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BNP accounts don’t add up

Ellie Keen — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:16:17 +0000

When the British National Party told its members in January that it had raised £70,000 as a result of its “Building to Grow” appeal, Searchlight was sceptical. After all, the appeal was launched just as the internal crisis erupted last December. Who in their right mind, we thought, would donate such sums to a party that seemed about to collapse.

We were wrong. A printout of transactions on the BNP’s main bank account, which fell into our hands recently, shows that between 14 and 31 December alone Ged Munns, the BNP’s chief fundraiser, paid in £41,605 described as “appeals”.

During January he paid in a further £30,011.50, making a total of over £70,000 though a long way short of the “well over £80,000” that a report on the BNP website on 14 February claimed the appeal had raised. Why tell the truth when it is so easy to lie to the party’s gullible members?

How strange then than the BNP’s audited accounts for the year to 31 December 2007, released by the Electoral Commission at the end of July, show the total raised from “fundraising activities” during the whole year was £23,433, less even than the £38,970 raised in 2006.

Why would the party not want to highlight the success of the “Building to Grow” appeal, run for Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, by the Belfast-based Midas Consultancy, to which the party paid £6,900 during March and April this year? Midas, owned by the hardline anti-abortion activist James Dowson, also produced the begging letters for the BNP’s recent “truth truck” appeal and arranged the party’s officer training sessions in Spain in spring.

It would be tempting to conclude that the appeal money swiftly found its way out of the BNP coffers and into Griffin’s back pocket, but that would be wrong. The bank account balance of £30,417.58 on the printout for 31 December matches the £30,418 shown on the balance sheet at that date, so all the income must appear in the accounts somewhere.

Has the “Building to Grow” income simply been hidden in donations, a figure that nevertheless fell from nearly £290,000 in 2006 to under £200,000 in 2007? Of this sum £36,000 came from four supporters whose donations were declared individually to the Electoral Commission. Including the “Building to Grow” income in “donations” would mask a huge drop in ordinary donations.

The BNP’s 2007 accounts revealed some other interesting features. Most notable is the opinion of Silver & Co, the party’s regular auditors, that the financial statements do not give a true and fair view of the state of the party’s affairs at 31 December 2007 and of the year’s results.

An adverse auditors’ report is normally devastating for a company, making it almost impossible to obtain credit. A normal political party would find that donors lose confidence that their money will be used properly and income dries up. The BNP no doubt hopes that its donors will not notice or be too stupid to understand.

Griffin tries to skate over the embarrassment by blaming Kenny Smith, who was one of the leaders of last winter’s BNP rebels. “Accurate accounting for this year is problematic owing to the point-blank refusal of the former head of Administration to account for large amounts of expenditure”, he writes in his introduction to the accounts. But mindful of the potential financial implications of a libel claim, he hastens to add that much of the money was undoubtedly properly spent.

Smith was also blamed in the 2006 accounts, both for their lateness and for a qualification to the auditors’ report on the grounds that no vouchers had been produced to show how £14,000 transferred during the year to Smith’s “B N Publications” account had been spent. In fact B N Publications was a separate business run by Smith outside the party so arguably did not need to explain how it spent the fees it received for its services.

The reason why the 2007 accounts were “not a true and fair view” may be the size of the amount involved, especially compared to the party’s gross income, which was considerably lower in 2007 than the previous year.

But there nay be another explanation, contained in a further attempt to cast aspersions on Smith as well as explain the party’s reduced income despite a claimed 56% growth in membership. Griffin writes: “Income was down on the previous year, but given that we never received crucial accounting records from British National Lottery or Excalibur [both then run by Smith], we have estimated that we could have lost nearly £70,000 in unaccounted income”.

Is Griffin saying that Smith extracted £70,000 from the party in addition to failing to account for £32,271 of fees paid to him? How? Even the newly revamped and expanded Excalibur is not expected to make more than £20,000 a year profit from a £40,000 turnover.

The accounts certainly do show a large reduction in income. Alongside the drop in donations, income from commercial activities fell by over £70,000 to £175,000. And nearly half of this income consists of sales of the BNP’s monthly publications Voice of Freedom and Identity to the party’s own local units.

The regional accounts, which bring together the income and expenditure of all the party units, suggest they only recoup a fraction of this from sales to the public. However the truth is unclear.

While some of the local units’ income is properly categorised as “donations”, “commercial activities” etc, more than half – over £147,000 – was not, and appears in the regional accounts as a “petty cash difference”. This failure fully to record income sources suggests that the BNP rebels had a point when they accused Dave Hannam, the regional treasurer, of incompetence. Stating where income comes from is one of the most basic of bookkeeping tasks, though the accounts blame the “volunteers” who keep the local groups’ petty cash books.

Returning to the main accounts, membership income is up, though not by the same proportion as the growth in membership numbers. Presumably some people are joining on the cheap. But the increase is not enough to set off the fall in donations and commercial income. Total income in 2007 was £611,000 compared to £726,000 the previous year.

Although the BNP managed to save on some costs, it ended 2007 with a deficit of over £50,000 compared to a £19,000 surplus in 2006, increasing its insolvency.

No wonder the party needed Dowson to extricate it from bankruptcy. The “Building to Grow” appeal was supposedly intended to expand the party’s capabilities. For example the BNP claimed the new funds enabled it to open its new premises in Deeside with “a vast array of new equipment with a value of well in excess of £35,000”.

In fact it seems that only about £18,000 was spent on buying new equipment, from a company called Twofold Ltd. The rest seems to be leased. Leasing is often commercially sensible but not when you give your members the impression that their donations have been invested in acquiring the equipment the party needs to progress.

The rest of the “Building to Grow” money is being spent on paying the salaries of the party’s officers and meeting its debts, such as the more than £20,000 it still owed to HM Revenue and Customs for value added tax and income tax and national insurance deducted from employees’ salaries.

As well as not paying over the PAYE deductions, the BNP continued to get away with paying half of its staffing bill in the form of “professional fees” to avoid national insurance and income tax. Staff paid gross included Simon Darby the party’s deputy leader, Munns, Hannam, Arthur Kemp who runs the party’s educational and training department, and a number of the BNP rebels who complained about the policy.

The BNP ended 2007 insolvent to the tune of £86,000. It survived because the party was able to borrow nearly £42,000 from its local units. In 2006 it ran up a debt of nearly £22,000 to the local units, but the full amount was repaid in January 2007 as the party was keen to announce.

Such prompt repayment was not repeated after 31 December 2007. The auditors’ report on the regional accounts highlighted the debt, pointing out that the party had “insufficient funds, which places doubt on the ability of the Party to repay this money”. Hannam’s treasurer’s report states: “It is the aim of central office to repay this internal loan with monthly standing orders”, but the party seems in no hurry to get on with it.

One person who is doing well out of the BNP is Mark Collett, the BNP’s former director of publicity who is still responsible for its graphic design. One of the main targets of the BNP rebels, he remains widely unpopular in the party. Between May 2007 and April 2008 his Vanguard Promotions business received nearly £50,000 from the party, most of it after “Building to Grow” started bearing fruit.

If the success of “Building to Grow” was repeated in the Truth Truck appeal, the BNP may now have reversed its financial woes. The election of Richard Barnbrook to the London Assembly in May will also have helped. His £50,000 salary is far higher than any BNP officer receives so he has generously agreed to donate £5,000 a year to party funds. In addition he has been able to employ three assistants at London taxpayers’ expense, one of whom is Darby, saving the BNP the expense of paying him. It is such financial gains multiplied several fold that await the BNP if it succeeds in getting candidates elected to the European Parliament next year.

1978: Fighting Fascism on Brick Lane

tim — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 15:03:31 +0000

The mid-to-late 1970s were something of a high point for organised fascists. The National Front could mobilise thousands of members for confrontational demonstrations. Their street stalls and paper sales littered the pavement, Their outspoken racism attracted sympathy, if not outright support. Violence, provocation and intimidation were the order of the day.

It was a time when the fascists must have entertained the notion that they were going places. Maybe soon a desperate and ramshackle ruling class would employ them to throw the final blows against a militant labour movement. It would give them free reign to “sort out” minority communities — to drive Asian, Afro-Caribbean and Jewish people out of Britain. It would rely on them to shore up — or perhaps replace — a rickety, failing government. These delusions ultimately came to nothing.

In some ways, the situation today for the BNP looks better than that for the NF thirty years ago.

In the 1970s the NF failed over and over again to get their members elected to local councils — let alone Parliament. The BNP today has something over fifty borough, district, town and city councillors. It has a member elected to the Greater London Assembly and an electoral base that puts them in a position to win seats in the European Parliament.

For their own reasons, the BNP have moved away from confrontational street politics. But this move does not negate, does not wipe from the record of history the actual aims and intentions of the violent, fascistic core of the BNP. For now, their methods appear distinct and far-removed from the tactics of the 1970s but they remain a real, political and physical threat.

