EDL watch

[Citizen66]

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[sunnysidedown]

Can anyone really answer that question? Maybe a polling organisation. I suspect however that you already have the answer because like a lot of posters on here you imagine that the entire 'working class' is basically yourself writ large. Hence your ability to confidently pronounce on their likes and dislikes as if they were a monolithic body.

 

[miktheword]

the anl only resurrected after a series of fascist attacks on swp paper sales, most of which the swp leadership kept from the membership. if memory serves, searchlight published a very hostile editorial about the return of the anl, saying that no need to establish a competitor to afa or words to that effect.

although the resurrection of the ANL had nothing to do really with protection of SWP members from fash attacks. I think Holborrow at the launch said they wanted to get away from the 'politics of the punch up'. They definitely denied attacks on their own members, probably until it was happening so often, it couldn't be denied anymore. (e.g. Fighting Talk mentions Somerset Clarion (?) detailing attacks, and others) However, I did confront Pat Stack at a Marxism and put to him the series of attacks.. he replied, 'if it keeps happening, then yes, something will have to be done.' I'm not aware of them stepping up security on meetings or paper sales with ANL II.. maybe others know different?.. I do seem to recall them being armed with crash barriers from behind which chants of 'police protect the fascists' could be heard

Their motivation, was I think, more to do with the numbers they thought they could attract to their party, obviously they weren't happy at the success a non sectarian AFA was having around '92, Waterloo getting national publicity (their paper said 'anti fascists turned up' as they hadn't called a mobilisation; I'm pretty sure they did try to claim credit for it elsewhere though) plus that series of exposes on documentaries about BNP, Searchlight prompted on C18 and the launch of ARA (Jasper?) at the same time.

As ever with them, building the party meant much more to them than strategy to defeat street fascism in its guise at the time. And probably the same could be said with the winding up of ANL mk I..no more members to be gained.. whereas a bitter NF and BM, were probably turning more violent.

 

[The39thStep]

I went to an AFA public meeting at Manchester town hall the week before the ANL was relaunched. I was still in the SWP at that time and personally had never agreed with the winding down if the ANL in the first place. It was quite clear from that public meeting, well attended btw with what would have been considered to be the sort of audience the SWP should have been relating to, that there was a clear case and a clear demand for an anti fascist movement. I think workers power came out with some sort of open letter to the SWP and a week after as if by magic ANL mark 2 was launched . No doubt in my mind that it was to attract some of AFAs following and head off their their intended audience .

 

[The39thStep]

Not at all. But as smokeandsteam points out, you have to ask the question "what did the intervention achieve?"

It's fine saying that it appeals to oneself on a personal level, but what purchase do such actions have amongst the wider working class itself?

If you're not careful all you end up doing is looking like a bunch of lefty students having a doss (even if that's not actually the case).

On the point of protecting your meetings. It's patently obvious that anti-fascist meetings can (and will) be targeted by the far right on occasion. To not at least have some form of stewarding is short sighted and defies common sense - and that doesn't necessarily mean a gang of big lads on the door who'll intimidate all comers.

Red theatre

 

[Joe Reilly]

Can anyone really answer that question? Maybe a polling organisation. I suspect however that you already have the answer because like a lot of posters on here you imagine that the entire 'working class' is basically yourself writ large. Hence your ability to confidently pronounce on their likes and dislikes as if they were a monolithic body.

It's not a case of thinking the working class in monolithic. One, it is a case of understanding that a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch. And two, when you understand why they feel they way they do, a natural accompaniment is an instinct in regard to what will work to harden those sympathies.
Fresher style jolly japes, where the self -indulgent participants appear to be keeping all the fun to themselves, definitely falls into that category. Simply no need for a polling organisation on that one. Only people who don't get points one and two, and who remain unconvinced by the findings of actual polling organisations would beg to differ.

 

[intersol32]

Can anyone really answer that question? Maybe a polling organisation. I suspect however that you already have the answer because like a lot of posters on here you imagine that the entire 'working class' is basically yourself writ large. Hence your ability to confidently pronounce on their likes and dislikes as if they were a monolithic body.

Interesting, because this kind of self-referential politicking and narrow world view is exactly what I was pointing out in regards to those who pulled off the Farage gaffe.

One thing I do know for certain is that getting your hands dirty in community politics means that you'll get whatever academic lefty assumptions you have challenged (and in many instances changed). I agree it's patently ridiculous to hold onto old 'monolithic' ideologies in the same way it's beginning to be equally daft to think that media focussed flash mob style stunts - or "student japes" as Joe mentioned - will effect the opinions of anyone but an extreme minority.

Sorry to sound like the old hand here, but 20-30 years ago I would've probably been applauding the Farage thing and praising it for all its 'radical comedic value'. But once you've seen it a dozen times and you realize that those you're trying to protect or influence are unmoved by it, or worse consider it distasteful and instead react against it, you have to ask some serious questions.

You mentioned in an earlier comment that this Dan Glass character is a bit of a self-promotionist. How in fucks name does that help anyone?

