thuggery there are soundtracks about the european home along with stuff about killing the 'beast of Islam'). And of course if they can't find anyone else to beat up they beat each other up. Meanwhile the EDL boasts of not being racist at the same time as talking about the 'enemies of white Britain'. You'd have to be bloody mad to be black and hang around with this lot. But then again you'd have to be mad to hang around with them full stop. I think its interesting that largely local mobilisations by the anti-fascists have consistantly outnumbered them, whilst their attempts at national mobilisations (every time they go) persistantly fail to mobilise local people and persistantly are smaller then the local mobilisations. There is much to worry about, but thats a healthy trend.
Johng my take on it is based on the EDL themselves and the comments on their forum. Do you think Leeds was a defeat for them? What mask ya muppet?
Daily Mail coverage seemed somewhat pro-EDL to me, not that I was expecting proletarian internationalism from them.
'I won't mention Neil Davidson of the SWP and his disdain for Scotland.'
joe90 kane
I think Davidson describes himself as a socialist who happens to be a Scot rather than a Scot who happens to be a socialist.
As such he is identified as one of the enemy within.
Not that there's any tinge of blood and soil nationalism about the SNP.
Apologies John - i agree the mask slips with the EDL.
Stalemate or UAF or EDL winning?
I was at the UAF demo yesterday. Respectable turnout but not great. Afterwards quite a few of us went down in ones and twos to City Square where the EDL demo was being held. Very little sense of a coherent political message from them - just large mobs of very aggressive football supporter types looking for aggro. Their strutting and sense of ownership of the streets was not pleasant to witness.
I've slightly changed my view about the EDL. Since the Left clearly lacks the physical resources to sweep them off the street - if the police had not been around in strength we would have been massacred - perhaps conventional counter-demos are not the way forward. Sometimes creativity and ridicule are more effective weapons.
Is that heretical? I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise but Leeds was a very intimidating place to be a visible anti-fascist yesterday.
Perspective from someone actually there is always welcome.
I had a report on the Leeds situation from a friend who was there. No need to go into detail here but it largely confirms Kevin's downbeat account.
At last a bit of reality and perspective. I was at Manchester and i came to the opinion that EDL were much more physically and numerically capable than anything the left could put up. Not surprising given the lack of class struggle/combativity and the state of the left orgs including their predilection for student work.
The comrades who criticised my down beat opinion may be eating some humble pie.
Glasgow is two weeks away and im now expecting a fairly large influx of English hoolies to augment the local loyalists and fascists. Think the opposition apart from UAF of course is going to be a bit more robust than Leeds or Manchester. Can i suggest UAF activists stay in the park and listen to the speeches whilst chanting as loudly as possible because they will need to make a superhuman effort for the EDL to hear them given the distance.
Can see some skirmishes well away from the demo if the EDL and the local reactionaries dont get an organised police escort out of dodge.
KAF
Given what we know about the take-no-prisoners approach of Strathclyde Police, I expect the EDL will indeed get a very heavy police escort in and out of Glasgow. That will leave the "local reactionaries" for you to confront.
Now tell me, fiannanahalba - how exactly will this confrontation you're getting so excited about differ - in personnel or form - from a classic ICF v CSC face-off, such as one can see after almost every Old Firm game?
Perhaps there will be a few extra bodies on either side (hey, perhaps the CCS and the CSF could even come through from Edinburgh for the day) but it will, in essence, be the same old thugs doing the same old thing under slightly different flags of convenience.
We should be grateful that football teams in England aren't divided along ethnic lines. Imagine if Bradford City was an Asian-supported club: you could have had a Leeds v Bradford punch up yesterday and what a triumph for anti-fascism that would have been.
Instead of fantasising about street combat perhaps you could think about someting else instead - like growing up.
theres more ways to retard the growth of fascism in scotland than the uaf approach or even the overtly political attempts by the likes of the ssp to build a socialist alternative, if edl get a doing it keeps them from operating openly and discourages less hardcore elements than the known ringleaders. Why you so worried about any antifa challenge against them and why the snobbish disdain for wc lads who may or may not follow football even thistle?
Wave yer lollipops have a nice day GS.
Win, lose or draw, I could already write fiannanahalba's report on the SDL event as it will appear here afterwards.
"We gave them a good kicking", "They were run out of town", "Scotland showed the fash they're not wanted on this side of the border", etc, etc, etc
Boastful oafs always have to pretend to win a fight, whatever the reality. It's part of their playground mentality, you see.
Let's just hope the daft laddie doesn't have to text us news of his triumph from a bed at the Royal Infirmary.
No the UAF/SWP will be saying how the fascists were repelled by the speeches, backslapping, paper selling at Scotland United and how only the massed ranks of the polis protected the edl thugs from being attacked by plackard weilding anti fascists of the uaf.
Sweet dreams.
I think the really consequential arguments are between those who argue in favour of demonstrations and those who argue against them. The main task is to win arguments about the neccessity of mobilising against the fascists when they march and arguing against those who say that demonstrating against fascists just gives them a platform.