A survey of the anti-fascist movement of the 1970s and that of today tells a similar — dispiriting but not totally disheartening — story. Take the Socialist Workers Party for example. For the SWP, their involvement in anti-fascism is a major point of honour. From the “Battle of Lewisham” to the current organising efforts against the BNP, the SWP has been “at the centre of struggle”. This is only part of the truth. The SWP’s record on anti-fascism is not as “honourable” as they would paint it.

The story of how UAF’s predecessor organisation, the Anti Nazi League, betrayed the local community of Brick Lane in East London is a warning from the past of the consequences of splitting anti-fascist activity:

Two large mobilisations were planned for Saturday 24 September 1978. One an enormous carnival in south London, called by the Anti Nazi League (ANL) — and the other a march through the East End of London by the National Front.

To be sure, both events took a long time to plan, coordinate and organise. Anti-fascists had been busily booking and trying to fill coaches from every part of the country for months. The fascists had been organising themselves for a massive show of force. Stuck between these two groups were the residents of Brick Lane and a small band of supporters from the local labour movement.

A few weeks before the planned fascist demonstration, the ‘Hackney and Tower Hamlets Defence Committee’ and a number of socialist and other campaign groups received definitive evidence that the NF planned to march through Brick Lane. The fascist march was almost certainly planned to clash with the “Carnival”.

Upon receipt of this information, the Defence Committee issued a wide appeal for a demonstration in opposition. This part of East London was — and remains so today — a predominantly Asian community, with a high concentration of Bengalis. The NF’s march was planned to do two things: to “celebrate” the opening of a new NF headquarters close by; and to physically intimidate the local community, to crush their confidence and to claim political territory. The tactic of opening fascist headquarters in or near minority-community areas was not a new phenomena. Before and after World War 2, the British Union of Fascists and its successor organisations opened offices in predominantly Jewish areas.

When the leadership of the ANL were warned of the NF march they responded: “No, there’s not much we can do, we’ve got a concert organised which mustn’t be spoiled”. This, just a year after the great battle of Lewisham in August 1977.

As Workers’ Action [foreunner of Solidarity] reported: “the National Front celebrated its greatest triumph in years. Unchallenged and unmolested, they marched 1,500 strong through the City of London to Great Eastern Street in Shoreditch, ‘within spitting distance of Brick Lane’, as the NF leader Richard Verrall gloatingly put it.”

Activists from Workers’ Action (forerunner of the AWL), the Socialist Campaign for Labour Victory, and the Black Socialist Alliance joined the resistance, but, with the big-name anti-fascist organisation off at its carnival, mostly the community was left to organise its own defence.

Mobilised by the Defence Committee, up to 1,000 anti-fascists occupied Redchurch Street making it impossible for the NF to march into the heart of the community. Augmented by a small number of people persuaded to come over from the ANL carnival, the anti-fascists held their ground, but the counter-demonstration was nowhere big or organised enough to take the initiative, to widen protection or to halt the fascist march altogether.

Had the ANL called off their carnival, had even a fraction of the 100,000 concert goers in Brockwell Park, south London, made their way to the East End, the National Front would have faced a humiliating defeat. It was not to be so.

The results, as we reported them at the time, were as follows: “Already, the Bengali community in Spitafields is paying the price for this defeat. After the Nazi rally dispersed, groups of fascists began prowling the area. One gang of 50-60 thugs got through to Brick Lane and smashed up an Asian shop before being driven off. In several underground trains and stations, black people and anti-fascists were attacked by cock-a-hoop National Front bullies. The hugely boosted morale of the Front will mean an escalation of racist assaults in the area and a renewed push to control the Sunday market in Brick Lane. That is the price of the fun and games in Brockwell Park…”

What the leaders of the ANL did on that day — the leadership of the SWP in particular — must go down in history as a shameful display of sectarianism.

Too often, the SWP Central Committee put the narrow interests of developing prestige and advantage for their own organisation before the tasks of building, educating and mobilising the labour movement on the basis of working class politics. We should remind the SWP of their real history in the anti-fascist movement and win as many of their members as possible to a militant, working class anti-fascist politics.

Truth truck or lie lorry?

JamieSW — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:21:00 +0000

“After months of research, we have come up with a better way of spreading the ‘Nationalist Message’ right across this country,” says the message that the British National Party has been sending out to its supporters for several weeks.

“Our very own personal advertising lorry, a ‘Truth Truck’ – brand new and custom-built, complete with a high definition special lighting system for night-time use, and a massive audio system for addressing the public. Can you imagine it?” continues the appeal in terms designed to pull hard at the purse strings of “nationalists”.

There have been personalised letters from Nick Griffin, the party chairman, headed and “last chance to help ‘Operation Truth Truck’”, imploring in underlined type: “Just imagine how you will feel, being part owner of our very own British National Party advertising lorry …”. The party website has carried a picture and online donation form for several weeks.

But behind all the excitement lurks yet another dodgy deal by the BNP to hoodwink its own members.

One appeal letter puts a figure on the cost of buying and equipping the “truth truck” of £39,550, arrived at after Griffin personally “worked very hard researching this project”. It then suggests that “we can knock £13,000 off the amount needed” by opting for a “used lorry in first class condition”. Yet there is no indication on the website appeal that the lorry will be anything other than “brand new and custom built”.

Such a compromise could be explained away as a better use of members’ hard-earned and generously given donations, though that is no excuse for pulling the wool over potential donors’ eyes long after the decision to go for a second-hand vehicle has already been taken. But the lies go further than this.

At first the excitement rubbed off onto BNP members. Posting on the members’ internet forum, one person, who claimed to have “surprised myself by not even hesitating to donate £100 towards the campaign”, said the truck would also “counter commie smear leaflets”.

One discerning poster was more cautious. “Just one thing What happened to Bodicea [sic]?” asked “the benwell hopper”. “Boudica”, as “Captain Black” was quick to correct, was a second-hand “battle bus” and the target of an appeal in 2006 for money to put it on the road. Agreeing that “a few people will be very miffed that it has never been seen by the rank and file”, Captain Black could only plead that “the failings of the Boudica hobby horse should not detract from the ambitions of this new venture”.

Others smelt a rat. Despite Griffin’s claims to have carried out “months of research” before coming up with this “new, innovative” idea, if it comes to fruition the BNP will not be the first organisation in the UK to pin its hopes on a “truth truck”.

Two years ago the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague boldly announced the “Launch of Britain’s first ever ‘Truth Truck’”. A press release on 21 April 2006 thanked supporters who “donated generously to make this project possible” and claimed this would be: “the most innovative and what will possibly be the most effective campaign in UK Pro-life history”. “Operation Truth Truck” would: “enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain. These vehicles are wholly owned and operated by LifeLeague activists,” it continued.

There was a picture. And it was no coincidence that the only difference between the LifeLeague’s “truth truck” and the BNP’s one was the particular lie on the billboard, because it was the same vehicle.

The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same truck.

This is not the first time the BNP has had dealings with the UK LifeLeague, and more particularly its founder and national coordinator, James Dowson. Earlier this year many BNP members were angry when they found out that the party was sending key BNP officers on management training courses in Spain. Why could the training not be held in the UK, asked irate, xenophobic party members on a popular nazi internet forum until the site administrators pulled the discussion thread.

The courses were organised by Dowson’s Belfast-based fundraising and management training business, the Midas Consultancy, which has signed a three-year consultancy contract with the BNP. Whether it was because of the BNP’s growing financial difficulties or because Griffin was reacting to criticism of his poor administrative skills, the party has handed over key organisational functions to the self-styled vicar and militant anti-abortion campaigner.

It was Dowson who wrote the “truth truck” appeal letters in professional fundraising style. The Building to Grow appeal at the end of last year was also his work. The BNP claimed that appeal had raised £70,000, which paid for the party to move into the new Excalibur warehouse and buy “a vast array of new equipment” including “an envelope stuffing machine”, which by June had mysteriously disappeared when Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, appealed for volunteers to stuff election leaflets into envelopes by hand.

The involvement of Dowson has already upset some BNP members who do not share his extreme anti-abortion views and think he is a Catholic, which is anathema to many in the nationalist party who view the Battle of the Boyne as one of England’s greatest historical triumphs. In fact Dowson is a Protestant but has been linked to far-right Catholics in Ireland, including Justin Barrett, an anti-EU campaigner and vocal opponent of immigration, which he describes as a “genetic” problem. Back in 2001, when Searchlight first exposed Dowson, Barrett had donated £50,000 so that Dowson’s outfit could produce anti-abortion hate CDs and videos to distribute in schools and churches in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Dowson is a former member of the Orange Lodge in Northern Ireland and has admitted involvement with hardline loyalist groups in the West of Scotland. His tattooed arms are evidence of his extremist hate connections.

The LifeLeague, which is secretive about its finances, uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.

