Fighting fascism today

Dave Landau from Islington Left Unity gave this talk to Barnet Left Unity earlier in October

In the first decade of this millenium we had the spectre of the BNP becoming a significant electoral force.  From a position where the fascists had had hardly any electoral successes they suddenly started to get councillors all over the country, and in Stoke and in Barking & Dagenham became the significant oppositional voice on the council. And they got 2 MEPs.

But since 2010 their vote as collapsed and they only have a couple of seats left which hopefully they will loose in May.

On the street also they have collapsed. The BNP turned away from street activism – marches etc – in order to make their electoral turn.  They have tried to return to this in the last year but there attempts have been pathetic. We kettled them for 5 hours when they tried to march in Whitehall in June.  And there latest effort outside Lunar House, the nerve centre of UK immigration controls, they only mustered 20 people.

So its seems that the BNP has been smashed organisationally – electorally and as a street force. This is good and anti-fascists should be proud of their hard work. BUT the groundswell of hostility to migrants is still as alive as it always and it is UKIP not an actual fascist party, which is riding that swell.  23% of the vote in the County Council elections, just a little behind Labour and the Tories and way ahead of the Lib Dems with 14%. And coming second in South Shields of course.  What is even more scary is that this success seems closely bound up with immigration.

Although UKIP are seen as primarily an anti-EU party the thing that they have made the most noise about in the recent period is immigration In the recent County Council elections UKIP put out a leaflet throughout the country which said:

“Massive threat to our local services Within a year, 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians will gain the right to live, work and draw benefits here. Only UKIP is taking seriously this massive threat to our local housing, schools, health and council services. All the other parties say they can do nothing about it. That’s why you need UKIP in the Town Hall. “

So they spread an absurd image of an invasion of migrants from these countries, omitting to mention that for decades the same relationship has existed with citizens in other countries in the EU.   But it is clear from the success of UKIP in these elections and in its second place in the South Shields by-election that the politics of fear have paid off.  Nigel Farrage has worn the cloak of Enoch Powell and reaped the benefits.

If we drill down a bit further and look at the areas where they were successful, some of these are small town and rural areas which are normally either Lib Dem or Tory territory.  However this is not always the case.  We have towns like Boston which have a significant working class facing problems of unemployment.  Ports like Great Yarmouth, Margate, Folkestone where people are up against it.  Towns like Basildon in Essex where they also made an issue about Travellers at Dale Farm.

If there is one constant thread running through fascism, certainly British fascism, it is hostility to immigration.  Whatever the period, migrants are the focus of their agitation.   At the end of the 19th century the British Brothers League was strong here – a fascist organisation before the word fascism was invented.  They had marches and rallies in the East End of London –  Five thousand strong in the People’s Palace in Mile End.  Focused on opposing Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe and Russia.  Over the century the targets changed as did the fascist organisations – the NF, the BNP and now the EDL.  And here we saw mass resistance too.

According to the migrant targets different ideologies and themes come into play.  Anti-Semitism once.  Now we have Islamaphobia.  But in every case it is against the ‘outsider’ against the migrant.  That is the constant.  Fascists have other targets too, LGBT, disability – physical and mental…. but the centre of the agitation is always against migrants.

Unfortunately the fascists punch above their weight in terms of their political influence regarding immigration.  It has been elequently argued that the British State stands on the Shoulders of Fascism.  Every significant piece of immigration legislation has followed on from racist agitation, usually led by fascist organisations.  So the agitation by the British Brothers League was crucial to the introduction of the first immigration legislation – The 1905 Aliens Act.  My late friend Steve Cohen wrote an article called “Standing on the Shoulders of Fascism” itemising 100 years of controls and their relationship to agitation by one fascist organisation or another.

Sometimes this is actually presented by the Labour Party as anti-fascism and good race relations.  So at the 2003 Labour Party conference the then Minister for Immigration, Beverley Hughes stated:

“The BNP feed on people’s fears and use these for their own racist political objectives. It is imperative that we sort out the asylum system and have a fair, robust process the public can have confidence in “

Fascists are not a single issue party – but they are a single explanation party.  So they will talk about housing, health, crime, welfare, education, unemployment, green issues, but their answer to everything will be to stop immigration and kick people out.   And for the inner circle it is more complex.  The liberal establishment controlled by a usually jewish conspiracy using immigration and multi-culturalism as a tool to undermine the white aryan race.