In other words its not the argument on the far left that matters. I notice that even on some anti-fa and anarchist sites which are quite hostile to the UAF way of doing things, it was conceeded that there was little alternative given the balence of forces. The plus side is that the fash national mobilisations are smaller then the lefts local mobilisations fairly consistantly. But there is still a huge argument to be won about the need to mobilise both in the trade union movement and socially. And I think this is the central task at the moment.
The plus side of things (ie that we can mobilise more then they can oraganise nationally) is not static. The wider political arguments in the movement are absolutely vital. Now I don't know exactly the in’s and out’s of what went on at Leeds.
But it’s clear that we had more then they did, but that we did not have nearly ENOUGH more then they did. But if we had had 10,000 people there (its not bloody unreasonable given the stakes) this would have been an entirely different argument.
Thats why I think the key argument is in the wider movement, and (hopefully) many beyond, that we MUST demonstrate against these people. Those most hostile to the demo’s need to ask themselves: would they REALLY be happy if Nick Griffen on Question time had passed WITHOUT a demonstration? Would it really be appropriate if the EDL were marching and there was no counter-demonstration? What would that say about Britain today?
These are the apparently basic but crucial questions of the day. Its not even an argument about 'no platform' or tactics adopted to chase the fascists out etc. We're in a situation where the very legitimacy of demonstrating against the fascists is being attacked.
We need to keep marching. But we also need a concerted effort to win these arguments across a much broader base in the labour and trade union movement, as well as within communities (were the police have been doing there best to threaten people with dire consequences if they even turn up).
One thing about these largely local mobilisations. They do, long term, build up local networks of anti-fascists, which can prove crucial. I also think though that on particular occassions (not always) national mobilisations may be appropriate. But its clearly very wrongheaded to believe that the only question in this situation is the correct quantity of aggro. One thing though about Leeds. It may well be that the experiance after the demo was effected by the fact that the city centre was full of football fans it being match day.
"But it’s clear that we had more then they did, but that we did not have nearly ENOUGH more then they did. But if we had had 10,000 people there (its not bloody unreasonable given the stakes) this would have been an entirely different argument."
Johns point is very relevant. Bands of squaddist thugs attacking nazis will not stop the EDL demonstrating. It just feeds into the idea that violence instead of mass action is the way to stop the nazis. It will also frighten off the bulk of anti-nazis who are not purely out for a fight like the squaddists.
It's also important not to talk up the violence of the EDL beyond its capability and actuality. Kevin describes feeling intimidated but as John points out where ever football fans congregate there is an air of intimidation. It is intimidating confronting the nazis and not every time will we significantly out number them. But that doesn't mean they will risk attacking a demo that is larger than their own.
The UAF has the ability to mobilise people from all sections of the local community. The EDF relies on bussing in football fans from around the country. There is a significant difference in their base of support and ours. That is their weakness. It must be incredibly difficult and unpredictable for them to gauge the level of their support. It's the reason why they miscalculated in Harrow and Birmingham and had to cancel Newport.
While we mustn't be complacent, where are the attacks on anti-nazis that fiannanahalba keeps predicting? I think he would love to see the UAF attacked but something is preventing this happening. He claims that the police presence is the reason for the EDL holding back but the police have rarely been able to hold back hooligans when they're intent on kicking off. Besides, what's stopping these thugs picking off individuals? This has so far not been an aspect of their mobilisations. Unlike hardened nazis they do not have one coherent political agenda. This is another factor in their inability to control the streets and develop a unified fighting unit.
The likely factor for their lack of cohesion and confrontation is that the EDL is not full of hardened thugs like fiannanahalba believes and is intimidated by the UAF demos. Check out their website - they certainly see the UAF as a significant threat. Even as the mask slips we are not seeing the level of violence that occurred where the EDL went unchallenged such as in Luton. Nor is it at a level of that of the 70's where the ANL stopped a much larger and more aggressive nazi street presence.
"Glasgow is two weeks away and im now expecting a fairly large influx of English hoolies to augment the local loyalists and fascists."
Really? I read posts from some who went on the Swansea demo claiming that it was a close call and the UAF couldn't defend itself. A lot of scaremongering went on about Newport after the Manchester demo. So what happened in Newport? The EDL bottled out because UAF had confronted them in Swansea.
The reason fiannanahalba is downbeat is because he hasn't had a ruck. It's the pessimism of someone who views anti-nazi activity through the lens of sectarian violence. Socialist take a different view - there is everything to play for and this is the very reason we should resist his particular brand of scaremongering and emphasise the significant achievements the UAF has made in confronting the EDL and building up an anti-nazi presence in each area they have tried to mobilise in.
According to Lancaster Unity forum two coach loads of EDL departed Leeds early. Another anti-fa activist estimates their numbers at about 500 - less than Manchester apparently. This is on a day when a Leeds match was taking place. None of the reports are from UAF members.