Dowson’s professional “begging letters”, as one disillusioned party member described them, have not been universally welcomed in the BNP. Some see their “tone of desperation” as indicative of the BNP’s “very serious financial trouble”, according to the blogsite set up in support of Colin Auty’s failed attempt to challenge Griffin for the party leadership.

One member is quoted saying: “These bloody letters are an embarrassment, I’ll not pay another penny so he can go and waste it or lose another blimp”, in a reference to the BNP’s helium balloon that slipped its moorings in June because, Darby suggested, David Shapcote failed to secure it properly. The BNP later blamed the loss on a faulty rope.

The letters themselves may have been professional, but Dowson fell down in compiling the mailing lists. Naturally he needed to dispatch the letters to a much wider audience than the BNP’s members, who have little left to give after constant appeals at branch meetings and to support election campaigns. However Searchlight has received a stream of complaints from anti-fascist trade unionists and members of the Jewish community who have received them.

The website appeal for the “truth truck” shows it adorned with the BNP’s ubiquitous election picture of Nick Cass and his family alongside the slogan “Decent people vote British National Party”. The picture, which adorned election leaflets and newspaper advertisements all over the country in this year’s May elections and several by-elections, concealed Cass’s less than decent “tree of life” tattoo.

The symbol, also known as the life rune, is a favourite among nazi groups worldwide and, under Hitler, was used to represent a project that encouraged SS troopers to have children out of wedlock with “Aryan” mothers and kidnapped children of Aryan appearance from the countries of occupied Europe to raise as Germans.

A lying picture for a lying appeal. How appropriate.

Nothing is more important

JamieSW — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:03:38 +0000

There is a tangible shift occurring in British politics. Gone are the days of traditional class politics, when the working class voted en masse for Labour and the more privileged for the Conservatives. A new force is emerging, which will, if left unchecked, prove disastrous for both Labour and the left in general.

Magnus Marsdal’s article talks about the changing politics of Norway and finds comparisons with the rest of western Europe. It is a phenomenon that is also taking place in Britain, albeit a few years later than in some other countries.

The British National Party (BNP) was formed in 1982 out of an earlier split within the National Front and for many years it languished on the fringes of politics. In 1999 Nick Griffin became its leader and his more political and media savvy approach enabled the party to exploit rising racial tensions in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford in the summer of 2001. Since then, against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, a growing eastern-European migrant workforce and New Labour’s fixation with Middle England, the party has risen steadily. It now has 55 councillors and last month secured a seat on the London Assembly.

And all this in a period of supposed economic success.

The BNP has long been dismissed as a cranky fascist party, made up of thugs, criminals and Nazis. While it is true that the leadership has its ideological roots in fascism, it is time we had a better explanation for the party’s rise and appeal.

Society in Britain, like much of the industrialised world, has become dislocated over the past few decades. Globalisation and the increasing dominance of international finance and corporations have shifted power far away from local communities. This, coupled with the loss of empire, Britain’s changing place in the world and even the possible break-up of the United Kingdom have all challenged the identity of many, particularly those towards the bottom of the economic ladder, who naturally are more concerned about change.

Politically, there has also been the growing divorce between the political parties and their electorates. The preoccupation with a small number of voters in a few key marginals has resulted in New Labour echoing the whims and prejudices of a mythical Middle England. Class has been removed as an economic and political category in Westminster discourse. Labour’s traditional voters feel ignored, taken for granted and even abandoned. At the same time, the Tories have for decades ceased to offer a real opposition in many traditional Labour areas, leaving a dangerous vacuum.

In 1968 US sociologist Don Warren described the emergence of the ‘middle American radical’ to explain the rise of right-wing presidential candidate George Wallace. He saw a radicalised group of voters, drawn largely from the skilled working class, who opposed the political and economic elites while simultaneously despising those who they regarded as undeserving poor. A white identity emerged that had no political articulation.

A similar phenomenon is occurring in today’s Britain. The Labour Party too often fails to articulate the concerns of large swathes of its traditional working class supporters. Over the past 20 years turnout has slumped in Labour heartlands. Suddenly, as the BNP has emerged as a political force, many are now turning out to vote for them. Towns like Stoke-on-Trent reflect this change. Only a few years ago Labour held every seat on the council. Today, it holds just 16 out of 60, with the BNP close behind with nine. The local ethnic minority population is comparatively small, suggesting that voters are flocking to the BNP for some far more fundamental reasons.

Nor is there much comfort for parties to the left of Labour. It is easy to blame New Labour for the rise of the BNP but few have questioned why the far-left parties fail to attract significant support from white working-class voters. If anything, the far-left vote has actually shrunk since 1997 and the occasional successes of Respect or the Greens have been based on specific ethnic minority communities or middle-class liberals.

Race is a prism through which many voters view their world but it is not the underlying issue. That is why immigration minister Liam Byrne’s attempts to quicken the introduction of the Australian points system will ultimately fail to deal with the political problem. He might hope to appease voters’ concerns over immigration but unfortunately he, like many others, is misunderstanding the rise of the BNP.

Britain might have been slower to see the emergence of a major far-right party than elsewhere but this could change very quickly. Next year’s European elections, contested under proportional representation, will give the BNP its greatest chance to break into the mainstream.

The rise of the BNP is not a passing phenomena. We must now debate new strategies for organisation and policy, counter- organise on the ground and deal with the material issues that lie behind its popular support. Nothing is more important for this movement.

Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham. Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine

It's no surprise that the BNP's rise and New Labour's demise are linked

JamieSW — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:19:57 +0000

On Wednesday evening around 7pm, the Reverend Roger Gayler, vicar of St Marks parish, went to answer a knock on the door. It was the night before the Chadwell Heath byelection for Barking and Dagenham council in Greater London, and Gayler had recently written an open letter to his flock.

“I rarely enter the party political arena and do so very reluctantly, but as a matter of Christian principle I feel this time I must,” he wrote. “The [British National party] would divide our community, spread fear through lies, and reduce services to those in our community who most need them (they proposed huge cuts in services for the elderly and young people in their budget). They preach the politics of hate.”

The man at the door was Robert Bailey, BNP leader on the council. He was clearly agitated. “He asked me whether I’d written it,” recalls Gayler. “I said ‘yes’.”

“This goes against the democratic process,” said Bailey.

“It’s all part of the democratic process,” replied Gayler.

“You’re just a fascist,” said Bailey, and then scrumpled the letter and threw it at the vicar.

“There was no shouting or screaming but it was obviously a visit from a very rattled person,” says Gayler.

The next evening, in Dagenham’s council chamber, a multiracial team of council workers tallied the votes. The BNP had 12 seats on the council and was hoping this would be their 13th. In the end, a seat vacated by Labour was won by the Tories by a comfortable margin. Nothing strange there. The BNP candidate came third with 25% of the vote in a ward the party had never contested before. Sadly, there seemed to be nothing strange there either.

Terry Justice, the Tory victor, said he looked forward to working with all his fellow councillors. When I asked Margaret Mullane, the Labour candidate, what she made of the size of the BNP vote, she said: “You’ll have to ask the BNP about that really.” Leaving Dagenham civic centre, with the clock nudging closer to midnight, I felt I was heading back to the 30s.

Bailey is not the only one who should be feeling rattled. True, under the circumstances, the fact that they didn’t win could be regarded as a victory. But those circumstances are dire.

The BNP’s advances have been spotty – still limited to particular towns and regions. But over the last decade those spots have become larger and more widespread. Back in 1993, its gain of a single council seat in London’s Tower Hamlets produced a brief, but intense, moment of national introspection. Today it has more than 50 councillors in around 20 councils plus a member of the London assembly. By increments it has become an accepted, if contested, fact of British municipal life.

For all the talk of Islamo-fascism – that desperately belligerent phrase that some hurl about in the hope that it may one day land on a coherent meaning – plain old-fashioned fascism is the force truly making gains. Elsewhere in Europe, where the far right runs councils and holds cabinet seats, things are far worse. In Italy, the state recently started fingerprinting Gypsies, along with a promise to take Gypsy children not attending school into custody. In Switzerland, the far right is in government. In Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France and Italy, hard-right, nationalist and anti-immigrant parties regularly receive more than 10% of the vote. In Norway, it is more than twice that; in Switzerland, the figure it is almost three times as much.

If our Enlightenment values really are under threat, then the primary challenge seems to be domestic – and far more familiar and entrenched than some would have us believe. This is not a handful of young, nihilist men with backpacks – it is marginalised communities with ballot papers.

None of this denies or excuses the rise in jihadism. Indeed, it is only possible to make an effective stand against either by recognising the potency of both. The “tolerant, liberal” society that immigrants – particularly Muslims – are being told to join has long been eroding. While multiculturalism has been under assault, nostalgic visions of a mythological monoculture have been given a new lease of life.