The whole thing just proves once again that the left in this country is a ghetto. They're mostly bubble dwellers primarily interested in their own smug self congratulatory activities and their own cast of characters that no-one outside some miniscule local politico "scene" has even heard or cares about.

 

[Thunderfist]

One, it is a case of understanding that a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch. And two, when you understand why they feel they way they do, a natural accompaniment is an instinct in regard to what will work to harden those sympathies.
.

This is a non-sequitur - understanding that "a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch" does not grant a natural instinct (psychic insight?) into what will work to 'harden those sympathies'.

I'm struggling to understand why this particular action, (which I wasn't part of or had any hand in organising btw) has aroused such anger and disapproval on here. Clearly more than a few of its critics are in favour of a certain form of community activism, fair enough, but where is the honest appraisal of how that approach works? If the left is a self congratulatory middle class bubble why has it been so hard to break out of it? Surely it can't all be someone else's fault?

Some anti-UKIP and particularly some anti-EDL stuff has been outright snobbery (jibes about dress sense, tattoos, spelling the dole etc etc) and there I'd agree that the target audience is quite likely to react in an extremely negative way. I don't agree that this stunt fits that bill.

 

[intersol32]

This is a non-sequitur - understanding that "a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch" does not grant a natural instinct (psychic insight?) into what will work to 'harden those sympathies'.

I'm struggling to understand why this particular action, (which I wasn't part of or had any hand in organising btw) has aroused such anger and disapproval on here. Clearly more than a few of its critics are in favour of a certain form of community activism, fair enough, but where is the honest appraisal of how that approach works? If the left is a self congratulatory middle class bubble why has it been so hard to break out of it? Surely it can't all be someone else's fault?

Some anti-UKIP and particularly some anti-EDL stuff has been outright snobbery (jibes about dress sense, tattoos, spelling the dole etc etc) and there I'd agree that the target audience is quite likely to react in an extremely negative way. I don't agree that this stunt fits that bill.

In the first instance, we're all aware of the occasional spike or rise in far right activity and sympathy. On this message board alone there are people whose direct experience of this (and dealing with it) goes back over 40 years or more. Why those far right activities have achieved a popular reach, or alternatively decreased, is sometimes complex and can vary over generations. Nevertheless you can also mark out some obvious trends.

I think one thing that comes through in that experience, and I'm not just speaking about my own here, is that working within the community gives you a better insight into exactly how the far-right or left wing message is received (or sometimes acted upon).

It isn't psychic ability. Like I said before; It's a case of being of it, and spending all your time within it that'll provide the better evaluation of what's happening within the working class. It sounds insanely obvious, but if you want to know something then go and ask them! But just be prepared to have your illusions shattered. Lenin and Trotsky didn't necessarily write about the drug problem existent on a Leicester council estate in the year of 2015. Again a few years back we had some Anarcho Solidarity Workers something or other come along to a community meeting. The residents were seriously concerned about rats and other vermin on the estate. When I mentioned this to one of the Anarchos, she said "well, I'm not running around chasing bloody rats" and promptly never came back again!

Balance that with how the BNP one year were helping fix up OAP's guttering and garden fences for free (and subsequently noting how their vote rose in the same area) and you can see how all this has the potential to play out.

The fault lays with the left in general. It's singularly failed to exploit the weakness of the right whenever it had the opportunity, and it's energies have unfortunately been directed inwardly or towards minority 'identity politics'. I suppose it's more comforting that way. As you mentioned about the anti-EDL snobbery and jibes etc, you can dismiss the whole failing as the working class being lumpen prole thugs.

Much more difficult would be actually winning those same people over to your argument and getting them away from the reactionary bullshit of Farage and similar. That's the task.

 

[Joe Reilly]

This is a non-sequitur - understanding that "a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch" does not grant a natural instinct (psychic insight?) into what will work to 'harden those sympathies'.

I'm struggling to understand why this particular action, (which I wasn't part of or had any hand in organising btw) has aroused such anger and disapproval on here. Clearly more than a few of its critics are in favour of a certain form of community activism, fair enough, but where is the honest appraisal of how that approach works? If the left is a self congratulatory middle class bubble why has it been so hard to break out of it? Surely it can't all be someone else's fault?

Some anti-UKIP and particularly some anti-EDL stuff has been outright snobbery (jibes about dress sense, tattoos, spelling the dole etc etc) and there I'd agree that the target audience is quite likely to react in an extremely negative way. I don't agree that this stunt fits that bill.

Do blacks and Jews need a polling group to sniff out prejudice? No? Well, this is no different. After 35 years of being told by both liberals and the neo-liberal right that they're effectively 'inadequate' and their "concerns largely imaginary" (quoting from a post on another thread, here) people from a manual working class background in particular often have a hair trigger antennae for the supercilious social slight.
It rather sounds like this may come of something of a surprise to you, but there need be nothing "outright" about it for them to suss it either.