Let's put this into perspective. The EDL did not go on the rampage in Leeds. They were penned in and forced to leave early on two coaches. Not only that but they had no political focus on the demo apart from chanting racist slogans. The composition of their demo was the typical white bone headed wannabes that tagged along with the NF and the BNP in the 70's and the 90's.
On the EDL forum there is confusion over the racist agenda that the nazis, including C18, would like to encourage among the EDL membership. The problem the nazis have with recruiting from the terraces is that the firms are often comprised of young black and white youth. Which is why they probably found it difficult to attract support in larger urban areas like Birmingham. A hallmark of demoralisation among racists thugs is when they turn on each other and if the EDL/C18 fight is to be believed this does not signal a step forward, let alone a victory, for the nazis in Leeds.
The BNP are desperate to talk up their membership and influence. The recent leak of their membership list exposes the lie that they have recruited out of the Euro elections. That doesn't mean their support hasn't grown but it does bring into perspective their forces on the ground.
The same applies with the EDL. We shouldn't get sucked into their propaganda. They want to breed fear and demoralisation among anti-nazis just like the thugs in the 70's and 90's tried to do. Like any group of bullies, we need to confront them and face them down because their bark is worse than their bite.
"Old psyclops"?
Are you taking the mickey out of someone's disability?
EDL are to be commended for the attack on the Nazi skinheads in London.
Its clear that the EDL are not all Nartzis although i dont dispute the fact that their leadership and organisers are drawn from the far right/fascists. The rest are jingoists and Brit/English patriots who follow the line from the Ruling class including its current political A team- the Labour Party. Interestingly putting Hain and the rest quite close to the average EDL er in terms of their support for British imperialism in Afghanistan.
We ve all fully concluded that the left in England is totally incapable of physically defeating the EDL and that it is toiling to counter them ideologically. The limit of activity and it pains me to see it is shouting Nartzi scum at the EDL safely behind heavy police lines. I think the rise of the EDL is a lesson that the left needs to be organically part of the working class away from the campuses and multi-cultural areas of cities.
We should be building support in the communities and workplaces and that can only be done by a democratic broad based socialist party of the working class with a combative and militant set of politics and activities that actually address the needs of the working class.
For now those looking for that working class socialist party are atomised and weak but the objective situation forces time after time the development of that type of party/movement.
Long term thats the only way the English working class can be won away from brit nationalism, chauvinism, imperialism, racism and the brit variant of fascism.
All hail the coming English Workers Republic.
EDL are to be commended for the attack on the Nazi skinheads in London.
You're a moron.
No if it is true then it is indeed commendable. Do you really think the whole of the EDL are ideological fascists? I live in the real world and i know the SWP wouldnt have been willing or indeed capable of giving extreme white power type fash anything other than a jolly good lecturing [as long as plod were between them and the fash. You wouldnt call me a moron face to face so why on the internet? Thats the usual middle class put down but you havent dealt with my points and thats telling.
BTW ]
"You wouldnt call me a moron face to face so why on the internet?"
What utter garbage! You're probably some spotty kid wearing Doc Martins and a donkey jacket. Get over yourself.
Gawd help us working class once you get over patronising us. While we were out on the postal strikers picket lines you are plotting a punch up with some football hooligans. Just who is really out of touch here?
The ANL and SWP were fighting and defeating the nazis long before you got involved. Please don't tell us how to suck eggs.
Having said that, you are obviously anti-nazi and in that sense we should work together. What I (and I imagine others here) object to is your condescending and quite frankly immature approach to debate.
Even though you disagree with us the constructive approach is to debate fraternally not to post some hostile attack on the UAF/SWP comprised of 6th form clichéd stereotypes about socialists on a blog known to support these organisations.
What is your objective? Do you get a kick out of trolling because you certainly don't come to the table with a constructive fraternal attitude?
If your strategy is to wind people up then you will find that you will rub everyone up the wrong way and even your AFA mates will eventually disown you. Not only that but no worker is going to sit through one of your didactic sermons when they only have half an hour lunch break.
I could go on but my lunch break is over...
'Long term thats the only way the English working class can be won away from brit nationalism, chauvinism, imperialism, racism and the brit variant of fascism'
Nothing more profoundly gives away a middle-class poseur mouthing a truckload of prolier-than-thou sentiments than this myopic insistance of perceiving the working class as a collection of racist bogeymen who are forever about to lurch into the arms of the fascists. It bears repeating that the bedrock of fascism has not been, and is not now, the working class but the middle and lower-middle classes, as reflected in the class position of the membership and voters of the BNP.
Mate you know nothing about me - presumption is as they say the mother of all fuck ups.
Heres a few clues for you - im a graduate of the miners strike where i learned a lot from the experiences and discussions with marxists and cp members- since then ive been active in the struggle for socialism and learned [i hope a lot along the way]i hope to debate with the SWP on this blog as im not a member and this is one of the few places ive found SWP supporters. So as they say lets have it.
