The far right and May 5th

The Labour years saw a steady increase in the vote of the far right, a rise that took the BNP to historic levels of support and unprecedented, if modest, success at the ballot box - predominately in Labour "safe" seats where the electorate had been taken for granted and ignored for years.

However, by the time our new coalition overlords came to power the BNP's momentum was well and truly broken as the organisation fell into infighting, expulsions and paranoia. Other groupings like the English Democrats and the National Front have made life extremely uncomfortable in selected areas, but as organisations are abject failures.

Sadly, this does not mean that the mood which spawned these far right organisations has disappeared. In fact the last general election saw a record vote for the BNP and with UKIP's more, cough, eccentric approach attracting many of the right's stability challenged individuals we have a movement that has been beaten organisationally but not psychologically.

Of course that doesn't stop the BNP's chief Mussolini impersonator Nick Griffin from being a bugbear used to frighten the children.

For example, the Yes to AV people have been playing heavily on the fact that Griffin opposes AV and if the black shirted devil thinks something we can't possibly agree with him. That rather ignores two obvious things.

Griffin is also for renationalising the railways and opposed the Iraq War. Are the millions of people in this country that do the same somehow capitulating to fascism? Of course not, no more than vegetarians are similar to Hitler. Griffin will hold a host of views, some political some not, that are not the defining feature of his politics. Yet somehow this political irrelevance is being used to give the moral high ground to all those who are voting Yes on May 5th.

It also ignores the fact that Nick Clegg is far more hated than Griffin (because more people actively think hate-y thoughts about him more of the time) so it might not be wise to start playing the "You can't agree with him" game. It makes no more sense to "vote Yes to oppose the BNP" than it does to "vote No to annoy Nick Clegg". Well, it actually makes less sense.

I digress. The electoral prospects for the BNP are dismal at best as they are standing fewer candidates than for years and some former strongholds have no BNP candidates at all. This is all very satisfactory and people in those areas can concentrate on averting the global catastrophe that is mainstream politics free from the distractions of goose-stepping uniform fetishists.

Of course, organisations like Hope Not Hate are working hard targeting those council wards where the BNP can be driven out once and for all. The BNP are defending eleven council seats this year, in particular in Stoke on Trent, and if fail to keep these seats that will be half their remaining councillors gone and the organisation's spirit broken for good. This is where the battle is.

It's frustrating to see in Edinburgh posters up advocating  us to "vote to keep out the BNP". It's frustrating because the BNP don't have a hope in hell of winning an MSP anywhere in Scotland, nor even of coming close to winning one. This election isn't even remotely about the BNP and the only people going into the polling station thinking of the BNP will be the genuinely tiny number of people who will be voting for them.

It's also frustrating because this tactic of mobilising the vote against the far right has a real use under particular circumstances. The classic example is that of Derek Beackon, a BNP member who won their first ever council seat back in 1993, the same year Stephen Lawrence was murdered. The anti-fascist movement came out in droves to get Beackon out and the next year he was out of the council again.

However, whilst inspiring it is worth noting what, specifically, the anti-fascists achieved electorally. Leaving aside the added confidence in the area to those opposing the right, the BNP's vote actually increased from the '93 by-election to the '94 full council election where Beackon gained more than 2,000 votes in his ward (over 28%) but the Labour vote was also dramatically increased as the obvious candidate to beat the BNP.

In the context this was an incredibly useful strategy, but in areas where they have no chance of winning this tactic (which inevitably increases the far right vote) serves simply to advertise the presence of the far right in areas where they do not have the man-power to make their presence felt themselves. In other words in places like Edinburgh ignoring them in elections where they don't have a chance is the best and most effective anti-fascist tactic even though banging the drum might make you feel better and allow you to recruit to your organisation.

The only people going out of their way to let the people of Edinburgh know they can vote for a Nazi this May are the small group of anti-fascists, and the only possible result of their activities is that the BNP's impact in the area is increased. I'd also say that this tactic is less well suited to proportional representation elections (which the second vote is) anyway, because concentrating the "not fascist" vote into one party doesn't stop them getting elected.

The BNP is dying on its arse. In those remaining eleven council seats it needs to be squashed out of existence, but everywhere else the very worse thing we can do is to make out they are still a significant force in UK politics, because frankly the only thing that could save them now is if people start to believe that.

UAF leader convicted of assaulting a police officer

Martin Smith, leading Unite Against Fascism activist, national coordinator of Love Music Hate Racism and a central committee member of the Socialist Workers Party has been convicted of assaulting a police officer in what is, almost certainly, a miscarriage of justice.

Smith attacked his sentence of community service and a fine as an attempt to criminalise anti-fascist action.

Mark Serwotka, an old work colleague of Smith's and now head of the PCS union, said of the conviction that "I am shocked at the verdict delivered in a magistrates court today, in the absence of any evidence, that Martin Smith, national co-ordinator of Love Music Hate Racism, was guilty of assault on a police officer at the demonstration outside of the BBC on 22 October 2009, against Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time."