So we see this with UKIP.  What was the reaction of the mainstream political parties?  To jump to UKIP’s tune.  The Coalition responded by promoting the Queen’s Speech as a clarion call for tougher controls.  Actually the QS wasn’t that focused on immigration but the afternoon’s speeches in the Parliament focused on a raft of yet more attacks on migrants in terms of access to health, welfare, legal aid and getting private landlords to act as immigration spies – reminiscent of the block gauleiters during the Nazi times.  Miliband responded by re-iterating his mantra that Labour had got it wrong about immigration – yes, but not in the way he mean which was about being too soft.

So a big lesson here.  Defeating the fascist organisations is necessary but it is not sufficient.  We have to defeat the ideas and prejudice.  We have to champion the migrants. Challenge immigration controls  We have to destroy the myths about immigration.  We have to ensure that people know who their real enemies are.  We have build bridges between communities.  We have to build class solidarity as opposed to nationalist silos.

So there is common ground amongst the mainstream parties, including Labour, that it has been a mistake not to take the UKIP’s issues seriously, especially immigration.  The left should indeed to take this on board.  For too long socialists have either not had a policy on immigration controls or have decided not to talk about it.  But when the mainstream parties talk about not ignoring immigration they usually mean they intend to appease the anti-migrant lobby, going along or being taken over by the politics of fear rather than challenging it.

Yes, it is time for there to be a debate on immigration.  But we need to be bold.  We need to debunk the myths.  We must challenge the prevailing view that migrants are a ‘problem’ and that there is a need to strengthen immigration controls.  The left needs to put forward the arguments against immigration controls.  We must sharpen our arguments using the kind of material published over the last decade by No One is Illegal and similar campaigns.

I said that the BNP have lost their ability to mobilise a presence on the streets.  But this vacuum was filled by the EDL who mobilised by focusing on Islam.  The EDL has a fascist core and a very violent band of foot soldiers.  Yet despite this they attempt to present themselves as liberals – championing the rights of women and gays. UKIP do this also. EDL even have a Jewish contingent having taken a very strong pro-Israel stance, saying Israel is the main bulwark against Islam.

After initial frightening success they have been pushed back by successful anti-racist anti-fascist community organisation in their target areas such as Luton and Waltham Forest.  But in the wake of the murder of Lee Rigby they have made a come back and remain danger.

So who do we address the way in which they  present themselves as progressive by talking about the treatment of women, attitudes towards sexuality etc.  I think it is important not to get drawn into a defence of Islamic faith as such.  Anti-Semitism also made claims about what the Jewish religion says but anti-Semitism was never defeated through theological argument.  You can find dreadful quotes in the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Koran.  Our job is not to get drawn into that.  I am a (Jewish) secularist and I know that I can pick and choose quotations which show us in a good light and in a bad light.  Its not what this is really about.  Its about targetting the outsider.  So if a racist rips off a woman’s hijab and punches her in the face, something which has happened a lot since the Lee Rigby murder, the argument is not about what the Koran says about women.  But as feminists or as gay activists people have things to say about those things.  And people of faith will have something to say about the true or false interpretations of the Koran.

What is important is to make sure that women from all communities have a voice in the anti-fascist movement and gay activists and Jews as well as Muslims.  We should be seeking voices from women in the Muslim community not just the Imams.  And in some cases not the Imams themselves.  The same goes with the Jewish community.  It can be important to ask a rabbi to speak, but they don’t always speak for all of us.  Get the JSG to have a voice for example.

You can have a vicar on the platform but don’t expect us to pull our punches about UKIP’s line on Gay Marriage, in order to keep the vicars, imams and rabbis happy.

Another constant thread that runs through the history of fascism is that it is a physical threat.  Ultimately that can be expressed in terms of smashing the Trades Unions, smashing communities up to Genocide.  We see what has happened in Greece where the fascists of the Golden Dawn have are a powerful paralegal force entwined with the state, although that is beginning to untangle.

But when they are far from state power than a physical threat. We have seen what happens when fascist groups gain control of the streets in an area.  Racist murders, reign of terror.  So it is necessary to physically defend our communities.  We need to stop them marching, whether they are the BNP or the EDL.  More than that we need to organise defence in the communities in which the fascists are organising to stop them having that reign of terror.

These days there seems to be a split amongst anti-fascists about those who talk about mass mobilisation and those who talk about defence organisation.  The truth is that the two are essential and complimentary.  There was never an argument about this when people organised against Mosely in the 30s.

These are two attachments that people might find useful: Billeaflet 

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