So what your a postie Ray - you have my full support- i hope youse win. I know what its like to be on strike especially in the run up to xmas and with the pressures that are brought to bare. Stay strong brother.
Is it solid at your depot? How are youse countering the scabs?
'You're probably some spotty kid wearing Doc Martins and a donkey jacket.'
Ray
I doubt that very much. More like the usual casual mega buck designer labels.
But be careful. He sounds like he could be IWCA. You don't want to have their provisional wing, Peter Carter-Ruck & Partners on your case.
im a graduate of the miners strike . . . I know what its like to be on strike'
Yeah, we could all play this game of detailing the wages we're on, the unions that we're members of and the strikes that we've taken part in; or you could just stop behaving like a dick.
Teachers were the biggest professional group in the German Nazi Party James so im fully aware of the composition of fascism. Enraged pbs and lumpenised workers being the main tinder of course the ruling class has to be threatened by socialism and the working class for them to contemplate backing them into office- thats not on the horizon any time soon.
The effect of fascist organisation and activity amongst the working class can present a real threat to our self organisation and that is why we take confronting it on every level seriously but as trotsky said our main enemy remains the slow poisoner of the ruling class capitalists and we shouldnt be lulled into popular fronts with the bourgeois but present a working class united front against both the fascists and the capitalists.
As you will be aware the working class in an imperialist country particularly one that is at war [the brits are virtually always at war with someone]are given the capitulation of social democracy, the tame union bureaucrats and the ineffectual hard[ not so revolutionary] brit left- prone to the propaganda of imperialism and this results in racism, and at times mob hostility to others in this case muslims , in the recent past the irish.
My faith remains with the best fighters in my class James. If you think im pb then you are mistaken im selling my labour as a manual worker and have done all my life. Im not interested in terms like prolier than thou merely in connecting revolutionary socialism to the strata of the working class to which i belong.
He called me out with ludicrous presumption i answered simple as.
Im what iam like the vast majority - low paid/unemployed but yes i dont dress down i like decent gear- funny thing i look quite like the edl sartorially although im lacoste not stone island. The dress sense of the left is a constant running joke to most working class people.
Lets debate my point that the EDL are not all nazis so maybe its counterproductive for UAF to scream nartzi scum off our streets at them.
Are some winnable to socialism? How could that be done? If the UAF get ten thousand out protesting against them [highly unlikely] will that be the day they say fuck this we are hated by most people?
Is the UAF strategy a united front of the working class or a cross class popular front?
When is violence justified by the left?
"The dress sense of the left is a constant running joke to most working class people."
It's comments like this that just make your argument appear absurd. What do people on the left look like? There are so many variations it's impossible to predict.
I think you are basing your assumptions about the left and workers on clichéd stereotypes and when those are thrown back about you, you get the hump.
I'm glad you support the postal workers. I'm not one by the way I went on their picket line as any activist should do if s/he wants to support workers. I worked for years in the NHS and now I'm a student. So I presume that makes me middle class by your definition. The fact that most students haven't got a pot to piss in we'll quietly gloss over so the clichés don't get ruined.
Nothing wrong with being a student as long as working class students dont get too immersed in the millieu and start thinking that the middle class are the bees knees.
Go on a left demo and theres an eclectic mix of styles and definite difference in the look of the people from the people i know in my community.
Thats because its predominantly students and crusty old lefties with a penchant for dressing down. You must agree the mc differentiate themselves by clothing from the wc?
Anyway what about my political points and questions on how to tackle the edl?
'You must agree the mc differentiate themselves by clothing from the wc?'
You write specious bullshit like this and then seriously demand your arguments be answered?
"fiannanahalba" (odd that a self-proclaimed 'revolutionary socialist' should choose a such a culturally specific gaelic nickname) says "my point that the EDL are not all nazis so maybe its counterproductive for UAF to scream nartzi scum off our streets at them."
Yet further up the thread he was advocating physical attacks on the EDL/SDL 'fash'.
So shouting is too extreme but violent assault is just the ticket? Now I'm really confused.
"The dress sense of the left is a constant running joke to most working class people."
Good to see the important issues are being discussed then...
Any chance of debate around the substantial issues of the UAF popular front strategy to tackle the EDL?
Also the EDL composition and its potential or lack of to develop etc?
fiannanahalba, your not interested in any kind of substantive discussion though are you? Thats the real trouble.
"Teachers were the biggest professional group in the German Nazi Party"
Nope, lawyers were, by a long way. This flowed directly from the specific nature and history of the German legal profession. Maybe you need to study the composition of fascism just a leeetle bit more.
jgw i stand by my claim that teachers were the largest group of professionals in the nazi party membership. Not so controversial considering the number of teachers in society compared to lawyers.
johng i definitely want a substantive discussion- the frivolity, mocking and banter are done with. Care to [or anyone else] address my points/questions?