He continued that;

"There is a danger that verdicts such as these provide encouragement for the abhorrent views of racist and fascist organisations and therefore it is crucial that across the labour movement we stand united in our condemnation of it.

"At PCS we will re-double our efforts to campaign against the far right, including organisations such as the BNP and English Defence League and we will continue to support Martin and other anti fascist campaigners when they are treated in such an unjust, outrageous way.

"PCS will work with UAF and LMHR to fight the far right wherever we can and also to highlight the unequal way in which anti-fascist campaigners and activists are treated in comparison with racist and fascist thugs."

A worrying development but it's good to hear that people are not willing to be deterred.

BNP chickens goose-step home to roost

It's official, the gormless BNP London Assembly member Richard Barnbrooke has resigned the BNP whip and is now an independent.

Despite being elected on a list system Barnbrooke gets to remain an AM, as the UKIP AMs elected in 2004 did when they broke from the party during the Kilroy-Silk ruckus.

This comes on the smae day that BNP Cllr Graham Partner resigning the BNP whip on Leicestershire county council. He cites the expulsion of members who'd dared to support someone other than Nick Griffin in the BNP leadership elections. Cllr Partner says "the party cannot continue down its current path to destruction" but I'm not so sure he's right.

Afterall if the Griffin leadership have to create a process that all but rules out members who don't have access to official structures from standing against him (by insisting on nomination papers signed by more than 800 members apparently!) then something is deeply wrong in party.

The BNP leadership is clearly worried about a coup after widespread dissatisfaction in the party's ranks over the dismal election flop that saw their target seats go backwards and a host of BNP councillors lose their seats. I suspect the implosion is going to continue for some time to come.

BNP beaten in Barking, again

Last night the results for the Barking Goresbrook by-election came in where the great white hope Richard Barnbrook was sent packing, again, after there was an administrative cock-up on the part of Labour (standing an ineligible candidate) and the council election had to be taken again.

I thought it might be useful to give the results for May at the same time. They need to be taken with a small pinch of salt though as people had three votes in May and the Lib Dems and Tories only stood two candidates in May.

	Vote		May result
Labour (elected)	881	46.59%	(51.03%)
BNP	642	33.95%	(29.20%)
Lib Dem	136	7.19%	(6.86%)
Tory	108	5.71%	(10.05%)
Ind	63	3.33%	(2.86%)
UKIP	50	2.64%
Ind	11	0.58%

The much reduced turnout of 25% compared to 58% in May is only to be expected as the General Election boosted turnout all over. Interesting that it didn't make a massive difference to the actual vote proportions though, apart from the dreadful result for the Tories.

This result is a real blow to the BNP who are already feeling like they are being pulled downwards, back into the sewer that they came from. If even 'high profile' members like Barnbrook can't hold onto a council seat what hope for the future? Ho hum!

One last word, well done to UKIP for standing this time, but they could have tried a bit harder to filtch some of those hard right votes couldn't they? It could've made all the difference.

How did the far right do?

One good thing about the squeeze on the minor parties was the way the far right found themselves out in the cold on election night. I took at look at UKIP's election in the Morning Star this week so wont dwell on that here but all in all it was good news for us.

The media's celebrity bugbear and all round oaf Nick Griffin blew his big change in Barking being knocked into third place a long, long way from winning the seat.

This result was followed by a wipe out of BNP councillors on Barking and Dagenham council. This includes high profile fascist Richard Barnbrook whose time on the London Assembly has been marked by... well, not very much frankly.

In Stoke Central their leading member Simon Darby could not capitalise on Labour's dramatic decline in support and found himself facing a number of other hard right factions - a phenomenon that was repeated across the country with the English Democrats fielding large numbers of candidates the National Front popping up here and there as well as a good number of ex-BNP members standing as nationalist independents against their former party.

It's the one time I'm glad to see a number of fascists clustered together - when they're competing for the same small circle of racist voters. Although sadly across the whole of Stoke the far right vote was still far, far too high.

Overall, in fact, the BNP poor performance for their lead candidates masks the fact that they polled over half a million votes, well up from their 192,746 in 2005 which is only partially explained by the fact they fielded more candidates on a higher turnout. This was a defeat for the far-right, but not one based on a collapsing vote.

It's worth remembering this for elections when the turnout returns to normal because, as Londonist says "the reasons they're picking up support haven't gone away."

One large part of the reason that BNP ended up losers despite an increased vote is a more intelligently targeted strategy by the anti-fascist movement and, it must be said, the Labour Party. One of the healthy signs of that movement was the fact that diverse organisations worked in parallel with one another rather than feeling the need to all come under one heading.

I know unity is strength is a great slogan but sometimes you get the best out of people by letting them do what they do best and getting on with your own work separately - as long as you aren't pulling each other down, a plural movement is often better than a monolithic one where some activists find it difficult to fit.