Just as there is more to racism in Britain than the BNP, the BNP’s rise tells us more about Britain than just racism. It is a canary in the mine – an early warning system signalling the complacency of our political culture in which our political class has been complicit. Trapped in a hopeless spiral of negativity, people will vote against anything – immigration, the Tories, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson, Scottish nationalism, Gordon Brown or Europe, to name a few. But it seems a long time since large numbers of people voted for anything.

So the fact that the BNP has performed best in Labour strongholds should come as no surprise. Its rise and New Labour’s demise are linked. The government is failing even on its own modest terms. Child poverty and pensioner poverty are up. Economic inequality is now greater than under the Tories. Inflation is rising, house prices falling, and last week workers were again asked to tighten their belts. Never mind no return to boom and bust – many feel like they are about to crash and burn. People are desperate.

There is nothing inevitable about this shift from despondency to demagoguery. Black and Asian people are overrepresented among the poor and vulnerable, and they aren’t voting for the BNP. Nor are the overwhelming majority of white working-class people. Nonetheless, the trend has always been likely and logical. A party that has its historical roots and electoral base in the working class and then fails to advance the interests of that class will engender cynicism. New Labour’s electoral project is based in no small measure on the calculation that the poor have nowhere else to go. A small but determined minority have retreated into their laagers in search of solutions and solace.

However, New Labour’s decision to follow them there made no sense, either morally or strategically. Following the strong showing of the BNP in Burnley, Anthony Giddens, the architect of the third way, spoke of being “tough on immigration and tough on the causes of hostility to immigrants”. Tony Blair prioritised “crime and social behaviour” and “immigration and asylum”.

But these populist responses hold no sustainable answers to the particular and urgent material needs of the white working class. Incarcerating asylum seekers or bashing the niqab built no houses, created no jobs and educated no children. That does not, in itself, necessarily make them wrong – but as a response to the concerns of Labour’s base they were worse than useless. New Labour’s legislative shortcomings made a BNP revival possible; the government’s rhetorical excesses made it electorally palatable.

Given its huge majority, Labour could have made the case against racism and xenophobia. But rather than stand on principle, it has preferred to pander. Having ducked the major challenges, it has left it to the likes of Rev Roger Gayler to literally face the consequences of the failure head on.

Is Britain moving to the right?

JamieSW — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:07:20 +0000

It’s hard to remember that only nine months ago 1 May was projected as a likely general election day. Then, the theory went, Gordon Brown would be able to take Labour to a fourth election victory, strengthen his position as elected prime minister and continue for another four or five years. Brown was at that time – again hard to remember – enjoying a honeymoon following the unlamented departure of Tony Blair.

Instead the local elections in parts of England, Wales and London on 1 May, alongside the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, were terrible defeats for Labour. On the basis of these results, the Tories would have a 116 majority in parliament if there were a general election now. We can therefore be pretty certain that there will be no election, if Labour has anything to do with it, until late in this parliament.

These elections mark a watershed in a number of ways. Most importantly, they presage the return of a Tory government for the first time in more than a decade. May also saw the election of a Tory mayor, after eight years in office for Ken Livingstone, who won first as an independent against Labour in 2000, and then as the Labour candidate four years later. Alongside the election of Boris Johnson, the fascist BNP won a seat on the London Assembly.

None of this is good news for the left. While some right wing candidates made advances in the London elections (the notable exceptions being UKIP and the English Democrats) candidates from the Lib Dems leftwards either lost votes or only just maintained their previous ground (as in the case of the Greens).

It would, however, be a mistake to see the result as simply a shift to the right. Much more it represented a collapse of support for Labour with the Tories being the main beneficiaries. Why did that happen? Firstly, the election as a whole was fought on the basis of right wing politics. Crime and immigration dominated the issues being discussed, and this was a deliberate decision on the part of the main parties. When that happens it is much harder for a space to the left to open up, especially when Labour goes along with the consensus of more police on the streets and being tougher on crime.

More fundamentally, traditional Labour voters were punishing Labour for the 10p tax, the rise of food and utility prices, the housing crisis and much more besides. In the circumstances of a right wing and unpopular Labour government, staggering on after 11 wasted years, it is unsurprising that some voters saw little difference between Labour and the Tories.

It is instructive to consider two feature articles which both appeared on the same day a week after the election results. One, by Ken Livingstone in the Guardian, heralded his support for and in the City of London. The second, by David Cameron in the Independent, appealed to all those who were progressive on green or equality issues to join the Tories. No wonder voters were confused.

At the same time as these electoral gains for the right, there was another story during the election period. Teachers, lecturers and civil servants struck and demonstrated on 24 April. The demonstrations on that day were some of the youngest and most militant workers’ demonstrations for at least a generation.

The carnival held in London’s Victoria Park the weekend before the elections attracted 100,000 in opposition to the BNP.

Immigration

In addition, there is no evidence that attitudes on a range of issues – from privatisation to war – have changed in the course of the election or that the results are likely to lead to such a change of views. In many instances the general public remains to the left of politicians on these questions and on many more. There is one major exception to this – immigration.

The consensus here is much more right wing, with even those who claim to be anti-racist and pro-diversity (which even Tories like Johnson now boast) saying that there have to be limits on immigration. Or, as it’s sometimes put, “the country’s full up”. This, plus the growing wave of Islamophobia, has given a base for the BNP to grow. Even liberal opinion has played its part in this. The BBC’s White Season showed a concern for the “white working class” not evident when reporting strikes, or the class bias in education, or the housing crisis.

Even in the case of the BNP vote, however, it is clear that for many it represented a protest against the Labour government by people who felt they had been ignored or left behind by Labour. That does not mean we should dismiss the vote. While the proportion of the vote was not much higher than four years ago, the absolute number of votes was higher, and the election of an assembly member for the BNP gives them a profile and a level of confidence which they have not had in London for many years.

The BNP vote also highlights the contradictory nature of the politics in the recent elections. There is a sense of frustration and disgust with the policies of the mainstream parties and politicians, who are widely seen as corrupt and only in it for themselves, and this sentiment can be channelled in different directions. In these last elections the main beneficiaries were right wing parties, particularly over the question of immigration. But this was at least partly because the main parties have taken up and promoted anti-immigrant policies.

Most shamefully, New Labour continued to do so in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, held just weeks after the local elections. Literature for the Labour candidate highlighted “concerns” over immigration and invited voters to consider, “What do you think is the biggest problem facing the area?” offering “immigration” as a tick box reply.

The left failed to meet the challenge presented by this election. In London it became a Boris and Ken show, with little substantive differences on most policies, and some of those not to Labour’s advantage (for example on ID cards or conductors on buses). The other parties were squeezed, especially UKIP whose vote fell most dramatically from over 100,000 to just over 20,000 and who lost two seats previously held on the assembly; and the vote I received in 2004 for Respect at around 61,000 first preferences fell to under 17,000 this time. It’s clear that many voters did not want to risk voting for a smaller party for mayor in case it led to the defeat of their favoured candidate.

While this squeeze affected the votes for mayor, the split in Respect and the divisions on the left did no one any favours in the list elections when they were in direct competition. The left vote was therefore split in London, with neither the Left List nor George Galloway’s Respect getting close to winning. There was clearly great confusion over the name. In addition, any division leads to political confusion with some people taking the view that they will vote for neither. The Left List vote was disappointing. It is clear that the weeks which we had to publicise a new name were not sufficient and that some people voted for Respect thinking they were voting for us.

It was, however, right to stand in the elections. When we took part in hustings we made a real impact, helped to pull the campaign to the left and put distinctive policies on housing, crime and immigration onto the agenda. We were also able to intervene around the teachers’ strikes and against the BNP putting a political alternative. It would have been wrong to take part in an election campaign where no one challenged the dominant consensus.

At the same time, it was also right not to put all our emphasis on elections. Elections are a very useful snapshot of consciousness among working class people at any one time, but they don’t tell the whole story. Of necessity, they reflect the past more than the present in the sense that people still vote mostly on past loyalties or on issues which particular parties have or have not taken up in the past. The different groups of workers going on strike over pay, or the 100,000 who attended the carnival, or those becoming radicalised over the banking and economic crisis and the high cost of food and commodities, or the students who have campaigned for fighting unions, have a specific weight regardless of if or how they vote.

Any socialist or left organisation has to relate to them, as well as to ethnic minorities suffering immigration raids, or the Muslim community suffering racism and attacks on civil liberties. Opposition to the war continues, as does defence of women’s rights, especially over abortion and the reactionary attempt to reduce the time limit. The outcome of the various struggles that take place in the coming months can have a greater impact on the balance of class forces, on people’s lives and their willingness to engage in further struggle than where they put their cross on a ballot paper.

Where does the left go from here? Firstly, this is a time when many on the left want to discuss why Livingstone lost, whether a Tory government is inevitable and how the left can organise to defend ourselves. We have had nearly a decade when the movement has seemed on the rise, since Seattle in 1999, and this is a reverse which requires explanation and serious analysis if it is not to lead some to despair.