Its not unusual from my political tradition and history to debate constructively.
well I wrote this earlier in an attempt to be constructive but you must have missed it. Perhaps you could give me your response (I think Ray talked about the organisers of the EDL and the problems they have with the multi-ethnic composition of contemporary football firms):
I think the really consequential arguments are between those who argue in favour of demonstrations and those who argue against them. The main task is to win arguments about the neccessity of mobilising against the fascists when they march and arguing against those who say that demonstrating against fascists just gives them a platform.
In other words its not the argument on the far left that matters. I notice that even on some anti-fa and anarchist sites which are quite hostile to the UAF way of doing things, it was conceeded that there was little alternative given the balence of forces. The plus side is that the fash national mobilisations are smaller then the lefts local mobilisations fairly consistantly. But there is still a huge argument to be won about the need to mobilise both in the trade union movement and socially. And I think this is the central task at the moment.
The plus side of things (ie that we can mobilise more then they can oraganise nationally) is not static. The wider political arguments in the movement are absolutely vital. Now I don't know exactly the in’s and out’s of what went on at Leeds.
But it’s clear that we had more then they did, but that we did not have nearly ENOUGH more then they did. But if we had had 10,000 people there (its not bloody unreasonable given the stakes) this would have been an entirely different argument.
Thats why I think the key argument is in the wider movement, and (hopefully) many beyond, that we MUST demonstrate against these people. Those most hostile to the demo’s need to ask themselves: would they REALLY be happy if Nick Griffen on Question time had passed WITHOUT a demonstration? Would it really be appropriate if the EDL were marching and there was no counter-demonstration? What would that say about Britain today?
These are the apparently basic but crucial questions of the day. Its not even an argument about 'no platform' or tactics adopted to chase the fascists out etc. We're in a situation where the very legitimacy of demonstrating against the fascists is being attacked.
We need to keep marching. But we also need a concerted effort to win these arguments across a much broader base in the labour and trade union movement, as well as within communities (were the police have been doing there best to threaten people with dire consequences if they even turn up).
One thing about these largely local mobilisations. They do, long term, build up local networks of anti-fascists, which can prove crucial. I also think though that on particular occassions (not always) national mobilisations may be appropriate. But its clearly very wrongheaded to believe that the only question in this situation is the correct quantity of aggro. One thing though about Leeds. It may well be that the experiance after the demo was effected by the fact that the city centre was full of football fans it being match day.
Thanks johng. I agree totally with the need to win the argument that the left and the communities must be encouraged to oppose the EDL and although i understand the counter argument that it gives them a focus and that they might just get bored with no opposition and wrap it i dont think this holds water as they would be emboldened and that would be demoralising to anti fascists and the best elements of the wider left.
Now i still disagree with the politics, slogans and methods of UAF and thats tactical and strategic, but i recognise that UAF have to be debated in a democratic and comradely way without consuming all energies on that debate. Is their space and opportunity for that debate to take place over the questions of analysis and therefore slogans/approach and tactics used to counter the EDL?
At last on this thread we may have a decent discussion.
I think we will soon see this partially resolved in Glasgow soon on the ground. If they get some kind of victory there then the left across this island really does have to address our short comings and endeavour quickly to rectify our deficencies - a tall order i know.
Well I hope they don't, but my point is that to rectify the situation we do need to talk about how we win a wider argument. One reason why sections of the movement are getting wobbly about confronting the fascists is that there is a much wider head of steam building up behind the far right today then there was before. I'd suggest that they are right to understand that this means there are real changes on the ground, wrong in the conclusions they draw. Sometimes when people talk about the irrelevence of the 1970s, the changes they list are things that were VERY relevent in the 1970s: its as if people are confusing the early '90s with the 1970s.
In terms of the arguments for and against squadism. I think its important to understand that it was legitimated by the existence of a mass movement on the ground and a mass anti-fascist movement. In that sense it was'nt really squadism. But that mass movement did have to be built. And my main problem with these arguments is that those sections of the left who do want a movement against the fascists need to focus on arguments against those who think ANY such movement would be counter-productive.
It does exist, its a real argument, and someone is going to have to win it. If we had had 10,000 people in Leeds, I'd have been quite happy to spend the next day with all of us tearing each others faces off about exactly what we should have done. Indeed it would be inappropriate not to have arguments like that in those situations. The movement did well to outnumber the fascists, but really, we all do have a responsibility, self included, to argue with more and more people to ensure these events are bigger.
Otherwise these discussions are just life of brian.
Sorry fiannanahalba if that does'nt sound constructive, it is meant to be.
Oh and I think your just wrong about the EDL. They're organised by fascists who want to build a street army. These fascists have it in their heads that by focusing purely on Muslims they can build up a bigger head of steam. Other fascists are annoyed about this. But there is nothing unusual about Nazis knocking shit out of each other. There was nothing anti-fascist about it. In terms of the black members. Remember the plot line to This is England.
Those who say 'oh well they're ideologically incohate etc'. How do people think fascism started?
Some pertinent points john. I agree about getting numbers out and defeating the leave them alone and theyll disappear brigade. Your point about physical confrontation of the edl occuring or at least becoming a tactical reality due to the overall strength of the anti fascist movement obviously stands up.