One lesson from this is that you can beat a rising fascist vote if you get your strategy right. This meant concentrating on mobilising the anti-fascist vote in those areas where the far right was a real and genuine threat and bussing people away from those areas where they were less needed.

So in Lewisham where the obnoxious Mayoral candidate Tess Culnane stood anti-fascists did precious little locally, because they didn't have to - her vote was derisory, because she was a paper candidate. However that's not to say Lewisham anti-fascists did nothing - they went to Barking, where they were most effective.

The BNP in fact saved something like 70 deposits across the country, which means in a significant amount of the country the fascist are able to get more than one in twenty of the votes. That's very worrying.

Anyway, what does this mean for the future? In my view two things.

Firstly the anti-fascist model of targeting our strength where it is needed most and allowing for a plurality of anti-fascist organisations and strategies worked and is worth repeating. Life's too short to make lefties who hate each other work on the same team, and it usually ends in tears anyway.

Secondly, we need to tackle why the BNP get their vote - and that isn't tactical brilliance of their leadership or the delightful design of their leaflets. That means, I think, tackling racist ideas in society generally and making real inroads into the disenfranchisement that millions of people feel.

Right now I'm a pessimist on the second point, but on the first there is plenty to be getting on with. The fascist threat is not just about goons tramping up and down the high street, it feeds off the day to day racism in the press, from the government and down the pub - that's where much of the work has to happen over the next five years, addressing the sewer of filth the BNP feed from.

Is the BNP ship sinking?

Leading BNP member Mark Collett has been stripped of his positions within the party and arrested for threatening to kill his lord and master Griffin (pictured together in happier times). As is the way of these things the party is now throwing the kitchen sink at Collett including "financial irregularities", being a mole and being the wrong kind of thug.

A BNP statement reads "Since political, as opposed to allegedly criminal, conspiracies are not illegal, we are able to say that Mark Collett was conspiring with a small clique of other party officials to launch a 'palace coup' against our twice democratically elected party leader, Nick Griffin, and that in order to create the artificial climate of disillusionment necessary for this to stand any chance of success, lies and unfounded rumours have been spread, and were planned to be spread much further."

Intriguing what the "lies and unfounded rumours" might be, and exactly how unfounded they are. The BNP is finding it hard to work as a team in key battle grounds like Stoke and Barking but it doesn't mean they don't still pose a formidable force in these selected areas as they never win votes down to tactical genius and slick campaigning.

There is a growing divide within the far right between those who favour an openly racist, street fighting approach to politics and the facade of a respectable, electoralist approach where the fascists pretend to be normal human beings and just allow their supporters to draw their own conclusions.

Collett has always been seen as more of the street fighting variety and I suspect this hoo ha has more to do with disagreements over strategy than fingers in the till.

Sometimes it's worth ignoring the BNP

In today's Morning Star I have an article arguing that sometimes at this election it will be worth ignoring the BNP rather than organising against them. Interestingly veteran letter writer Kieth Flett has got his response in already with a good letter in tomorrow's edition.

On a personal level this was a response to they way some people in Lewisham greeted the news that the BNP would be standing a Mayoral candidate.

I love sanctimonious posturing personally but it can be an inappropriate response in an area where the BNP will get a derisory vote. Going around telling everyone they are standing and how terrible they are is a tactic that we already know will drive the BNP vote up.

From the very first time the BNP had a councillor elected, on the Isle of Dogs, the tactic to mobilise the anti-fascist vote has acted to both drive up the BNP vote and the anti-fascist vote. It works because it ensures the BNP do not get more votes than the other parties, not because it decreases the far right vote - it simply doesn't.

It can make those who oppose racism and fascism feel like they've done 'something' to go out leafleting informing the entire population that the BNP pose a threat at the election, but the key question is whether doing more work than the fascists to advertise their presence is a worthwhile exercise.

It simply does not make sense in an area where the BNP will be getting perhaps 1% of the vote to employ a tactic that we know will increase the number of people voting for them.

The election is not about the far right and we shouldn't turn it into a battle against the BNP where it is not. Obviously there are a handful of places at this general election where mobilising the anti-fascist vote is the most crucial thing to do, Barking is a case in point. If you're passionate about stopping the Nazis get yourself to one of these areas.

In most areas the idea that running around shitting yourself because some sad tosser has told the papers they'll be representing the master race at the election, come on, get a sense of proportion. Shouting fire when there isn't one cannot be justified simply because fires can be very bad things when they do happen.

Weyman Bennett arrested on anti-fascist demo

Weyman Bennett, the joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), was arrested this weekend in Bolton along with dozens of other anti-Nazi protesters. John Millington reports in the Morning Star that "Around 1,500 UAF members had descended on Bolton to oppose an EDL rally in the city's Victoria Square" where they were confronted by a police force determined to target UAF activists.

