24.03.2005

Stench of bigotry and intolerance

Are you thinking what we're thinking?" With these slightly sinister sounding words adorning his podium, Michael Howard's 'pre- election' press conference on Monday gave us a truly rancid taste of things to come. After buttering up 'middle England' on Sunday with large newspaper adverts, Howard waded in with his seven-point plan to curb travellers' encampments - necessitated, he ventured, by an "influx" of Irish travellers into leafy Britain and a general lax culture of "political correctness". Our would-be prime minister wants to "toughen" planning laws and, centrally, make trespass a criminal rather than civil offence. Naturally, Howard's only motive in articulating these views is a deep reverence for "fair play" and the "rule of law", which leads him to believe that there should not be "special rules for special-interest groups". For communists though, Howard's words carry the stench of bigotry and intolerance. Of course, the assault - so far only verbal - on travellers is part of an overall strategy which seeks to inflame all those issues which Tory spin-doctors have identified as potential Labour 'weak spots' - in the belief that by frantically whipping up populist prejudice it might just be possible for Howard to overcome his opinion poll deficit. It comes as no great surprise to read that Howard has drafted in the Australian election strategy guru, Lynton Crosby, who many credit with masterminding John Howard's victory nine years ago over the then seemingly invincible Labor prime minister, Paul Keeting. Described by those who know him as "brilliant", "grubby" and "ruthless" - and that is just his friends talking - Crosby argues, not entirely unconvincingly, that the key to electoral success for the right lies in loudly shouting about the "dog whistle" issues - like immigration, law and order, and so on. So Peter Lilley, who not so long ago paraded before an adoring Tory conference his hateful "little list" of single-mothers on benefits, is now stomping about denouncing "sustained immigration" - up from 47,000 in 1997 to 151,000 in 2003. Then we had Howard's recent comments to Scottish Tories that the Human Rights Act is a "charter for chancers" - like gypsies/travellers, asylum-seekers, criminals, etc. Warming to his authoritarian theme, Howard has also pledged to end early parole for prisoners "within a week of my election" and to "start a new prison-building programme" within a month. Obviously, in the service of authoritarian populism, a bit of 'nonce-bashing' is obligatory, so we read on the Conservative Party website that the government is "failing to implement new measures to prevent child molesters from working with children after Ian Huntley was convicted of the Soham child murders". As the tabloids would put it - if you want a nonce for a neighbour, vote Labour. Admittedly, we communists have no love of Roy Hattersley, a social democratic rightist who as shadow deputy prime minister enthusiastically backed Neil Kinnock's anti-Militant purges, but we find it hard to disagree with him when he writes in The Guardian: "Paedophiles, gypsies, early parole - nothing is too low for Howard" (March 21). All we have to add is that Hattersley's list is obviously incomplete - where is bring back hanging and corporal punishment? Clearly, the campaign being waged against travellers by the Tories and their backers in the tabloid press is becoming extremely ugly and unpleasant. But communists have to recognise the unfortunate fact that playing upon fears of 'the outsider' will find a resonance - the Roma, gypsy or traveller, like the immigrant or asylum-seeker, is demonised in order to cohere the "settled community" around the nation, rather than class. Hardly subtly, the Tories and rightwing press are trying to pit the hard-working Smith or Patel family against the freewheeling travellers, who do not even have the decency to live in a semi or pay income tax and national insurance. Driving out travellers is a natural extension of the fight to kick out 'illegal' immigrants and 'bogus' asylum-seekers. With May 5 an increasingly likely general election date, the other Tory message appears to be - if you want a gyppo for a neighbour, then vote Labour. Hence the vitriolic headlines in the Sun - like the charming "Stamp on the camps". Then we have the Daily Mail, which is acting as an open sewer for anti-traveller bigotry. In its pages gypsies, - or didicoys, tinkers, itinerants, etc - are luridly presented as a threat to every village or town in Britain. We are told that travellers are "wising up to their 'human rights'" and the Enoch Powell-loving Simon Heffer, in a typically obnoxious article entitled, 'Bigotry, class war and a gypsy charter that betrays a hatred of middle England', fulminates about how John Prescott is "soft in applying the planning laws to a group that represents the polar opposite of the middle classes: gypsies". What is more, he continues, whatever the "politically correct pretence" about this group, "gypsies are far more likely to be doing the oppressing" than the suffering - after all, they are "largely unknown to the Inland Revenue" and, "worst of all, they have no regard for private property". Even more blatantly, this week the Mail has been running horror stories of how Britain's "mighty oaks" are being chopped down in Essex to make way for Roma and "Irish