Yes edl are organised by fascists and yes its a skillful salami style slice by slice operation using todays mainstream bogeymen - militant islam and fundamentalism, but id say the bulk of the edl ranks are not convinced fash, backward, reactionary, chauvinistic and testosterone fuelled hoolies - yes, but not entirely unwinnable to socialist politics and if they are then we write off a lot of people. The reason these lads arent fash white nationalist/supremacist is cause they have ran with football firms with black and mixed race lads and they all know family, friends and neighbours who are not white - hence the need for edl to emphasise its non racism just islamophobia- that could be a continuing strength for edl or if countered by the left correctly an achilles heel.
This is a very british fascism/nationalism and it has to be analysed and countered with more skill and tenacity than the standard uaf response particularly the uafs fatal flaw- its popular front style and methodology.
fiannanahalba, the problem with your approach is that the whole focus is on the physical confrontation, the anticipation of it, the adrenalin rush you get from it and the war stories you can recount after it.
If there was no prospect of a punch up you wouldn't be involved.
A couple of points.
1. Many people are arguing here as if this is an either/or issue: demonstrations or not, bashing the fash or waving placards, ideological struggle or physical struggle, etc. However, as some contributions note, we need to be more creative, to mix and match, to combine the physical struggle with the ideological struggle.
Johng's point that allowing these events to happen without a demonstration would be shameful is of course right. But demonstrations alone are not going to stop the EDL and BNP from growing. The only way we can do that is the time-consuming, often boring, door to door, neighbourhood-based work. Putting all our energy into mobilising for yellow placard type demos, where the demonstrators feel good about themselves but no-one else gets the message, is not necessarily the best use of our limited resources.
(Ray acknowledges the importance of this sort of hard slog work in his comments about the Isle of Dogs, but surely this sort of work is at lease as relevant now?)
2. On the specificities of Red Action and the Isle of Dogs, I can't comment as I was not in London then. I was in London in the period before and after that, and only really worked in South London, where Red Action, as part of AFA (I was a member of the latter, but not of the former), took the approach that we had to physically stop the fascists from organising, but also to work neighbourhood by neighbourhood to counter their politics. In other words, Red Action in the 1990s were never (just) "squadists".
As the 1990s wore on, Red Action put more and more energy into the community work, and less into the street work, partly because we won the battle for the street in many areas in the early 1990s (most notably at Waterloo), partly because the BNP was changing its strategy after its success on the Isle of Dogs. However, Red Action was always a small group, and did not have the resources to pursue this sort of community strategy everywhere, so chose where to target its activities.
In my view, the BNP's total switch away from street politics and towards community politics vindicates the strategy AFA developed in the 1990s, even though AFA itself was unable to really follow it through, due to lack of numbers. Where there has been a community-based response to the BNP, it has shrunk. Where there has been a yellow placard based response to the BNP, no significant difference has registered. This makes Ray's claim that "The ANL and SWP were fighting and defeating the nazis long before you got involved" strikes me as a bit hollow. Some "defeat".
3. However, the EDL is very different from the BNP. I personally don't know the best way to deal with it, but I do know that simply shouting "Nazi" is not the right answer. The EDL's leadership may be fascist, but the people who turn out are ultra-nationalist football casuals, who are far from fascist, even if they are deeply reactionary.
4. On the class base of fascism. Clearly, the BNP membership lists show that the organisation is thoroughly petit bourgeois, following the classical model of fascism. And in some areas in the Home Counties and SW, where the BNP vie with UKIP votes, this is their social base. But the BNP vote in the Ribble Valley, in Swanley, in Stoke, in Barking and many other places, is overwhelmingly working class. This is the constituency that anti-fascists should be targeting. And this is precisely the constituency that requires the door to door work, and is least impressed by yellow placard based approaches. A politics aimed at broadcast media and the High Street, which is what UAF has been so far, will not reach the social base the BNP seeks to reach.
An is anyone seriously saying that the people who turn out for the EDL are middle class?
Again Bob I just disagree with the contemptuous attitude to demonstrations and demonstrators (ie they exist just to feel good about themselves). Where does this argument come from? I also think its important not to dismiss anti-fascist movements of the past or the tactics they use, purely because of fascist resurgence years later. You rightly point to the dangers of counterposing different tactics and then do exactly the same thing in your argument re: demonstrations versus community work. You note yourself that those who had begun to see the limitations of a purely physical force approach (in a situation where the fascists remained organised but without a large base of support) attempted to move into community work, but were really unable to translate this into anything tangible, at least at a national level, largely because of numbers. The truth is that without large scale national level campaigns that kind of work is very hard to sustain. Look at it this way: if you don't have the confidence to turn people out to demonstrate against a gang of thugs marching through urban centres (and I would argue that beneath the polemical sound and fury these divisions are largely a reflection of a lack of confidence), how are you going to give people the confidence to go into local areas where the right have a base to campaign door to door? The things are linked.