The BBC footage shows protesters shouting "shame on you" at the police as they pull demonstrators out of the crowd and at one point seize a dangerous looking Peace flag which they disarm by snapping its pole in the cause of justice and order.

It states that the police made 74 arrests and sent two UAF supporters to hospital with head injuries. Protesters were described by the police as coming with the "sole intention of committing disorder", which for anyone who knows the UAF is simply not credible.

The English Defence League (EDL) had organised an anti-Islam rally in Bolton with the sole intention of inflaming tensions between our communities. The anti-fascist protesters were absolutely right to ensure that they could not get away with this, even though they understood that the police and the far-right would be less than welcoming.

However, that does not excuse the behaviour of the police who, as this picture from the Daily Mail shows, like to choke young people who don't fancy seeing their fellow citizens scapegoated.


The Mail is surprisingly very supportive of the UAF who interviewed "Second World War veteran Bertie Lois, 89, who lives in Farnworth, Bolton, protested with the UAF. He said: 'I fought the Second World War against these Nazis. What did I fight for if we let them [march]? The EDL are the enemy. I would say to them 'you are the guys we fought for, what are you doing?'"

That question could equally be applied to the police. We can at least hope that the war veteran that the police knocked over (footage here) was alright.

A few other places not already mentioned: Dave Osler, Rivers Stream, Mancunian Green, Ian Bone, Permanent Revolution... Expose the BNP, Counter-fire, Third Estate, feel free to let me know of others I should know about.

Not boycotting those who will not boycott

From time to time little blog spats take place which become heated, personalised disagreements of no interest to anyone outside the blogosphere. I have to say these are the one aspect of the blogging that I have absolutely no time for, and absolutely no interest in. They are tedious in the extreme and only appear political because it is political people who indulge in them. Just this once I'm going to mention one, just to make it clear why I'm not getting involved.

Iain Dale, who is a Tory blogger of some renown, is heavily involved in Total Politics, a magazine that goes out to all sorts of political types. Iain has recently interviewed BNP leader Nick Griffin for the magazine. This gives Griffin a platform and presents him the opportunity to pose as a respectable politician.

This is a bad thing and I wish Iain and Total Politics had not done this, in my view they are playing a dangerous game. However, almost every news source I use has interviewed Griffin and his BNP henchmen at some point so Total Politics is hardly forging new ground here.

However, over at Though Cowards Flinch, they decided this was too much to bear and issued a call for every political blogger to boycott the Total Politics blog awards because the magazine carried the interview. They explicitly do not a call for a boycott of the Guardian, or the BBC or Channel Four News, who have all interviewed Griffin, but target Total Politics because it's small enough to push around and Dale is a Tory.

That's not good enough.

AVPS points out that the boycott achieves the reverse of it's intention; "By advocating action against TP, the TCF comrades have ensured Iain's interview will receive wider circulation than would otherwise be the case. Inadvertently, calling for no platform in this case means Griffin gets a broader platform."

That, in fact, those who issued the call are more interested in emphasising their political differences with a Tory than they are in minimising the amount of publicity the fascists receive. They have ensured that this interview, that they say they wish never happened, is read far more widely than if they had never mentioned it. The success of the boycott call will be judged by how much harm it does a Tory blogger even as it helps the BNP get its message out which, in reality, is a side issue to the call - which is a big part of why I don't trust this initiative.

I don't believe Iain was right to conduct and publish this interview but I've never before heard that it is a principle to no platform or boycott people who don't believe in no platform - I think the idea has always been to try to persuade them they are wrong, something this boycott is not going to do, in fact it will entrench those who oppose no platform in their position.

Blog wars of this kind have nothing to do with real politics even when they work, which this one doesn't. I love Liberal Conspiracy, for example, but its personalised attacks on Iain Dale come across as puerile and tribal, something that I have no interest in and always makes me think less of what is, more generally, an excellent site.

I wont be taking part in the call for boycotting Total Politics. Nor will I be mistaking the fact that I despise Tory ideas for the need to despise individual Tories. The few times I've met Iain Dale I've rather liked him and don't feel the least bit bad about it, I just don't want him running the country is all.

Inventing new principles that we have to boycott people who don't agree with no platform for fascists risks weakening the no platform principle itself. No platform relies upon the idea that we specifically deny a platform to fascists, and only fascists, because of the threat they pose to democratic politics. We do not boycott people because they don't agree with us, at least grown ups don't.

Protests of different kinds

Phil has an important report of the protests against English Defence League in Stoke today which, sadly, is one of the sharp edges of the fight against racism in Britain today. The upside is that the far right seems hopelessly split in the city.

Another kind of protest is Billy Bragg's ongoing campaign against the bonuses for Royal Bank of Scotland's executives. Bragg links the bail-out of the banks with the government's refusal to hold them accountable for their actions, particularly in the light that our money is now going towards these extreme pay offs they have elected to pay themselves.

