04.03.2004

Against fascism. For what?

On February 26 Unite Against Fascism was launched at the Astoria in London’s Charing Cross Road.

The campaign is an uneasy combination of Anti-Nazi League platitudes and Ken Livingstone’s City Hall anti-racism. Lee Jasper and Livingstone himself were on the stage, while fittingly Socialist Workers Party members manned the stalls. Many trade union officials and a string of MEPs and MPs have lent their backing. Indeed the list of initial UAF supporters looks like the type of Who’s who that the ANL used to boast of in its heyday.

The UAF’s publicity material states that the BNP is “poised to field candidates in the 2004 European parliament elections, local government elections and the next general election, in what they hope will be the greatest electoral assault by the far right in this country”. It goes on to assert that “this dangerous situation requires a new and united response from all those dedicated to freedom and democracy … against this common threat”.

The campaign appears to be particularly aimed at getting the youth vote out. But the ‘Don’t vote Nazi’ slogan is taken to an extreme that I have certainly never witnessed before. One of the first speakers to take the stage, Eastenders actor Bindya Solanki, shouted: “The way we are going to get the BNP is by voting and I don’t care who you vote for - just don’t vote BNP!” This was repeated by many others in the course of the evening. For example, Labour MEP Glyn Ford advised us to “get out and vote - otherwise you are going to see Nick Griffin on Newsnight!”

The BNP were presented as the main threat (not to the working class, but to British society) and any vote - even presumably one for Michael Howard’s xenophobic Tory Party - would be the way to stop “the fascists”. Never mind the stinking policies of the current government.

Ken Livingstone said that the BNP “represent the same strain of fascism and racism as that which sent Jews to concentration camps. Underneath their contemporary politics are swastikas.” He said that nobody should be in any doubt but that they presented the same kind of danger as German fascism in the 1930s. His fear was that they could win a member in the Greater London Assembly unless there was a high turnout. Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, added to the hysteria: “There is nothing more crucial than the need to defeat the BNP. Hope conquers hatred; respect destroys racism.”

Lee Jasper tried hard to show his cool credentials. It was all “Give it up for Brendan Barber!” or “A big up for the mayor!” But his attempts to drum up some enthusiasm with chants of ‘Smash the fash’ and ‘No to the BNP’ met with a lukewarm response from the audience. Never mind: he hoped everybody would “warm up later in the night when they’ve had a few drinks”.

There were many musical acts, including So Solid Crew and Bigga Fish. As the evening went on, the number of young, mainly black people increased significantly and the middle-aged white lefties started to drift away. Even if the majority of those young people had come mainly for the music, it was very positive that they were open to political ideas. The shame of course was the politics that they were presented with from the stage.

In its present state UAF cannot achieve anything - except perhaps as a de facto election campaign for the Labour Party. While Livingstone made criticisms of Labour policy on asylum-seekers, there was little else from the platform except scaremongering and platitudes. There is no blame laid at the door of the mainstream parties for peddling anti-asylum-seeker propaganda and then denouncing the BNP for doing essentially the same thing. Working class people who have turned in their alienation and desperation to the BNP are denounced as much as the BNP itself.

It is popular frontist cynicism at its worst. Young people are patronised and herded to the ballot box where they are meant to vote for one of the establishment’s trusted parties, or maybe even Respect, on the basis of apocalyptic warnings that a German-type fascism is about to sweep the country. Meanwhile Tony Blair and New Labour uphold the system of monarchy and capital, take us to war on the basis of lies, help US imperialism occupy Iraq, maintain the Tories’ anti-trade union laws, hound illegal migrants in the name of multicultural Britain and pass all manner of draconian ‘anti-terrorist’ laws.

Of course, the BNP is a bunch of Nazi thugs in suits. But the New Labour government is surely the main enemy.