On this question of the EDL as a very British or English phenomenan. I just disagree. The business man who funds them has links with the Danish far right and is pushing a theses that ultimately derives from the US far right (the whole eurobia argument). I don't think the EDL are very far from being fascists at all. It looks pretty classical to me in its origins. Its true that they are attempting to eschew specifically National Socialist imagry (unlike Nick Griffen who couldn't even resist a bit of Holocaust Denial on Question Time) but any study of the emergence of fascist street gangs would show that there is nothing uniquely English about this modus operandi.
I also think its a mistake to think that recruiting EDL members is a priority for the left. There are not that many of them, they don't, at present, represent very much. Just as the media spend a lot of time projecting the BNP as somehow 'representing' the white working class, there is a danger of a similar lower level operation with the EDL. Again its a question of confidence. These people are thugs and most working class people, black or white, do not like thugs. Simple as.
1. I am not being contemptuous towards demonstrators. I spend (and have spent) many hours of my life being one of them. But I often wonder how effective we are being when we stand there shouting our slogans at a bunch of police officers, and maybe get a minute on the local news, an inch in the Guardian and disturb a few people's shopping day. I often feel it is us we are demonstrating for, rather than anyone else. Yes, they can build networks and sustain energy. But if they are the central focus of our strategy, than our strategy is wrong.
2. I don't see the EDL as a British phenomenon either. They are part of a Europe-wide "Euronationalist" movement, very similar for example to Pro-Koln in some ways. But, as with the BNP voters versus BNP leaders, we have to distinguish between the ideology of the leadership and the motivations of the rank and file people they mobilise for their marches. I am not saying we should eb "recruiting" the latter. I am saying we should be separating them from the fascist/ic core of the movement, just as we should be turning non-fascist BNP voters away from the BNP. And I simply don't think shouting Nazi is the best way of doing that. That's all.
3. I agree that there is no sense in which the BNP or EDL "represent" the "white working class". But they deliberately target their appeal at sections of it. So we have to work out how best to counter that.
The BNP target their appeal at sections who are resentful about issues like housing and jobs, so we have to make the argument for immigration and show that shortages of housing and jobs are not about immigrants but about decades of shit policies from the Tory and Labour governments. Here, showing that the BNP are criminal/paedophile/Nazi/etc is probably useful too. Throwing eggs at them or using "squadist" tactics won't be useful.
The EDL by contrast target their appeal at nationalist, borderline racist/Islamophobic thugs. Saying the EDL are thugs will only enhance their reputation and allure. With the EDL, standing across police lines from them shouting Nazi will not do anything to stop that. (In fact, I suspect that defeating them physically, away from the police lines, e.g. when they park up their coaches, might actually be more useful, but I'm sure I'll get called a "squadist" again for saying that.)
Well we all want to be more effective and demonstrations are not ends in themselves. However I worry (genuinely) about political arguments which devalue attempts to mobilise people. If you can't mobilise people you won't achieve anything. What exactly is the alternative? I think our central task is to expand these networks. They're smaller then they were at the moment and the strain is showing. You can't do any form of politics without networks of activists.
In terms of the EDL I think they ARE the hardcore. This is an attempt to create a street army. Who this army will end up getting controlled by is probably a fight further down the line: but we don't want it to get to that stage. I also think, more generally, that arguments about futility of shouting Nazi etc, are WHOLLY mistaken. They absolutely HATE it (and this is both the BNP and the EDL).
They know that this is a barrier for them and they want to move beyond it. We should not let them. I think the BNP do try to appeal to genuine concerns (I think the EDL mainly tries to appeal to those who want a fight) but that their central concern is to unite racists and make racism respectable. The fact that there is constant trouble, ruckus etc whenever they try and organise anything is bad for them. Its not good for them. Of course the left can take a hit, and newspapers will conduct ridiculous arguments about 'both sides being as bad as the other'. But that does'nt help the BNP. It seriously hinders them in expanding. Partly many people are frightened to be involved. Partly most people just don't like violence.
I also disagree with the idea that what is required is private violence with the EDL. What is required, given the nature of their support base, is very public humiliation (of the kind you saw in Harrow where they were essentially forced to cancel because they were scared of school kids). What is required is larger and larger public mobilisations against them and a wider sense that their presence on our streets and in our politics is just unacceptable.
Or as Joe Strummer once put it
"If Adolf Hitler
Blew in today,
They'd send him in a Limosine anyway".
While we are all talking about Glasgow - something I'm naturally happy to do :-) - a much bigger confrontation is brewing in Nottingham.
My understanding, admittedly from patchy info on the net, is that the EDL has planned a demo on Dec 5 to coincide with an Army homecoming parade AND a Nottingham Forest v Leicester City game.
This poses unique challenges for the left. If the idiots from Islam4UK threaten to turn up with 'Victory to the Taliban' placards then the Daily Express will be only too delighted to whip chauvinist youth into a frenzy of aggression.