Secondly, we have to engage in activity which can counter despair and point a way forward for the left: whether against fascism, for higher pay or over housing needs. But that activity on its own is not enough. We also need political solutions to the major ideological and political questions that face us. Socialists are well placed to do this: we have a set of ideas which attempt to understand the world in order to change it, also because we take a wider view of the working class movement.

The crucial questions facing the movement today are how do we develop successful struggles and how do we build an alternative to Labour which has so badly failed generations of working people? The election results were bad for the left overall in London – although even here there were some very good votes in north and east London which show the left can present an alternative – but in parts of the country the results were extremely good, for example in Sheffield and Preston. Other results, for example the anti-academies councillors in Barrow, who won four seats, show there is space to the left of Labour that needs to be filled.

That is why it would be a mistake to abandon the electoral field, and why the Left List should continue to organise locally, through meetings, networks and activities which can allow us to build a base in the localities. In London we began to establish very good networks among different ethnic minorities and trade unionists, but in this election they did not translate into votes. We have to build on our areas of success to find a way of winning more votes in future.

The left also needs to build links and organisation on every issue which confronts us – war, fascism, a growing housing crisis, attacks on living standards – which at present will fall short of total electoral or programmatic unity, but which should aim to go beyond single-issue campaigns. Labour MP John McDonnell has put forward a list of demands that Labour should adopt to win the next election and these sorts of issues are ones which can unite the left.

Finally, socialists are too few in number to bring about the changes and policies we need. That has to change, both by winning more people directly to socialist ideas, and by deepening our influence where we can make a difference and where we have already shown the importance of socialist organisation. That also means spreading our influence geographically, especially to areas such as outer London where the fascists have gained support in recent years.

The world is changing very fast. We do not know the full extent of the economic crisis – only that it is already affecting jobs, wages and housing. We can see the terrible impact of neoliberal policies as people riot in different parts of the world to gain enough to eat. We know that there is great disillusion with existing politics and a sometimes inchoate desire for change. Socialists can give a lead and make a real difference by fighting on the economic, political and ideological fronts.

Labour Pains

Ellie Keen — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:05:41 +0000

Stoke-on-Trent is a Labour city or at least it should be. In the mid-1990s the Labour Party held all 60 seats on the council and the three local MPs had five-figure majorities.

Those days are long gone and today we face the appalling prospect of the British National Party seriously challenging for mayor in next year’s election.

In May’s local elections the Labour Party won just four of the 20 seats up for election, leaving it with only 16 city councillors plus the directly elected mayor. The City Independents have 15, the BNP and the Conservative and Independent Alliance have nine each, the Liberal Democrats five, the Potteries Alliance two and there are three non-aligned and one Libertarian.

The BNP beat Labour in eight of the ten seats they both contested. Labour averaged 25% across the city, while the BNP averaged 24% in the wards it fought.

There are now two wards where the BNP holds all three seats, though its performance overall was overshadowed by the strong vote for the City Independents, who gained six seats. However, in next year’s Mayoral contest there are likely to be several independent candidates, who will no doubt split the vote, leaving the BNP to battle it out with an increasingly unpopular Labour Party and the former independent mayor Mike Wolfe, who himself used to be in the Labour Party.

In the first mayoral election in 2002 the BNP took 18.7% of the vote, missing out on going through to the second round by only 1,500 votes [see table above]. In 2005 the BNP polled 19%, which was a remarkable achievement considering that the election was on the same day as the general election.

Since then support for the BNP has grown. Over the past three years it has averaged between 24% and 28% in the wards the party has contested and the BNP has now moved out of its previous Stoke-on-Trent South heartland into other parts of the city.

A vote in excess of 20% is likely to take the BNP into the second round in next year’s mayoral election, in which the second preferences of the defeated candidates are distributed. Given the strong anti-Labour feelings in the city a run-off between Labour and the BNP might well see the fascist party gain its most high-profile victory to date.

Economic decline

Labour’s fall from grace in Stoke-on Trent began at the beginning of this decade, was reversed a few years later, but has gathered pace in the past two years.

There is no single explanation for this but rather a multitude of inter-related issues that have discredited the party locally.

The city was once home to heavy industry, manufacturing and skilled work, but much of this has now gone. The coal mines and the steel works have disappeared and there is little left of the ceramics industry, which once employed tens of thousands of people.

New employment has come in but much of it is in the service sector and short-term. “Many of the old jobs were tough work but they were well paid, they were secure jobs and they were skilled jobs,” says Jane Heggie, who works for Stoke-on-Trent South MP Rob Flello.

“The new jobs that have come in are less skilled, temporary and are not as well paid.”

The change in employment has led to the city becoming poorer over the past ten years. According to government statistics the city has slipped from 34th most deprived borough in 2000 to 18th in 2004 and now to 16th in 2007.

Movement out of the city reflects this declining economic situation. In 1981 252,509 people lived in Stoke-on-Trent. By 2001 the population had fallen to 240,636, with most of the decline in the latter part of this period.

Between 1991 and 2001 the population of Stoke-on-Trent fell by 9,000. By comparison the population of England and Wales grew by 2.6% over the same period, while the West Midlands experienced a 0.7% increase. Most of those leaving appear to be the more educated and qualified who have been able to move on to better jobs.

But there are also more local factors that have contributed to the collapse of Labour and the rise of the BNP. The mayoral system, which has handed almost total power to the elected mayor and the council’s chief executive, has been a disaster for the Labour Party and increasingly unpopular with the electorate. Many local councillors resent their weakened role and some Labour councillors have openly campaigned for the mayor’s abolition. Others have left the party.

In an effort to widen the decision-making process the current Labour mayor introduced a Cabinet to involve local councillors and, given Labour’s weak position, has formed a coalition of the three main political parties.

While this might have helped break down some of the factional infighting it has enabled the BNP to contrast itself with the old political establishment. An example of this emerged over the contentious changes to secondary schooling in the city, in which several schools will be replaced by fewer new schools. This has proved deeply unpopular and while many people in the Labour Party are opposed to the plan, including all three local MPs, the BNP has grabbed some local media headlines through its opposition.

“The BNP can present themselves as the only alternative,” says Jason Hill, of the local anti-BNP group NorSCARF.

Other commentators list a raft of unpopular council decisions which the BNP has exploited. Last year the council announced the closure of several care homes for the elderly and more recently the axing of the splash pool leisure facility at Dimensions in Burslem.

Jane Heggie points to a simple explanation for Labour’s decline and the BNP’s rise. “We are not addressing the concerns of voters and we have not been active enough.

“Of course the removal of the 10p tax rate had an impact, especially here where many people were affected, but there is a danger that we use the Government as an excuse. We really have to ask ourselves why is Labour collapsing here and not to the same extent in other areas which are doing even worse economically such as Sandwell or Manchester?”

Heggie cites recent results in Stoke-on-Trent South to support her case. Last year Labour won Fenton with a 400 majority over the BNP; this year Labour finished a poor third. “We had a candidate in his eighties who wasn’t able to campaign and simply had not done enough as a councillor,” she asserts.

In Longton North, by contrast, Labour has bucked the trend. It was once the city’s main BNP heartland, a ward the BNP had won three times in a row. Now it has three Labour councillors. “We have worked hard in the ward and people have responded positively.”

Certainly organisational factors and choice of candidates dramatically hampered the Labour Party’s chances in Mark Fisher’s Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. Last year the BNP walked into a second seat in Bentilee and Townsend ward after Labour reselected a councillor who was in his late eighties, housebound and had just lost his wife. It was hardly surprising that the BNP won the election with very little campaigning.

The Labour Party in the constituency does not have any modern voter software, such as the new Contact Creator, and carries out little canvassing or Voter ID work. Not only is Labour unable to identify and so turn out voters in an election, but the lack of face-to-face contact with voters reinforces the impression that the party does not care.

The BNP alternative

Of course it would be wrong to place the entire blame for the BNP’s rise on Labour. The absence of other mainstream political alternatives, a common theme in areas where the BNP has emerged as a force, has resulted in the BNP appearing as the only alternative. However, given the economic and social make-up of the city it should be a Labour stronghold and much of the reason why it is not must lie in Labour’s own decline.

The BNP meanwhile has grown steadily over the past few years and has earned itself a reputation as a normal political party. Its councillors sit on committees, it is regularly quoted in the local media in the same manner as any other party and a growing number of people, from the editor of the local newspaper to the former mayor, believe it should be involved in decision making.

The BNP acts as though it is just another political party. Its recent election leaflets hardly touched on race, preferring to focus on local issues around schools, the closure of care homes for the elderly and jobs. However, it is quick to whip up racism and racial lies when it suits the party.