Another protest, this one in Brussels, has taken things even further. Striking firefighters have taken their views direct to the government and, to spice up the day and ensure they were heard they decided to bring along their equipment.

That meant lighting fires (and responsibly putting them out again), spraying the cops with thick foam and assaulting government buildings with their hoses. Glad to see they were having fun!

London Greens advise against contesting Barking

Just got back from the London Federation of Green Parties meeting where we voted to advise Barking and Dagenham Greens not to stand a candidate at the coming General Election and focus their efforts on their local election candidates.

The background to this is that Barking is the only constituency in the country where the British National Party are strong enough to have a fighting chance of winning a seat (although it is certainly not the most likely outcome) and that we have to assess the effects that standing a paper candidate would have on the result.

I'm certainly not of the view that the sky would fall in if Griffin were elected but I am glad that the London Green Party is taking the prospect seriously and has given the matter some serious thought and discussion.

I'm extremely pleased that we voted against a narrow party interest in favour of a more nuanced approach that takes into account the fact that our party in the area is, well, a little on the weak side.

A paper candidate here would be little more than a vanity candidacy and the fact is that we can have our cake and eat it. We can help mobilise voters and give them Greens to vote for in the local elections whilst not risking the outside chance that we could be blamed for 'letting Griffin in'.

Of course, it is still the local party's decision but now London Fed's position is clear it is difficult to see how a very small local party is going to spontaneously find money, candidates and run a democratic selection procedure that would be necessary to stand.

I certainly would not like to see the position where Griffin were elected (which would be bad enough) but for him to win by a margin of 1% where we'd collected 2%. Whether or not we would have been 'responsible' for his victory we would be blamed for it and the damage to our reputation nationally would far outweigh the minuscule gains we might make by standing a paper candidate.

My position might have been different had we a strong party on the ground that could fight its corner and had proven electoral support, but sadly that is not the case here. I think we win the battle of ideas by fighting elections, not just standing in them. A weak and inexperienced party could find itself seriously out of its depth in this constituency and I would not want to see them get hurt.

Pouring resources into a campaign that would make little to no impact makes no sense when those resources could go to the three areas where we may win a seat in Lewisham, Norwich and Brighton.

We can make a genuine contribution to stopping Nasty Nick by standing in the locals, giving people a positive vision and turning out the anti-fascist vote for the parties who have a stronger Parliamentary presence in the constituency. Whatever we do in Barking it will be sideshow compared to the choice most people will be making between the war criminal and the fascist.

Debating climate change with idiots

I see that Peter Cranie was invited to share a sofa with Nick Griffin on North West TV the other night. Quite rightly he turned down the opportunity to give the little fuhrer a cuddle and a kiss whilst he denied that climate change is happening.

Peter explains his reasons eloquently here. Sadly the BBC went ahead with the show and replaced Peter with a hapless Lib Dem (35 and 48 minutes in) who decided raising their profile by debating Nick Griffin was a bit of a lark.

The fact is the climate change debate we need to be having is what are we going to do about it? How do we reduce our emissions? Can we get international agreements? What measures do we need to take to prepare ourselves for climate chaos? What obligation do rich nations have to poor nations who do not have the funds to prepare for a changing climate?

These vital questions are being derailed by a bunch of Flat Earthers who want to question whether anything is happening at all. This discuss was put to bed ten years ago or more. Climate change is not a communist conspiracy to raise taxes but a living reality that we must address.

Giving these people credibility by allowing the debate to be dictated by them is ludicrous. There are sensible people who disagree with greens who are worth debating, of course, but Griffin is someone who seeks to hold us back from action at the very moment that this attitude constitutes criminally irresponsible behaviour.

I'm really proud of Peter for turning down the BBC's offer of air time and I can only hope that at some point the media grows up and starts allowing us to have the debates on climate change that really matter, not the potty bullshit the deniers come out with.

The BNP in words and pictures

I've just watched the BNP TV ad from Barking presented by the chuckle brothers Nick and Dick putting on a display of unity to cover up the fact that Dicky Barnbrook has just taken one for the team and been firmly ejected as Parliamentary candidate by the beastly one.

Not an entirely convincing display of brotherly love, although I did enjoy the moment when Barnbrook said that to win the constituency "we need two simple things". I can't be the only person who thought he was going to follow that up with "and here we are!"

Actually, I wouldn't recommend watching the video if you're of a nervous disposition because the line "We need to flood this constituency with activists to make up for the fact that the Labour Party is flooding us with foreigners" was almost more than even I could take.

Talking of the BNP I saw this photo of the BNP conference in Wigan where they voted to ballot their members on letting non-white join the party. It made me wonder - will they also have a ballot to allow women to join too, or is that a step too far for the master race?

Just a thought, unless they have strictly segregated meetings, I've heard they really admire Sharia law so it could be...

