The BNP advances – what does it mean? (2006)

From the June 2006 issue of the Socialist Standard

The BNP gained seats in the May local elections because it put together a better package of lies than the mainstream parties

Despite recent claims to the contrary, the vast majority of British voters find the policies of the BNP nauseating. In the run up to the 2004 local and European elections and again during the 2005 general election, all manner of people, organised in their respective groupings, mobilised against them, from Labour and Conservative Party activists and the myriad left-wing groups, to student bodies, church groups and trade unions. Back in 2004, Searchlight, the anti-Nazi organisation, produced 28 versions of a newspaper targeting the BNP election campaign and distributed 1.5 million copies in areas where the BNP were perceived as posing the biggest threat. Prior to this year’s elections, Searchlight handed out 400,00 copies of their newspaper in 16 versions as well as quarter of a million postcards and again the left and the unions campaigned where the BNP were felt to be most active.

This time round, by all accounts, the panic was just as big as an in 2004. In the wake of a huge election push by the BNP, the anti-racist group Searchlight identified 18 key “battlegrounds” where the neo-Nazis had to be confronted. Other anti-racists groups observed how the BNP, standing 364 candidates, were as strong now than at any time since 1982, when it displaced the National Front as Britain’s favourite bone-head magnet. Ever the pessimists, anti-racist organisations believed BNP pre-election claims could be an underestimate and suggested that a 5 percent swing to the BNP could see them increase their tally of councillors to 70.

A YouGov poll conducted by the Daily Telegraph, prior to the elections, suggested the BNP was set to make “significant gains” in the elections. The poll showed that 7 percent of voters were ready to back the BNP and that some 24 percent had considered voting BNP in the past or were thinking of doing so now.

Regardless of how much these smiley-faced fascists claim to have changed their image, supposedly booting out the bone-headed troublemakers of yesteryear, they still represent the politics of hate – and their writings and statements still contradict the respectable shirt-and-tie image they try so hard to project.

For over six months BNP literature had been portraying the coming elections as a “Referendum on Islam”, linking the threat of Islamist terrorism in Britain to the Labour Government’s asylum and immigration policies and the war in Iraq. One BNP leaflet, handed out in the wake of the 7/7 bombings in London, declared: “If only they had listened to the BNP.”

Moreover, the BNP’s anti-Islam position has gained in prominence since Nick Griffin was acquitted of racial hatred charges at Leeds Crown Court back in February. It did not help that the judgment came at the same time as the hullabaloo over the anti-Muslim Danish cartoons and the consequent display by a handful of young Muslims dressed as suicide bombers and demonstrating in London, a coincidence that allowed the BNP to pass itself off as the champion of freedom of speech and all things British.

Overnight, the BNP moved further to the right in its anti-Moslem line of attack. Heartened by what they perceive as a lowering of tolerance for Islam, the BNP has become more obsessive. Speaking to the Observer, (24 April), Simon Darby, the man BNP leader Nick Griffin has appointed to take over should an appeal to re-convict him go ahead, said: “We are giving voice to the concerns of ordinary people, Yes, part of it is still about race.” Since 9/11 and 7/7, he says, “things have changed: the new issue is Islam”.

Two years ago the BNP were fortunate to ride a wave of patriotism – a tool they can use to great effect when it suits – in the run up to the election, with voters going to the polls as the 60th anniversary of D-Day was being commemorated and rammed down our throats every night on TV, and the English football team were gearing up to compete in Euro 2004 and when manufacturers were reporting sales of 4 million St George flags. This time round they could count on the nationalism whipped up by the World Cup taking place in Germany as well as the patriotism created by the Queen’s 80th birthday celebrations. And neither is their raw branch of nationalism that unique in today’s climate where the UKIP and the Conservative Party can make huge gains in the European elections on a “say no to Europe” platform, proclaiming the merits of British sovereignty, and where the Labour Party is all too ready to send British troops off to far away lands to protect the interests of Britain’s ruling elite.