Over the past three years the BNP has repeatedly stoked up racism by means of a leaflet targeting plans for a mosque in the city. Full of lies, exaggeration and racial and religious stereotypes, it was designed solely to inflame the issue and whip up racial tensions.

A national priority

The growing respectability of the BNP puts it within reach of winning the mayoral election next year. Let us not be under any illusion about the severity of the situation as any success here would have national repercussions.

The job of anti-fascists must be to challenge the culture on the ground, not an easy job when the BNP is so entrenched in local communities and is viewed as a normal political party by so many people.

The mainstream political parties must finally get their act together. The Labour Party, regionally or nationally, must take control of the party campaign locally. Some will oppose this but unfortunately many of these same people have shown an inability to lead themselves. Locally, Labour needs to find a way to unite the party before next summer, address some of the more contentious issues and develop a clear understanding of the role of the mayor and its relationship with other elected officials and the voters at large. The stakes are too high.

The unions must also devote attention and resources to Stoke-on-Trent. There are thousands of union members in the area and these must be the focus of proper work and education. Some of it might not be easy but we have to take on the BNP’s arguments and dispel its myths in the workplace and in the community. For too long the regional unions have largely ignored the city, favouring other parts of the West Midlands, but again the stakes are too high.

The usual sort of anti-fascist leaflets are not adequate for the task. Producing leaflets that say don’t vote BNP because they are racists and fascists will simply not work in the BNP’s strongholds. We must produce local material which at least tries to address some of the issues that are making people support the BNP. Anti-fascists are not necessarily party political but we must highlight the shortcomings of the BNP approach while obviously reminding voters of its true intentions.

More importantly, anti-fascists can help identify and turn out the anti-BNP vote. This will require a more sophisticated approach than we have adopted so far and to achieve success will need a national anti-fascist effort. With a low turnout expected in the mayoral election, we need to identify and build up a relationship with 30,000 people who will vote for a party other than the BNP. While we cannot tell people whom to support we must convince people to cast their second preference vote for a party that they think can beat the BNP.

Searchlight and NorSCARF is calling for support from anti-fascists across the country to make Stoke-on-Trent a national priority. In addition to national days of action we will ask people from specific regions to work the area throughout the year.

Not to do this work could hand the BNP its greatest political prize to date. The stakes are that high.

Stoke-on-Trent at a glance

Stoke-on-Trent is the second most deprived local authority in the West Midlands, and 16th nationally. 33% of its 160 Super Output Areas (SOAs) – the geographical areas used in the Indices of Deprivation 2004 – are in the 10% most deprived areas nationally. Over 60% live in the worst 25%.
36% of Stoke-on-Trent’s SOAs are in the 10% most deprived nationally in employment (which measures long-term unemployed, people on incapacity benefit and those on New Deal schemes), making it the worst local authority in the West Midlands. Over 65% of the local population live in the most deprived 25%.
Stoke-on-Trent experiences the worst health deprivation in the West Midlands and ranks 12th nationally. 42% of its people live in the most deprived 10% of SOAs, while over 80% live in the worst 25%.
The city ranks second in the West Midlands in educational deprivation and 7th nationally. 34% of local people live in the most deprived 10% and 66% live in the worst 25%.
Stoke-on-Trent is the least deprived borough in the West Midlands, and 12th least deprived nationally, in the “Barriers to Housing and Services” domain, which measures ability to get local housing and homelessness. However, this figure reflects the declining local population.
22% of adults of working age are claiming a key benefit, compared to a national average of 14%. 13% of adults, twice the national average, claim incapacity benefit.
At the last census 42.9% of adults in Stoke-on-Trent had no educational qualifications, compared to a national average of 28.8%.

Nothing is More Important

eddie — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 20:20:57 +0000

Jon Cruddas and Nick Lowles argue that the rise of the far right presents a challenge that the left has so far proved unable to meet

And all this in a period of supposed economic success.

Footnote

Jon Cruddas is the Labour MP for Dagenham. Nick Lowles is editor of Searchlight magazine

The Resistible Rise of the BNP

Ellie Keen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 00:00:00 +0000

One of the most shocking results last month was the election of Nazi British National Party (BNP) member Richard Barnbrook to London’s assembly. This was on top of 13 seats the fascist organisation won in councils in England. It also lost three seats, so its net gain was ten, bringing a total of 57 seats.

The BNP often quotes a figure of over 100 seats, but this includes parish councils where it often stands unopposed or without its candidates identifying themselves as BNP members. In ten of its 13 seats the BNP replaced a Labour councillor, showing it can capture seats outside the inner cities where Labour’s base has collapsed.

The BNP has also been given a massive boost with programmes like those featured in the BBC’s White Season and the endless flow of media attacks on immigrants. In many cases, far from challenging such ideas, Labour has been seen to go along with them, most recently in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election.

The BNP won its first seats in South Yorkshire – two in Rotherham; two in Amber Valley and two in Nuneaton and Bedworth, both in the East Midlands; and one in the Three Rivers borough in the Eastern Region. It also came very near to winning a number of seats, including Amber Valley where it lost winning a third seat by just one vote. Nine of the top 20 wards it just missed were in South Yorkshire. The North East also saw some worrying results, when the BNP came within 60 votes of winning in Hartlepool, and polled over 25 percent in Newcastle.

In the 2004 European elections the BNP won 4.91 percent of the vote with 808,200 votes. On the basis of the votes gained this May, it has the potential to win seats in Yorkshire and Humberside, the North West and the Midlands in next year’s Euro election.

But the disturbing headlines about the BNP’s victories are just one part of the story. It’s important to put these votes in perspective. The percentage of the BNP vote rose by only 0.6 percent from 2004 in the London Assembly election. Yet this was enough to push it over the critical 5 percent barrier and win a seat.

However, because of the high turnout of 45.3 percent (up by 8.3 percent from 2004) it meant it won 130,714 votes. It’s worth noting that the total Conservative, BNP and UK Independence Party (UKIP) vote is almost the same as it was in 2004 – around 42 percent. UKIP’s vote collapsed from 8.2 percent to 1.9 percent, with their votes being distributed to the Tories and the BNP.

But the BNP also faces problems. Nationally it is still finding it hard to break into inner city areas – but it is trying. Also its Eurofascist strategy – putting itself across as a respectable political party – is succeeding in winning it seats but also has limitations.

As is the case with all fascist parties, the BNP is pulled in two different directions. One is towards elections, and another to taking to the streets in order to break up and terrorise progressive movements and immigrant areas. This creates tensions in its own ranks. We have seen several cases of this inside the BNP, most recently in Colwyn Bay, Wales. In May three BNP town councillors resigned before even attending a council meeting. One said he did not realise the BNP was a fascist party and didn’t like the fact that he was attacked by the party for helping an Asian family.

On the other hand, we have also seen a section of the party frustrated by the restraints imposed in the quest for respectability, wanting to break out of the straitjacket of elections. That is why we have seen convictions of a number of BNP members for violence. For the BNP to carry out its aim of creating a fascist state, elections will not be enough and it will have to take to the streets.

This is what all classic fascist movements have done in the past. The BNP has made several forays in recent years but has been pushed back by the anti-fascist movement. With its electoral success the pressure will grow for the BNP to capitalise on its gains and take to the streets in the near future.

All this shows the urgency of building against the fascists on many fronts in the coming months. The success of the Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) carnival was proof that there is a real mood to build opposition. The next step is building the biggest possible turnout on 21 June for the demonstration called in London by LMHR and Unite Against Fascism (UAF).

UAF will be calling a series of rallies all over the country, targeting particular places where the BNP has done well. The rallies alone will not be enough to challenge the growth of the BNP. In every city and region it will need local UAF groups involving trade unionists, students and other activists who can build roots to undercut the BNP at a local level.

Next year there will be a Northern carnival, on the same scale as this year’s carnival in London. At the same time LMHR will be trying to reach out to young people and will be holding a series of concerts in Hull, Rotherham, Stoke, Barking and Dagenham. LMHR will also be creating, alongside teachers’ unions, an educational pack for schools to use in developing anti-racist education.

This year’s election results shows there can be no complacency surrounding the BNP. Those who say we can just ignore the BNP and it will go away are playing a dangerous game. This strategy failed in France, as the growth of the fascist National Front shows.

What is needed is a broad based movement that can undermine the BNP at both a national and local level. But that leaves open one important question: how can we build a socialist current that offers people an alternative?

Hammering the BNP

Ellie Keen — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:25:15 +0000

It feels very odd to find any comfort from the local election results, but there is one outcome worthy of a small sigh of relief. The British National Party did not do as well as it might. It is true that it got Richard Barnbrook, its most personable, if absurd, figurehead, onto the London Assembly. But overall the party had a net gain of just ten councillors across the country, when it was hoping for, and many of us were dreading, some two or three assembly members and 40 more councillors.