One of the problems with the imperative to counter-demonstrate the EDL is that their footsoldiers/followers have now discovered a new 'enemy' - us.
Thank you John for actually engaging with my arguments. I also appreciate that your comment recognises that the BNP and the EDL are very different, and need different responses. Personally, I think the Socialist Worker line that they are "flip sides of the same Nazi coin" is grossly inadequate.
I agree that humiliating the EDL is the best way to stop them, precisely because they are thugs. Whether that is flooding the streets with demonstrators or private violence, I'm not sure. The Harrow example was inspiring, but (or, rather, because) it was not exactly a normal demonstration of activists with placards.
I don't know if the EDL "are" the hardcore. The turnout for EDL events seems to me mostly young and mostly working class, even if the leadership are older and perhaps less working class. The turnout, in my view, are not necessarily that political; they want a ruck. You might be right, that they are the start of a street army for hire, but they are not the political core of the fascist movement. That is, we must always distinguish between leadership, membership and wider support.
Glasgow Socialist raises a completely different issue: the idiots of Islam4UK, who are also fascists, and the fact that most of the anti-fascist movement does not take a stand against them... But that's another issue entirely.
My point is not so much the need to take a stand *against* Islam4UK as the need to differentiate ourselves from it in the minds of the young white working class males who are drawn to the EDL.
It clearly suits the leadership of the EDL to weave a narrative that portrays the UAF and other anti-fascists as protectors of and apologists for extreme and violent Islamists.
Well strangely I prefer it if the EDL attack socialists then if they randomly attack minorities. Thats putting it a little starkly but one reason why the left and the trade union movement need to get stuck in is to drive a coach and horses through their attempts to portray whats going on as "race war". On the question of Islamists etc (I don't actually know the organisation being discussed and would not want to cast any aspertions on them), well obviously they'll be fishing amongst young asian lads in the same way that the EDL are fishing on the terraces (very importantly there is a big difference in these target audiences: asians are being targetted for no reason at all: there are good reasons to target racists). Its one reason why a culture of countermobilising needs to go wide and deep throughout the movement. It makes it far harder for both the EDL's race war narrative and the handful of Islamists.
Oh THAT lot. Aspertions welcome :).
"It clearly suits the leadership of the EDL to weave a narrative that portrays the UAF and other anti-fascists as protectors of and apologists for extreme and violent Islamists."
Yes. And that is a reason we (anti-fascists/the left) need to be very clear in differentiating ourselves from the likes of Islam4UK, and not be seen as allied to them.
I don't agree. Nobody in their right minds believes that "Islam4UK" has anything to do with Muslims in general or the anti-fascist movement. Even the racists who claim that we're all the same know damn well that this is BS. So why dance to the EDL's tune on this one?
There's never anything to be gained by kowtowing to absurd demands from the right that we "prove our non-extremism". You just end up on their territory - and they will never be satisfied no matter how much we grovel.
Yes, Islam4UK are utterly marginal to Muslim life in Britain. But if they turn out at anti-EDL demos, and if the EDL organise counter-demos against their events (as happened at the weekend), then this is a situation that the anti-fascist movement needs to respond to isn't it? It's nothing about Islam4UK being "extremist"; it's about them being at least borderline fascist.
Islam4UK may not be everyone's cup of tea but they articulate the widespread anger that exists among Muslim youth. Slogans like 'British Soldiers: Go To Hell', 'Butchers Of Basra' and 'Victory To The Taliban' are authentic and popular.
Personally, I'd probably be too scared to stand beside them at a militarist 'Homecoming Parade' (designed to glorify and legitimise imperialism) but if the left turned up in numbers, why not?
"Islam4UK may not be everyone's cup of tea but they articulate the widespread anger that exists among Muslim youth. Slogans like 'British Soldiers: Go To Hell', 'Butchers Of Basra' and 'Victory To The Taliban' are authentic and popular."
Are Islam4UK's other slogans, like 'Implement Shari'ah law in the UK' or 'Khalifah for Britain' also "authentic and popular"?
And how is that different to saying: "The BNP may not be everyone's cup of tea but they articulate the widespread anger that exists among British men. Slogans like 'British Jobs for British Workers', 'Stop mass immigration' are authentic and popular."
It's not that Islam4UK are not my "cup of tea". Like the BNP, they are a far right organisation that preach intolerance and violence against women, gay people, Jews and non-Muslims. Like the BNP, with its links to white nationalist terror organisations, Islam4UK members have been involved in the Bluewater bomb plot and the Mike's Place suicide bombing.
We should not be standing with them.
I only just noticed that Inayat Bunglawala, no less, organised a demonstration against Islam4UK at the weekend. Presumably we should say to him that Islam4UK might not be his cup of tea but they are authentic and popular so we should be welcoming them with open arms?
Patrick is wrong. We do not in any way support Islam4UK. However because elements like this will turn out to try and exploit the situation created by the EDL is no reason not to turn out to ensure that their voice is marginal.
Commenting by HaloScan