Recent scandals within the mainstream reformist parties, particularly the Labour Party, and coming in election week, clearly helped boost the BNP vote and resulting in their tally of councillors leaping from 20 to 48. Not least of which was the Home Office fiasco involving the release of foreign prisoners from British prisons, many of whom went on to reoffend, and which played straight into BNP hands. The sleaze turned many would-be voters away from the polling stations too – something the BNP further capitalised on with their supporters making a point of going to the polls. For instance, the BNP claimed a surprising win from Labour in Solihull, when it won the Chelmsley Wood ward by 19 votes, taking its first fascist seat on the council there. But look closely and we see that in Chelmsley Wood 74 percent of the electorate never bothered turning up to vote.

In the borough of Dagenham and Barking, the sitting Labour Party MP, Margaret Hodge, clearly made the BNP look like the party of  the moment when she announced shortly before the election that she had discovered massive support for the BNP, offering that as many as 80 per cent of the electorate would vote for them. She commented: "That's something we have never seen before. They used to be ashamed to vote for the BNP. Now they are not." The media, of course, made much of this, with the BNP thriving on the oxygen of publicity.

Of course there were other factors at play in Dagenham and Barking, such as the government’s refusal to allow the council to build housing and the council’s allocation of housing on a points basis. The areas continuing deindustrialisation, marked by job losses in the docks and at the Ford plant in Dagenham, was also an issue the BNP could mobilise support around. Where the mainstream parties where seen as having let voters down, that was where the BNP found the greatest success.

Lord Tebbit, writing in the Daily Telegraph (21 April), had this to say about the BNP:

“I have carefully re-read the BNP manifesto of 2005 and am unable to find evidence of Right-wing tendencies. On the other hand, there is plenty of anti-capitalism, opposition to free trade, commitments to ‘use all non-destructive means to reduce income inequality’, to institute worker ownership, to favour workers’ co-operatives, to return parts of the railways to state ownership, to nationalise the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and to withdraw from Nato. That sounds pretty Left-wing to me.”

It certainly does sound like left wing reformism – but not Socialist – with the assumption being made that capitalism can be managed for the good of all.

Stuart Jeffries, considering Lord Tebbit’s comments in the Guardian, (28th April), remarked that: “the notion that the BNP might be considered left-wing shows the political vacuum that Labour has created. Not that many of those who will vote BNP next week want to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy. Rather, alienated from their traditional party by its shameless plutocracy and neglect of its core support, some white working-class voters will opt for a party that offers easy lies about their plight.” Suggesting that BNP support is rooted in the failure of mainstream reformism, Jeffries continued: “Blair may not be responsible for populist racism, but he and his party are responsible for putting despair in place of hope from politics for many, and thus making the election of racists likely in several British towns.”

Considering the views of the Labour and Conservative parties on asylum and the former’s part in so overtly upsetting the Islamic world in recent years, their concern for the apparent rising support BNP does seem a mite misplaced. Labour and the Tories may well abhor the policies of the BNP, but have been unsuccessful in confronting them where they have made significant political gains because to do so would mean acknowledging the shortcomings of a system they champion and which gives rise to the politics of race and hate.

The BNP is more the product of the total failure of all the reformist parties to make capitalism a fit society to live in. And this is not really the fault of the mainstream parties, for they are controlled by the system and not vice versa despite their claims and promises. When capitalism fails to deliver, when despondency and shattered hopes arise from the stench of the failed promises and expectations that litter the political landscape, is it any wonder that workers fall for the scapegoating bullshit of fascists and the quick fix they offer?

The hundreds of thousands of misinformed workers who fell for the BNP spiel in May are the products of the demoralising system we know as capitalism, deluded into thinking that neo-nazi solutions to social problems – which they have been led to believe are largely rooted in the colour of a person’s skin – would suddenly improve their miserable lives. In truth, a shortage of council housing and poorly maintained housing estates, low wages and pittance benefits are no more the fault of asylum seekers than, in fact, the mainstream parties who mistakenly believe capitalism can be run in the interests of the workers. At the end of the day the BNP simply put together a better package of lies and, just like the other reformist parties, promised voters little more than extra space at the trough of poverty – and tens of thousands, their minds numbed by the politics of reform fell for the scam.