It seemed that the BNP had everything going for it. It was exploiting the pumped-up fear of extremist violence and Islamophobia, aided by the media obsession with immigration and migration. The sudden media pre- occupation with the anniversary of Enoch Powell’s notorious ‘rivers of blood’ speech could hardly have been better timed. The party’s claim to have taken over Labour’s traditional role as the defender of the working class has had a great deal of resonance and could have put it in a strong position to take advantage of Labour’s collapse.

There are two obvious reasons for its comparative eclipse. The first and most obvious is that Cameron’s Tories swamped the BNP as they did Labour. But the second is that the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight and the trade unions combined in vigorous community- based campaigns against it, involving literally thousands of activists across the country. Nick Lowles, of Searchlight, says, ‘We have never had so many people involved in the anti-BNP campaign before. Against the odds, both political and climatic, decent people took to the streets and campaigned strongly for “hope not hate”.’

It is great to have something we can celebrate and I think we should. But most of these ‘decent’ people were from the left and we need to build stronger defences against the BNP across the board. Far from being down and out, the BNP is now a well- organised modern party and next year it will be seeking seats in several regions in the Euro elections, where low polls will assist it.

Combating the BNP involves an adjustment in the way we regard and describe the party, along with a surer and wider approach in society and in local government.

First, natural though it is to loathe the BNP, too often the left discourse sounds like an echo of the hate the BNP exploits. This is especially harmful when angry or violent expression spills over onto the people who vote for it. ‘Decent people’ can and do vote for the BNP, often with some shame, true, but defiantly nonetheless. It is not a protest vote, but a demand to be heard.

So tear off the party’s veil of respectability. Expose and broadcast the vile things that its members say and do. Keep watch on the performance of its councillors, show up their incompetence, deride the irrelevance of their statements and policies, complain to the local government Standards Board.

On the wider front, it is important to encourage people to take a robust approach to combating the BNP, especially in local government where councillors and staff often feel inhibited, either by fears that attacking the party gives it the ‘oxygen of publicity’, or that exposing the myths it propagates as lies will somehow breach electoral law. In the last election, a council official rang me and said that the other party leaders wanted to make common cause against the BNP offensive, but feared to draw attention to it.

Councils across the country have a duty to promote good race relations and social cohesion: combating the BNP’s lies simply fulfils this duty (on this point, see the Cohesion Matters website at www.cohesionmatters.co.uk).

Even in the Labour Party, I have experienced a reluctance to take on the far right. The most extreme example of this came some years ago when I was one of three people standing for election in Hackney. The agent (a man with real anti-fascist credibility) ordered us not to take part in a debate with the National Front candidate, Derek Day, a violent thug and prominent racist, on the estate where he lived and not to canvas the estate. The agent even came to the meeting to order us out. We stayed, trounced Day in the debate and won over people on the estate as we canvassed. In the pub one evening, my colleague’s handbag hit the table with a big thud. She was carrying a hammer, ‘just in case’.

I don’t advise carrying a hammer. But it is vital not to compromise or be intimidated. Resolute, informed, principled and persuasive argument is the way to combat the BNP.

Where Now?

Ellie Keen — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:03:45 +0000

The British National Party’s success in the London Assembly elections coupled with its small but continued progress across the country provides an ideal opportunity critically to assess where the campaign against the British National Party is going.

For the past few years we have successfully limited the advance of the BNP in local elections, even reversing its fortunes in some of its traditional heartlands such as Sandwell, Oldham and Bradford. Even Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, has publicly admitted that we have developed an election operation that can beat the BNP almost everywhere.

But the truth is that as each year goes by our job is getting harder. There is an ever-growing list of wards at risk to the BNP, it’s becoming more difficult to turn out our voters and even when we do prevent the BNP from winning we do so by increasing turnout rather than necessarily reducing the BNP’s support. In today’s political climate we can sometimes feel a sense of relief just by keeping the BNP down to 30% support in key wards.

It is perfectly feasible to continue this approach over the next couple of years. We will defeat the BNP in many more wards than they win and perhaps we can hold them at bay long enough for wider external factors to fundamentally undercut the BNP’s support.

Or we can perhaps try a radically different approach.

This essay will look at possible approaches. It is the opening of a discussion about where we go now. There are no simple or easy solutions of course, no one anti-fascist strategy can defeat the BNP on its own. However, as I shall try to explain, unless we do something radically different the situation will get a lot worse before it gets better.

To do that we need to really understand what is going on.

We are currently witnessing a tangible change in British politics. The old traditional voting patterns are fragmenting as voters increasingly shop around for a party that best articulates their concerns and even prejudices.

The emergence of the BNP is just one consequence of the change under way, and it is a change far more fundamental than many political commentators and politicians appear to register. It is also primarily an issue affecting the Labour Party.

Labour’s support among its traditional working-class voters has been shrinking for many years and this goes well beyond the current decline in fortunes for the Brown Government. In many core Labour heartlands the party’s support among social groups C2 and DE was at a lower level in 2005, when it won a general election, than in 1983 at the height of its electoral unpopularity during the Thatcher years. It is a point graphically made in the excellent book by Alexander Lee and Timothy Stanley, The End of Politics: Triangulation, Realignment and the Battle for the Centre Ground.

In 1997, 50% of C2 voters and 59% of DE voters supported Labour. By 2005 this had dropped to 40% and 48% respectively.

This drop has been even more pronounced in many core Labour areas. In Sheffield Central Labour polled over 60% of the vote in every election between 1983 and 2001, yet in 2005 its vote fell to 49.9%. In Burnley, Labour’s share of the vote dropped 38.5% during the same period.

“In Yorkshire and Humberside, the North and the North West the swing may have not significantly affected the return of Labour MPs to Westminster but majorities have been seriously diminished and the party’s share of the vote dramatically reduced,” say the authors of The End of Politics.

Some of these disappearing voters switched to other parties and in local elections this was often the Liberal Democrats, but far greater numbers simply stayed at home. A declining turnout and general lack of interest in mainstream political parties was the key winner.

For the Labour leadership this long-term shift has not mattered. In the current political system general elections are not won or lost in the Labour heartlands but in the swing marginals, where a few votes can turn success into defeat. It is these voters towards whom all the main parties increasingly gravitate.

Labour has relied on the fact that its traditional support, although declining, has had nowhere else to go. Many of these voters, whose communities were decimated under Thatcher, would never countenance voting Conservative. A few switched to the Liberal Democrats, others stayed at home but the bulk of those who did vote continued to support Labour.

But this is now changing. The BNP is emerging as the voice of this forgotten working class. A survey of the wards that produced the 25 best BNP votes in May shows plainly the profile of BNP supporting areas. All but one rank well below average in the Indices of Deprivation and the one exception, Queensbury in Bradford, is roughly average. Nearly all are among the top 10% most deprived areas.

In every single one of these wards, including Queensbury, the proportion of the population with no qualifications at all is well below the national average. Likewise, the proportion of people with a level 4/5 qualification (degree or teaching/social work qualification) is a fraction of the national average.

The result is that the BNP is now challenging Labour in many of its heartlands and the effect is startling. As we show elsewhere in this magazine, the BNP received more votes than Labour in the redrawn Dagenham and Rainham constituency. And it was not the only one. As table 1 illustrates, the BNP received more votes than both Labour and the Conservatives in the new Morley and Outwood constit-uency, which will be contested by Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

The BNP also beat Labour in one of the two new Havering constituencies and would probably have polled more votes than Labour in Stoke-on-Trent South and Central if it had put forward more candidates.

It is also important not to view the BNP in isolation. Its rising support is just the most visible element of this changing political scene. Other areas, such as South and West Yorkshire and South Wales, have seen a rise in local independent groups.

Who would have thought that Labour could have lost the heartlands of Merthyr Tydfil and Blaenau Gwent in South Wales to independents? In Stoke-on-Trent, a city where ten years ago Labour held all 60 seats, the party could only win four seats this year. In Barnsley, where the BNP polled 21%, the Barnsley Independent Group holds one third of the seats on the council.

Fundamental shift

The breaking with Labour reflects a far more fundamental shift than mid-term blues. For an increasing number of traditional Labour voters the party no longer reflects their interests. Lee and Stanley in The End of Politics blame New Labour’s triangulation policy under which it has moved into the centre ground of politics in order to win the key marginals.

This view is echoed by Labour MP Jon Cruddas. “The politics of middle England become even more dominant in the minds of our political leadership. The danger is that we ignore the reasons for the strength of the BNP, and in so doing reinforce the conditions that have created this situation.”

Many of the people now turning their back on the Labour Party have not shared the economic prosperity of recent years. Many in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent and Dagenham now find themselves in a worse economic position than a few years ago. Great swathes of these traditional Labour voters not only feel ignored but are increasingly seeing in the BNP a party that articulates their interests. This degree of alienation with the mainstream parties was clearly demonstrated in the BBC polling that accompanied its White Season.