Barking Griffin

So Nick Griffin is to stand in Barking against Margaret Hodge. It's a fair assumption then that they think this is their best bet for a seat.

Two things spring immediately to mind. First, the rather uninspired dullard that is Richard Barnbrook seems to be out in the cold having assumed he was going to have a shot. I hope there are no tensions there boys.

Second, Nick seems to have deserted the North West already. It's almost as if he doesn't give a fuck about the people who just a few months ago elected him to represent them. At least pretend to care Nick.

In theory this is a safe seat for Labour, but then they are always the most dangerous ones because all too often these constituencies have been taken for granted. The previous results were as follows;

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Margaret Hodge	13,826	47.8	-13.1
	Conservative	Keith Prince	4,943	17.1	-5.9
	BNP	Richard Barnbrook	4,916	16.9	+10.6
	Liberal Democrat	Toby Wickenden	3,211	11.1	+1.3
	UKIP	Terry Jones	803	2.8	+2.8
	Green	Laurie Cleeland	618	2.1	+2.1
	Independent	Demetrious Panton	530	1.8	+1.8
	Workers' Revolutionary	Mick Saxby	59	0.2	+0.2

The BNP will have to double their vote and more to win this seat by the looks of things, it's a long shot which Ladbrookes is giving 9/2. Of course, that's not factoring in the sterling work that Mick Saxby will have put into the constituency in the meantime building the revolution.

One question that I've been pondering and now seems like a good time to ask it... should the Greens stand here? It's extremely unlikely that we'd make the difference between Hodge and the Uber Grupen Fuhrer's rise to power, but it would be an added discomfort if the BNP won by 1% and we'd collected 2% of the vote.

Countering racism as well as the racists

I went to an extremely interesting Socialist Resistance meeting last night on the rise of the far right (write up). One of the reasons I like this bunch is that the standard of political discussion is extremely high and they have the knack of being able to openly disagree with each other without turning every issue into a crossing of the Rubicon.

There are a number of crucial debates taking place at the moment over how we deal with the far right. For example, tactical discussions on the utility of no platform, the need to mobilise counter demonstrations against the English Defence League (EDL) and how we deal with the fact that more than a million people voted for the BNP in the European elections.

Now, I think that if fascists are organising an 'anti-mosque' march in your area the number one short term priority is to make sure anti-racists turn up in larger numbers and directly confront the bone heads. I'm also completely opposed to inviting the BNP, or other far right ideologues, onto political platforms to debate their ideas. These people are building a movement to send me to a gas chamber and I'm opposed to giving them a leg up.

That said I'm concerned that the debate can sometimes get boiled down to these counter measures, because they are part of the left's 'comfort zone', when they are only a small part of the fight against the far right.

You can't defeat the BNP through counter marches because they rarely march, that's not how they've accumulated their record support. Likewise, no platform was the mainstream consensus when the BNP won their first MEPs, we should maintain it in my view, but those Euro-seats were won without the assistance of Question Time and the show is not make or break in terms of the fact that the BNP have managed to achieve mass support for the first time in history.

All the evidence points to the British National Party being a disorganised bunch of inarticulate muppets who have an anatomy problem - they don't know their arse from their elbow. They do not garner votes through the force of their arguments or the genius of their street mobilisations but because they are the focus of pre-existing bigotries and anger.

The tactical questions of countering the EDL physically or shoring up the confidence of those who can deny the BNP electoral platforms must not be allowed to obscure the fact that the BNP have grown out of a sewer, and it is no use spending time combating specific racist organisations without also recognising that racism, homophobia, and all the rest of it are social problems that exist independently of far right organisations.

UAF, Hope not Hate and independent local groupings do tremendous work which we should all support where we can, but we shouldn't confine ourselves to their sensibly limited menus. We have to do what we can to undermine racist ideas, Islamophobia, climate change denial. It's not enough for people like Jack Straw to take up a posture of hatred for the BNP while parroting their anti-immigration agenda in the hope that it will undermine their vote.

We've seen recently that homophobia is still alive and well, it wasn't created by BNP goons and our work to tackle it is just as important. It would be very easy to get distracted by mobilising against right wing football hooligans and for the focus to drift away from the bigger picture. These set piece battles are not enough.

Professor Griffin speaks

Hands up who knew that the British actually evolved separately from the rest of the humanity? In fact it turns out that the Brits have been keeping themselves to themselves on the British Isles subsisting on an unchanged diet of shepherd's pie and smokey bacon crisps for many thousands of years.

Due to problems at the passport office no-one had been allowed to leave or enter these shores for all that time. Of course, the combined ultra-leftist institutions of the BBC, Women's Institute and the RSPCA have conspired to keep this information from us, inventing such events as the Roman occupation, the British Empire and the 'fact' that we once were not an island.

It's well known that during the last ice age the bulldog spirit meant the approaching glaciers were greeted with a shrug whilst darkly muttering "This will bring the house prices down". We all know migration is unpatriotic even when faced with a wall of ice. They think we'll accept anything. The next you know they'll be claiming the KKK isn't just a little club dedicated to basket weaving and the occasional day trip to Bognor.