John Bissett

Sting in the Tail: Nazis (1992)

The Sting in the Tail column from the October 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

Nazis (1)
Searchlight magazine, called "the international anti-fascist monthly", covers the worldwide activities of nazis and racists and there's an awful lot to report.

Most countries in Europe and the Americas have their quota of crazies, from skinhead thugs and the Ku Klux Klan to followers of Nordic mysticism, with would-be fuhrers ten a penny. Searchlight revels in exposing their various criminal records which include murder, armed robbery, fraud, etc., and it is all very interesting.

However, no copy we have read down the years has given any sign that Searchlight has a clue as to why nazism and racism exist, let alone how to get rid of them.

The only way to eliminate these evils once and for all is to end the capitalist system which breeds the ignorance, insecurity and poverty on which they feed. Searchlight only highlights the effects, never the cause.


Nazis (2)
The Socialist Party has always insisted that the only way to deal with ideas that are opposed to those of socialism is in a rational and democratic manner. This is not the approach of the various left-wing groups.

In reporting the proposed concert organised by a neo-nazi group called Blood and Honour in London The Guardian (4 September) quotes a spokesman for the Anti-Fascist Action:

  "Blood and Honour has only one agenda — the terrorism of anyone opposed to them. We are prepared to meet like with like", said Mike Stone of AFA.

So here we have a group who propose to beat facism by adopting the tactics of the fascists. Apparently it is fascist behaviour to use violence against a political opponent — except when the violent act is being committed by someone in Anti-Fascist Action!


Heaven on Earth
In a society where people have so many troubles, the idea of a better life after death is inevitable.

A TV film, Heaven (BBC2, 1 September), asked some people what they thought Heaven will be like. Answers included ...

We'll have wonderful bodies and never get sick.
Like a billion years in Shangri-La.
Where you live forever in happiness with angels watching over you.

One man thought Heaven would be "Like New York or Los Angeles, a city", but perhaps he got heaven and hell mixed-up.

Socialists expect no life after death, heavenly or otherwise, but we strive for a worldwide society based on production for use and democratic control. That would be heaven enough for us.


What a Waste
One of the charges socialists lay against capitalism is that it causes vast numbers of people to spend their time sorting out private property rights.

The grounding of the QE2 off the American coast is an example. The big priority here is to establish responsibility and, therefore, who pays for the QE2's repairs and subsequent loss of business. To do this, teams from both the British and American marine accident departments, plus the insurers' army of loss adjusters, flew to Boston to begin their investigations (The Guardian 11 August).

And just think how many other people were involved in the work of insuring Cunard, the ship's owners, against this happening as well as the passengers against their cruise being cancelled.

All of this is necessary in a system where private property rights are sacred. In socialism a damaged ship would simply be repaired by society without capitalism's obsession with "who pays?".


SWP "Socialism "
The SWP's paper, Socialist Worker, carried an article titled "What Do We Mean By Socialism?" (5 September) which got itself into the inevitable muddle.

For example, we are told socialism "means the abolition of classes" and yet there will still be "workers". How come?

And there will still be money and exchange relations in the SWP's "socialism

  Of course not everything will be free the day after workers take power. But the list of free goods will constantly broaden.

Only health, education, housing and public transport are mentioned as being "instantly" free, so obviously other things people need will have to be paid for which means there would still be owners and non-owners just as there are today.

Incidentally, it was good to read that socialism "does not mean rule by a central committee . . ." but this is rich coming from a party which is itself ruled by one!


Food for Thought
We are forever being bombarded by TV images of starving millions: of little children dying in front of our eyes.

To the religious this may be God's will; to the capitalist economist the working out of the market system, but to the socialist it is the completely unnecessary destruction of human beings by the insanities of capitalism. People starve while surplus food is stored in mountains or destroyed to keep up prices.

How much surplus food is being stored in Britain alone was revealed by The Independent (3 September).

  The latest figures available from the Intervention Board, the body that administers the storage of EC surpluses in the UK, show that 144,179 tons of beef and 16,009 tons of butter are held at 95 cold-storage facilities all over the country.
  More than 695,000 tons of barley, 1,510 tons of premium wheat, 11,364 tons of feed wheat and 324 tons of rye are held at 24 grain stores. A further 2,145 tons of skimmed milk are in warehouse storage.
  It is estimated that the UK's stocks of grain alone would be enough to feed Somalia for a year.