A number of studies, such as those conducted by Vision 21 and more recently by Democratic Audit, show clearly that a reoccurring theme among BNP voters is the sense that no one listens to them any more. Labour is increasingly seen as a middle-class party that prioritises minority groups and the interests of more affluent voters over themselves.

This is an international phenomenon. In the United States the phenomenon of Middle American Nationalism has emerged over the past 30 years, which despises the corporate elites above and the “undeserving” poor below.

Across Western Europe we have seen working-class voters turn towards far-right and populist parties. In Denmark working-class voters have shifted from the Labour Party to the Danish People’s Party (DPP). In France the Front National remains dominant in many traditional working-class communities. In Norway, the Progress Party has become the country’s main opposition.

“Workers’ support for the socialist parties has fallen away,” say researchers from the Danish Valgprojektet (Election Project). “There is a class-defined demobilisation … an almost total loss of support for the worker parties among the younger part of the working class, especially among skilled workers.”

Writing in this month’s Red Pepper, the Norwegian writer Magnus Marsdal argues that class politics still exists but these far-right parties are “in effect the new Labour party”. He points to Denmark where in the 2001 elections 61% of the DPP’s support came from working-class voters, nearly three times as many worker voters as the Social Democrats.

In an interesting parallel with England, almost all of these voters were from poorer and less educated sections of society.

All this represents a fundamental shift in British politics and the real fear is that we are heading the way of so many other European countries where large segments of the working class have broken with their traditional centre-left parties and moved to the right.

The root of BNP support

The BNP is a racist party fuelled by a leadership that draws its political roots from fascism. That much is clear. However, its appeal goes far wider than the issue of race. The BNP is tapping into political alienation and economic deprivation. It is providing a voice for those who increasingly feel ignored and cast aside by Labour. The BNP is articulating their concerns, grievances and even prejudices.

Race is obviously a key factor but it is not the only issue. Race was a defining factor in the initial rise of the BNP in 2001. Riots, growing racial tensions and international terrorism conspired to build support for the BNP. But this is less so now.

A cursory look at where the BNP is gaining support shows that race is not necessarily the dominant issue that it was in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford. There are very small non-white communities in Stoke-on-Trent, Barnsley and Nuneaton and Bedworth. These are traditional working-class areas where people feel abandoned and ignored. It is into this alienation that the BNP moves. Yes, race is certainly a central key, but more because it provides a prism through which people can see and understand the world and, more importantly, an easy scapegoat to blame for their own situation.

But the BNP provides far more than a racist scapegoat. It gives some voters a sense of belonging, an articulation of their own frustration – even a new white identity.

This point was graphically illustrated in the BBC White Season, particularly the film set in a working men’s club in Wibsey, Bradford. “I wish I could be happy again,” said Graham Anderson. In an increasingly complicated and disorientated world it is easy to see how the BNP can point the finger of blame while simultaneously offering a new sense of white community.

Whatever the merits of the Season as a whole it did reflect the sense of loss, political abandonment and a search for identity and belonging of a minority of people in this country.

In an increasingly complex world, in which Britain’s place has changed, Britain itself is fragmenting and the old economic certainties provided by traditional employment are long gone. It is no coincidence that the BNP has emerged in those communities that have experienced most economic decline and change, principally in the former coalfields and car producing areas.

Why does all this matter for anti-fascists? Unless we can understand why the BNP is growing we have little chance of defeating it.

Anti-fascism has to continue to focus around elections. After all, this is how BNP support is measured and nothing helps the BNP grow more than substantial electoral victories.

However, it is clear that our message also has to develop. Yes, we still have to identify and turn out the anti-BNP vote, as we have successfully done in so many areas, but we must also have something to say to potential BNP voters.

A simple “Don’t vote nazi” is an irrelevant slogan that needs to be discarded immediately. That is not to say that we should not highlight the real politics of the BNP and its leadership but we must address people where they currently are. And in terms of that, very few people see the BNP as a nazi party.

It is also clear that a simple Hope not Hate message is insufficient. “You tell us to vote for Hope not hate but there is no hope round here,” one voter told me in Dagenham. Similar reports came in from Stoke-on-Trent and Nuneaton.

We need to replace empty slogans with substance, and that means involving ourselves in the community as never before. If the BNP support is driven by racial prejudice, often whipped up by the national media, economic deprivation and a loss of identity, then these are the three issues we need to contest.

Nationally, we must challenge and expose the racist lies and myths peddled in the media while also ending the muscular bidding war between the political parties over race and immigration. Not only is this politically damaging (Labour will never appease its opponents on immigration), it is also quite dishonest. The economic boom of recent years has been built on the influx of migrant workers, our public services would collapse without its non-white workforce and the pensions crisis would be even more severe without newcomers replacing those British people moving abroad in record numbers.

But it is locally that anti-fascists must focus their energies. Searchlight has long argued for a localised strategy to defeat the BNP and the need for this is even greater now. Each area is different and requires a slightly different solution.

Thinking nationally, acting locally

In the recent election we found that our general Hope not hate leaflets worked in some places but less well in others. The general trend was that they were more effective where the BNP was standing for the first time. In other places, such as Stoke-on-Trent and Dagenham, where support for the BNP is deeply entrenched, we need a different approach and one that addresses local issues and concerns.

Where we produced more localised leaflets, in Burnley, West Yorkshire and Sandwell, our material appears to have gone down a lot better.

Of course there is a limit to how much localised material we can physically produce during a short election campaign. Over the past few years we have tried to prioritise the most high risk areas and those where we have the best local contacts. Two ways of overcoming this are to widen the pool of people who can produce leaflets, and to produce more localised material at other times of the year outside election periods.

To achieve this we need more local groups – and building groups with an ability to intervene locally must be our key priority over the next two years. A good functioning local group is likely to achieve far more success. It needs to be community-orientated, broad-based and non-dogmatic.

It needs to be able to address local issues and concerns while having roots within the community. It needs to be able to form partnerships with other local groups to address issues and improve the area, while also gaining credibility within the community to break down barriers and promote cohesion.

Two good examples of community campaigning are Keighley and Epping. In Keighley the local TUC and Bradford anti-fascists confronted BNP lies over grooming, where others had ignored what was going on, while simultaneously assisting local community groups through good old fashioned community development work.

The Redbridge and Epping Forest Together group has adopted a slightly different approach but it too has been successful. It has sought to build a broad coalition of political parties and the non-aligned, and has involved residents’ and faith groups. While it has not done the community development work of Keighley, it has helped alter the political climate enough to defeat the BNP in two of the three seats it was defending.

Forming local Hope not hate groups would also be an excellent way of involving trade unionists, many of whom refuse to do any direct campaigning for the Labour Party any more. In addition to bringing extra people into activity it strengthens the relationship between unions and the local community.

There are other groups that need to be included from the start. Among them are faith groups, residents’ associations, community groups and the voluntary sector – people who care enough about their local community to be active while also having the respect of others.

It some places, such as Barking and Dagenham, one of the fundamental problems is the absence of any mainstream alternative to Labour, so the BNP is the sole beneficiary of the anti-Labour vote. For anti-fascists, this is a problem as it is hard to build a political coalition in an area where there is no one other than Labour to work with.

In these areas community work is even more important. In addition to the basic anti-BNP material to dispel the party’s lies and highlight the inadequacies of its councillors, we must collaborate with existing community and faith groups to help rebuild civic society and create an alternative pole of attraction to the BNP. It is often the lack of local positive institutions and community organisers that contributes to the feeling of despair and inability to change things for the better.

Empowering local communities to improve their local area in a positive fashion through working with and mobilising local people is essential. This includes developing a leadership programme that can provide basic organising skills and give confidence to local people.

Searchlight is not opposed to concerts and large city-centre activities but these cannot be the main focus. Large concerts, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds to stage, do not deliver leaflets in the key areas nor do they address the concerns and grievances of the people likely to vote BNP. They certainly have a place in mobilising and organising activists but the important work has got to be done at a more local level. It might not be glamorous and it might not be easy but it is vital.

Political solution

Of course on a wider level the BNP needs to be defeated politically. While much of this is outside the remit and capability of Searchlight we will strive to argue that the rise of the BNP is the consequence of the shift to the centre of all the mainstream parties. There can be no disguising this fact.

There will be some who argue for a solely class-based approach to anti-fascism but a refusal to work with the mainstream parties will only hand dozens of seats to the BNP and quicken its electoral advance.

The majority of people are still opposed to the racist message of the BNP and while it is important that we mobilise these voters we must also begin to address, at a local level, the grievances and insecurities that are giving rise to the BNP in the first place.

The clock is ticking and time is running out. The economic downturn, the credit crunch, the housing collapse and rising living costs are only going to increase insecurities over the next year or two. The political parties, and in particular Labour, are letting down a large section of the British population. Without radical and immediate change, Britain could experience the political earthquake that is engulfing much of Europe.