Vol. 73/No. 44      November 16, 2009

The BNP opposes immigration to the United Kingdom in order to preserve “British identity.” Its chairman, Nicholas Griffin, who in June was elected to the European Parliament, appeared October 22 on the BBC flagship program “Question Time.” Protests were held outside the London studios of the BBC and in other cities under the slogan, “No plugs for Nazi Nick.”

The Guardian newspaper said that Griffin’s appearance on the show would “lend him a spurious legitimacy.” Labour government minister Peter Hain opposed “giving racists and fascists a platform, treating them as equals with democrats.” Weyman Bennett of Unite Against Fascism, which organized the protests, attacked the BBC for treating the BNP as “a normal political party.” Former London mayor Kenneth Livingstone of the Labour Party condemned the BBC for allowing the “far right” party to “enter the mainstream of political life.”

On November 14 the Scottish Defence League (SDL), an offshoot of the EDL, is planning a protest in Glasgow. An umbrella grouping called Scotland United, which is supported by the Scottish Trade Union Council, is organizing a counterprotest that same day. An October 16 letter from Scotland United calls “on the Leader of Glasgow City Council and the Police to ban the SDL/EDL action.”

The EDL held reactionary actions earlier this year, including one of hundreds in Manchester, England, October 10. The group says it is against “Radical Islam”—a reference to right-wing political organizations such as Islam4UK that call for an Islamic state and the imposition of sharia law. Claiming not to be racist, the EDL has used slogans such as “Black and White Unite.”

These incipient fascist forces will not ultimately be defeated by putting trust in any part of the British capitalist state.  
 
Workings of capitalism
It is the national chauvinist, Britain first, anti-immigrant politics peddled by “mainstream” politicians of all the capitalist parties that open up space for the ultraright and their demagogy.

In an October 21 article calling for greater control of immigration, Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Frank Field and Conservative MP Nicholas Soames blame immigration for “social strains” such as those on housing. But it is not immigrants that cause housing shortages—or rising unemployment—but the workings of capitalism and the policies of successive capitalist governments. It was Labour prime minister Gordon Brown who coined the slogan “British jobs for British workers” that became the rallying cry of reactionary strikes earlier this year, which were supported by the BNP.

Campaigning to deny platforms to the far right, making their “free speech” a central issue, merely plays into their hands. It allows them to portray themselves as victims. And the capitalist rulers ultimately use calls to ban the rightists against workers’ organizations.

Fascist-like groups are not a “cancer” in British politics but an inevitable product of the deepening capitalist crisis and the politics of resentment against a variety of targets stirred up amongst middle class layers especially, but also among sections of the working class. Whatever names they give themselves these outfits will continue to be bred by capitalism in the coming years. They will not go away by denying them “legitimacy” or be smashed by actions of small groups.

Nor are they simply an outgrowth of the right-wing of capitalist politics but a radical response to the market system in decay and the resulting devastation of different layers of society. This is why their demagogy targets the corruption of the “ruling elites,” as the BNP puts it, and is laced with anticapitalist demagogy.

Large disciplined countermobilizations against the ultraright are what is essential today—not reliance on our class enemies—to prevent these forces from becoming emboldened and to defend foreign-born workers and others whom they target. It is the Asian youth and others who have confidently stood up to these racist thugs who are the answer, not Westminster or its cops. Through such actions the forces will be assembled from which a mass movement will be built—with battalions of an increasingly multinational labor movement at its core to confront the fascists in the streets in the years to come.  
 
 
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