Ray Hill (1988)

Book Review from the May 1988 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Other Face of Terror: Inside Europe's Neo-Nazi Network. Ray Hill with Andrew Bell. (Grafton Books. London. 1988)

This is the story of Ray Hill, the nazi activist turned "mole", who successfully infiltrated both the British Movement and British National Party while working for the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. Having become involved in far right politics during the 1960s, Hill emigrated to South Africa in search of a standard of living denied him in Britain. It was there that he came to reject the racist policies that he had embraced for some years earlier. The turning point came when he was confronted on a roadside by a homeless Indian family - they had been evicted as a direct result of a campaign organised by the South African National Front, of which he was then a leading member.

Hill returned to England at a time when the British extreme right was in turmoil after the NF"s debacle in the May 1979 General Election. Under the direction of Searchlight journalist Gerry Gable he re-established many of his old links in the British nazi movement. During the next four years he was able to gather evidence of the British far right s growing involvement with European terrorist groups and was largely responsible for the prevention of a major bomb attack on the 1981 Notting Hill Carnival.

In this book Ray Hill lays claim to being the primary reason for the demise of the British Movement in 1983. He argues that by promoting himself as a rival leader to Mike McLaughlin he was able to orchestrate a split from which the British Movement never recovered. Although the British Movement has now ceased to exist as an organisation, the ideas that it held have persisted. Many of its members - like Hill himself - joined John Tyndall's British National Party. Indeed, Ray Hill's attempts to damage extreme right groups structurally has done little or nothing to stop the spread of the racist ideas he now abhors. An illustration of this is the situation at present in the National Front Despite the fact that it is split into two warring factions it has increased its membership and support considerably.

As Hill partially realises, the only lasting challenge to fascistic and racist ideas must come through political education. Groups like the NF. BNP and British Movement are the organised expression of an ignorance and prejudice which stems from the material basis of capitalist society. As such they can only be defeated when the working class understands capitalism and decides to reject it in favour of socialism.

Dave Perrin

On the Right-Wing (2012)

Book Review from the October 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

Hate. By Matthew Collins, Biteback Publishing, 2011. £14.99.

Subtitled ‘My Life in the British Far Right’ this is the story of a former member of the National Front in the late 80s and early 90s who then became close to the leadership of the British National Party in the days when it was more openly Nazi than it is now. Collins also later became a fringe participant in the violent Combat 18 group of Nazis and is in a similar mould to other former far-right activists like Ray Hill and Tim Hepple who became ‘moles’ for the anti-fascists associated with Searchlight magazine.

It is an account that is frightening but entertaining in equal measure, giving an insight into the mindset that drives someone from a white, working class background to be involved in fascist politics. It also gives an insight into some of the violent tactics and internal feuding that have characterised the far right in Britain for decades.

The leaders of the so-called ‘master race’are clearly shown up to be the misguided and psychologically unbalanced individuals many of them are. Referring to a particular sortee by Combat 18 thugs in Brick Lane, Collins comments: ‘I looked along our line at the drug dealers, the gangsters, the football hooligans and wife beaters who believed in their tiny minds that they were going to save the white race from drug dealers, wife beaters, gangsters, Jews, blacks and Asians’, and this pretty much sums it up.

The later chapters chronicle Collins’movement away from racist politics over time, his particular function as a ‘mole’for Searchlight and the police interest in his activities, though these don’t perhaps have the depth they might have. The foot soldiers (and ‘political soldiers’) of the BNP, NF, etc have long being considered a potential threat to public order and are therefore closely monitored –and sometimes infiltrated –by the state apparatus, often acting on information gathered by the anti-fascists on the left. This has created much controversy in recent times about the link between the two and Collins doesn’t perhaps address this as clearly as he might.

There are also a few factual errors here and there but nevertheless this is a book worth reading. This is especially so in a political climate where the BNP (despite some recent internal strife) has been garnering significant numbers of working class votes from the politically disaffected since the skinheads, swastikas and jackboots have been less visible to the public eye.

DAP