15.05.2002

Rebuilding working class politics

A cross Europe, the far right is on the march, scapegoating immigrants and ethnic minorities, especially those from islamic countries, for the social ills that blight the lives of increasing numbers of working class communities, says Bill Jeannes

Recent advances for the far right in France and the Netherlands highlight a growing trend with neo-fascists in several coalition governments. In Britain, due in part to the electoral system and in part also to the physical punishment meted out to the bone-headed far right on the streets in the 80s and 90s, the far right have not made the same advances. However, the local elections highlighted that the British National Party, under a leadership with a certain amount of tactical gumption, was able to pick up three council seats in Burnley and increase its vote considerably across the country. The fascists (or "nationalists", as they prefer to identify themselves under their latest rebranding exercise) have swapped their bovver boots for suits and ties. Look under the surface and you will find the same vile reactionary politics, the same anti-working class, racist, homophobic nonsense. Clearly buoyed up by recent success, head-case elements are getting restless and itching for an excuse to try out their luck on the ethnic communities and the left. Certainly the opposition put up so far from the official left has been unsatisfactory at best, counterproductive at worst. Groups like the Anti-Nazi League advising 'Don't vote Nazi' have not cut much ice with despairing voters seduced by the easy answers of the BNP, who are allowed to masquerade as a radical alternative. Although the Socialist Alliance will not normally appeal to the same constituency as the BNP, we have not been able to offer any clear working class political alternative. We neither have the politics nor the party organisation necessary to hegemonise working class communities beset by racism stirred up by the BNP. Likewise the approach of the ANL has everything to do with developing a periphery for the SWP and very little to do with serious working class politics. In the north east of England communists, socialists and working class activists, especially comrades in the CPGB, are backing a number of initiatives to ensure that the racism and fascism is stopped in its tracks. On Wearside the fascist National Front has held several demonstrations over the last year, while the BNP has targeted Sunderland as one of its priority growth areas. Six local election candidates picked up votes ranging from just over five percent to a second-place showing approaching 30%. Last year also saw Middlesbrough SA general election candidate Geoff Kerr-Morgan attacked - in full view of the police, it must be said - by rightwing thugs outside a trade union centre. It is therefore to be welcomed that a conference has been called to take place in Sunderland on Saturday June 15, where working class activists in the north east will discuss the politics of working class anti-fascism with a view to developing structures and organisation aimed both at working class communities and immigrant/asylum-seekers. It will also debate the tactic of physically confronting fascists and discuss stewarding for working class events. Confronting a burgeoning far right movement will take many forms and certainly the use of physical opposition, employed against Mosley's Blackshirts in the 30s, the National Front in the 1970s and the BNP/Blood and Honour in the 1980s and 90s, cannot be ruled out. However, more than anything else, we need political answers and a political alternative. That is where the forthcoming CPGB day school comes in. 'Rebuilding working class politics', to be held in Middlesbrough on Saturday May 25, will feature debates aimed at equipping us with the ideas to halt the fascists and take on our main enemy, the British ruling class. The school looks at issues such as how to rebuild a militant rank and file trade union movement and how best we build a workers' party. Fighting the reactionary politics of both the fascists and the inhuman system that spawns their ideas will require the highest level of politics, as well as physical strength in numbers. The CPGB in the 1930s built a base in east London, where Phil Piratin became an MP, winning support away from the fascists by consistent work involving rent strikes and sustained political activity that saw members of the British Union of Fascists tear up their membership cards. Today we need to sink roots in working class communities and build a party capable of turning the Burnleys and Sunderlands into centres of class consciousness and class politics.

Fighting fascism Conference, June Saturday 15, Sunderland. Details: PO Box 601, Sunderland SR2 7XY; 07967 886257 (Mark); revopermin@ukonline.co.uk