Of course Professor Griffin's remarks have not been met with universal acclaim. First of all there is the complaint that this was no normal Question Time. Very true, normally the panelists and audience gang up on the Labour Minister who received a welcome break from harassment in this edition.

Secondly there are those who thought Griffin was not nearly obnoxious enough. Even his own deputy, Lee Barnes, has expressed concern that the BNP's trademark belligerent mendacity had been supplanted by an abstemious reluctance to air immoderate illiberality. Or words to that effect. For Barnes, the appearance was meant to spark riots that never came.

The flip side to this were those BNP activists who thought Griffin's back catalogue of bigotry and idiocy was not a strength but a barrier to creating a renewing force among fascists. Doubts have been raised about Griffin's ability to act as a national front man for the BNP whilst also being a bag carrier for fascism past. It reminds me of fans of long running bands who are split between those who want stuff from the recent chart topping album, the only one they know, to those who just want to hear the old favourites, no matter how unpopular.

"Give us the one about the Holocaust that never happened" one section of the crowd cries, met with shouts of "hug the Jews Nick, hug the Jews!" No wonder he looked confused, this was a crowd he was never going to please. He can't even get the Daily Mail on side, I mean how bigoted do you actually have to be for these people?

UKIP and BNP sitting in a tree...

It's not been picked up in the news but yesterday in the European Parliament we had the rather distasteful sight of UKIP and the BNP representatives united together to attack the idea of tackling climate change.

Nick Griffin (BNP) described the whole thing as 'an elite scam' and then Godfrey Bloom (UKIP) backed him up saying 'the whole thing is a sham... a bogus hypothesis'. You can watch the edited highlights here.

As Will Straw says;

"The BNP claim on their website to be, “this nation’s only true Green party which has policies that will actually save the environment.”And while consistency was never their strong point (see, for example, this picture of Griffin standing in front a No. 303 Polish Squadron spitfire), their own environment policy appears to contradict Griffin’s views on renewables: "A BNP government will… develop renewable energy sources such as off-shore wind farms, wave, tidal and solar energy.”

Congratulations to Tory MEP Sajjad Karim for responding with;

"These two parties crave acceptance into the political mainstream, but their cloud cuckoo land views are repeatedly being exposed. I would like to think that after such ridiculous views have been aired in such a public environment that the public will see through their carefully crafted public image and consign them to the looney fringes where they belong."

I hope that's not my bit of the looney fringe, I've only just made it comfortable.

(h/t Ellee and Will Straw)

Confused and frightened BNP

This is a great little report from ITN that I spotted at LibCon over the escalating row between the heads of the army and heads of the master race, our would be uber-mensch, the BNP.

My favourite bit is where Col. Tim Collins describes the fascists as "confused and frightened" lashing out on issues that they "clearly don't understand". Like naughty, spoiled children.

I'm actually rather disturbed by the new trend of generals intervening in British politics, a trend I hope ends as of now. However even, or perhaps especially, the most harden zealots of the BNP must recognise that when Griffin attacks the armed forces or licks his lips in anticipation at their demise at the hangman's rope he isn't necessarily doing his bit to win the 'patriotic vote'. In fact he comes across as a bit of dick.

Indeed, coming as it does hot on the heels of the BNP deputy making a thinly veiled threat of physical violence against Bonnie Greer, a black woman who has dared to speak out against these neanderthals, they've been doing a good job of exposing themselves as violent meatheads this week.

These sorts of swaggering threats of murder and intimidation are hardly likely to endear the BNP to anything but their core support so they're worth highlighting more widely. I notice that Hope Not Hate has a project to collect together more positive responses to politics that Griffin's sad and confused ideology which may well be worth contributing to. (See here for anti-fascist events this week)

We have ways of letting them talk

As I'm sure most of you know by now the Nazi British National Party (BNP) has been invited to take part in this week's BBC Question Time which has provoked an outpouring of angsting among the political classes.

Firstly, you have those who are for what's called 'No Platform' for Nazis who disapprove that the BNP will be appearing at all. This is a perfectly respectable position and you may wish to attend on the 22nd October when Unite Against Fascism will be protesting against the BBC's decision to play host to these far right goons.

The argument goes that by granting the fascists airtime on the most prestigious BBC political programme we allow them to adopt the veneer of a respectable political party, which they are not.

This is not a question of simply disliking the BNP. I dislike the Tories or UKIP but I've never argued that they should be denied a political platform - the fascists historically have used these opportunities to deny democratic rights to others - sometimes through using legal means and sometimes through plain and simple violence and thuggery. This is not something I want to see introduced into British politics. I explored what this means for free speech more thoroughly last year, here.