families". Anonymous "homeowners" in Noak Hill. Romford, are quoted bemoaning how the gypsies have "destroyed an ancient woodland", and that "these travellers own the land, so I don't know what can be done to move them". On the same theme, we are told that property prices in Crays Hill, Billericay, "have plummeted by up to 75% since the travellers arrived" - and we are meant to be shocked that the 292 'indigenous' inhabitants "find themselves hugely outnumbered by the 1,000-strong travellers, most of whom arrived from Ireland in the last four years". All 'concerned' or 'active' citizens are encouraged to do his or her duty - "Have you suffered problems with travellers setting up home on illegal sites? If so, contact sites@da-ilymail.co.uk" (March 22). Self-evidently, it is no coincidence that in the same issue we had 'Mad' Max Hastings bemoaning the "influx of thousands of newcomers", which is leading to "an irrevocable shift in the character of this country" - a "character" which, still, despite the ravages of immigration and leftwing extremism, remains "identifiable". Thus, for Hastings, 'Britishness' is "a love of green places, if the government allows us to preserve any of them; gardening; beer; PG Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, Jane Austin and Trollope; old buildings and bridges; Coronation Street and The Archers", and the feeling that "somewhere in our hearts, a deep-rooted conviction that British is best". In other words, a reactionary-establishment, insular Britain, as opposed to the other Britain we communists defend. Our Britain is radical, democratic, multi-racial and is therefore not fixed, smug or arrogant, but is constantly evolving, not least through assimilation. The internationalist Britain of William Blake, Tom Paine, Ernst Jones, Eleanor Marx, William Morris and Tom Mann welcomes poor and fleeing migrants and the diverse and rich culture and knowledge they bring. It fought for trade unionism, the vote and the right to roam the "green places" forcibly seized by the aristocracy. The same Britain wants to restore the land denatured and ruined by agribusiness; reaches out in solidarity to all those in the world who are struggling against capitalism and oppression; takes on board everything in politics, the sciences and arts that is advanced, enlightened and progressive; and opposes everything that is bigoted, obscurantist, imperialistic and reactionary ... that is why the other Britain hates Michael Howard and his Tories. What about Tony Blair and New Labour? New Labour is competing on exactly the same ground as the Tories - religion, clamping down on migrants, law and order, the 'war on terrorism'. If you hate Howard you should also hate Blair. The backbench Labour response to Howard's traveller 'initiative' has been mainly hyperbolic. Kevin McNamara MP said Howard's remarks had "the whiff of the gas chamber about them". Quite wearisomely, but equally as predictably, this sparked off the now almost compulsory row about anti-semitism, etc. Quite ridiculously, Tory supporters - and others - have accused Labour of "sly anti-semitism", pointing to the hastily withdrawn Labour posters featuring the two flying pigs (of Howard and Oliver Letwin - both Jewish) and Shylock (ie, Michael Howard). Ironic though it may be in many ways, the Tories and rightwing press, especially the Daily Mail, are enthusiastic players of the official anti-racist card, which effectively seeks to close down rational debate and instead wheel out their recently adopted taboos and shibboleths. Of course, as many mainstream commentators have pointed out, quite correctly, when Michael Howard was home secretary under the last Tory government, he was personally responsible for drastically reducing the number of legal traveller sites. In 1994 he overturned the 1968 Caravan Sites Act, which obliged local authorities to provide sites for travellers. Circular 1/94 was issued, recommending that councils identify land gypsies could buy and use. Now, unsurprisingly, there is a severe shortage of official sites - governmental estimates say there is a need for 4,500 extra pitches in England and Wales. There are approximately 120,000 travellers in the UK, of whom most manage to live on council-run or fully legal sites. There are, though, some 370 'unauthorised' camp sites. What makes Howard's proposals hypocritical and just downright illogical, is that the recent influx is due to the fact that the Irish government, quite disgracefully, has implemented the very laws that Howard wants the UK to adopt. Communists unequivocally defend travellers - while struggling to integrate them fully into society and the working class movement. The education of children is obviously vital here. So is positive legislation and the provision of sites and facilities. l We fully appreciate why ordinary people strong object to unofficial traveller sites. They are eyesores and easily become unhygienic and dangerous places. However, the answer does not lie in the temporary 'stop' notices that Prescott has been busily issuing in order to curb the network of ad hoc camps across the country. l We support the restoration and improvement of something like the 1968 Caravan Sites Act. Local authorities should be obliged by law to provide properly managed sites for travellers - both short-stay and permanent - with the full provision of utilities and all necessary services. Eddie Ford