The problem with this position is that it tends to require everyone to agree that the BNP should be persona non-gratas. Once there is slippage (and the BBC is a very big bit of slippage) it tends to collapse everyone else's refusal to debate them - which means the most militant anti-fascists either leave it to Tories and liberals to make their arguments for them or they drop no platform - it's not an easy one to answer.

The second set of people who have been actively fretting are those who have, understandably, left aside the question of whether the BNP should appear, which we can do little about, and moved on to new questions. Liberal Conspiracy are concerned that the panel is just too middle class or there is this Telegraph blogger who is concerned about whether he should watch the thing at all.

The panel is now confirmed and aside from BNP fuhrer Nick Griffin we have Sayeeda Warsi, Jack Straw, Chris Huhne and Bonnie Greer. I can't say I'm inspired, but then these are by no means novices either and sadly they may well do a better job of countering the BNP than BBC journalists are at the moment.

Bonnie Greer, the black American playwright, seems to have met with the most internet disdain and I've seen both left and right commentators use the fact that she's not from the UK against her being chosen for the panel. I'm not sure these people have a sense of irony when they want to exclude foreigners from debating against bigotry but I doubt it's useful to pretend that we do not live in a multi-cultural society but rather use it as a strength.

Certainly BNP doesn't like the idea singling Greer out they said "What does the BNP have to do to be invited on to the BBC's Question Time?... Win one million votes and two seats in the European Parliament. What does Bonnie Greer have to do to get on to Question Time? Fabricate black history and be paid for it." Simon Darby, the BNP's deputy chairman, added: "If Bonnie Greer wants to enter the political arena, she's got to realise if you want to play with the big boys then sometimes you're going to get hurt."

Is that a thinly veiled physical threat? It looks more and more like Greer was a good choice and all credit to her for having the courage to appear. she has my support in what will be a nerve wracking experience.

The other thing about the 'fantasy panel' game that some are playing is that there seems to be a consensus that it's muscular politics that are in order, delivered by big men. I'm a fan of Darcus Howe, for instance, but to suggest that he's the perfect person to debate Griffin is odd. For me it summons up a vision of distressed yaks bellowing at each other across the plains - who's going to win that kind of debate? Not us.

If we're going to play this game, and it is interesting if not useful, then why try to counter the BNP at their strongest points when we should be looking to attack their weaknesses? A quiet, softly spoken woman who makes rational and informed points is precisely the sort of person the BNP will have the most difficulty dealing with.

I'd far rather see an excessively camp and witty opponent rip Griffin to pieces than some old warhorse whose culpability in devaluing the current political establishment is matched only by their inability to think beyond the myths of the 'white working class'.

In judo people learn to use their opponent's strengths against them - let the BNP's belligerence and unthinking populism (otherwise known as bullshit) work against them by exposing it in a personable and lighter fashion not mirroring it.

We need to step back and assess what's at stake over the Question Time debacle. The answer to any sane person has to be... almost nothing. The sky is not going to fall in, the brown shirts wont suddenly have a street army to drag away the gays, Jews and trade unionists just yet. Griffin is not a master hypnotist and we should not jump at his shadow, but I do want to see him humiliated if possible.

If you think about how much time politicians of the main parties spend in convincing the electorate they can win in any particular election it's an irony that the BNP's opposition spend a great deal of time trying to convince everyone that every vote for the BNP could make a fundamental difference... exactly what any political party wants the electorate to believe in other words.

They are not the master race they are very stupid little boys. Let's stop helping them by telling everyone what a credible threat they are when, in the vast majority of areas in the country, they just aren't even on the radar.

I'd rather we started being a little bit more subtle when it comes to this side of anti-fascist propaganda. Politics has never been at its most effective when conducted on the level of a shouting match. Demonstrations and the like will always have their place in the essential armoury of those who oppose fascism, but it does not mean we need to regard the BNP as anything more than the sad and pathetic arseholes.

Fine for man who leaked BNP members details

The man who leaked the BNP 'members' database on to the internet has been given a £200 fine plus order to pay an extra £100 costs after being found guilty in a magistrates court.

The judge made some interesting remarks in his summing up including this choice little phrase; "there may be some members in this organisation who do not deserve to be protected by the law".

And this pearl of wisdom; "It comes as no surprise to me that somebody to do with an organisation that prides itself on Britishness is in fact living off the British people on Job Seeker's Allowance".

I'm not sure I'm impressed with either of the judge's remarks frankly.

It's a strange end to a strange case. Certainly the list was not an accurate list of BNP members which included names and addresses of at least one anti-fascist signed up to their mailing list to monitor them (and who had never joined) and other details of people who had done no more than signed a petition.

I'm sure we'll see many such ho-haas and shenanigans over the next few years as it is clear that the BNP is not a happy place to be despite winning their first MEPs earlier this year. Certainly if the master race exists it certainly has not found it's way into the BNP leadership, but whilst there is racist dung in the wider society from which they can grow the BNP will still be a problem.