 

[Thunderfist]

Do blacks and Jews need a polling group to sniff out prejudice? No? Well, this is no different. After 35 years of being told by both liberals and the neo-liberal right that they're effectively 'inadequate' and their "concerns largely imaginary" (quoting from a post on another thread, here) people from a manual working class background in particular often have a hair trigger antennae for the supercilious social slight.
It rather sounds like this may come of something of a surprise to you, but there need be nothing "outright" about it for them to suss it either.

I hate to bang this drum but I have more than a passing acquaintance with a "manual working class background" - it might be that some people have their backs put up easier than others, but I still find it hard to see how a conga line directed at ex-public schoolboy (who made his money in the city) is perceived by the working class as a social slight.

 

[intersol32]

I hate to bang this drum but I have more than a passing acquaintance with a "manual working class background" - it might be that some people have their backs put up easier than others, but I still find it hard to see how a conga line directed at ex-public schoolboy (who made his money in the city) is perceived by the working class as a social slight.

Are you suggesting that Farage appeals only to those from the same background as himself?

Can you address the points I made above and how "a conga line" is effective in representing the true concerns of those in working class communities, other than just providing a few people with a bit of 'light relief' and a slap on the back for a handful of lefties?

It's easier to make someone look a twat on television than it is to provide a coherent and solid political alternative it seems. Especially if you've nothing else to offer.

 

[Casually Red]

This is a non-sequitur - understanding that "a substantial section of the working class is vulnerable to the UKIP pitch" does not grant a natural instinct (psychic insight?) into what will work to 'harden those sympathies'.

I'm struggling to understand why this particular action, (which I wasn't part of or had any hand in organising btw) has aroused such anger and disapproval on here. Clearly more than a few of its critics are in favour of a certain form of community activism, fair enough, but where is the honest appraisal of how that approach works? If the left is a self congratulatory middle class bubble why has it been so hard to break out of it? Surely it can't all be someone else's fault?

Some anti-UKIP and particularly some anti-EDL stuff has been outright snobbery (jibes about dress sense, tattoos, spelling the dole etc etc) and there I'd agree that the target audience is quite likely to react in an extremely negative way. I don't agree that this stunt fits that bill.

Whatever about ones opinion of Farage the fact is he was at that moment a private citizen out for a meal with his family . That should be totally off limits . In that scenario and context ordinary peope...whos hearts and minds are crucial..can identify much more with the human situation of a family spending time together than those who chose to disrupt it with an oddball escapade . That only garners more sympathy for him and creates an even bigger public disconnect with the insular group behind it . Farage is not a fascist no matter how distasteful his views are . He's not engaged in, linked to or calling for physical force past or present . He's a non combatant if you will . His people arent into confrontations of that nature therefore it's totally inappropriate to engage him in a family context as opposed to his political one . Like any citizen he should b e able to spend private time with his family in the capacity of a private citizen without them being surrounded , humiliated and intimidated as a family unit . There's plenty of other contexts and fora in which to challenge him and his politics . Over the Sunday roast with his wife and children isn't one of them IMHO .

In my view that's just plain wrong in a moral sense and therefore counter productive . And creates a scenario where elements on the left are merely playing to their own insular gallery for approval and kudos as opposed to engaging with wider society . Creating an even bigger gulf and disconnect with the average person in the street . And it's precisely within that gulf ..that vacuum..that the positions of Farage and much much worse will and do find traction .

 

[Thunderfist]

Farage is not a fascist no matter how distasteful his views are . He's not engaged in, linked to or calling for physical force past or present . He's a non combatant if you will . His people arent into confrontations of that nature therefore it's totally inappropriate to engage him in a family context as opposed to his political one .

I don't think anyone is arguing that Farage is a fascist - in fact that's why a strategy designed to defeat the BNP isn't necessarily going to work against UKIP. He represents the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party and is a long way from the BNPs Strasserite tendencies. I agree that street anti-fascism is not appropriate fro dealing with UKIP and I think you would have had a point if a bunch of masked up 'antifa' had rushed in and punched him.

However Farage has regularly politicised his presence in pubs, inviting the media to watch him sup bitter and present himself as as a saloon bar everyman. That I would argue makes it appropriate to engage him in a light hearted stunt there.

Again I ask - what of your poltical alternative, where is it, how's it going and where can I read a bit more about it?

 

[Fozzie Bear]

I don't think anyone is arguing that Farage is a fascist - in fact that's why a strategy designed to defeat the BNP isn't necessarily going to work against UKIP. He represents the Eurosceptic wing of the Tory party and is a long way from the BNPs Strasserite tendencies. I agree that street anti-fascism is not appropriate fro dealing with UKIP and I think you would have had a point if a bunch of masked up 'antifa' had rushed in and punched him.

However Farage has regularly politicised his presence in pubs, inviting the media to watch him sup bitter and present himself as as a saloon bar everyman. That I would argue makes it appropriate to engage him in a light hearted stunt there.

Again I ask - what of your poltical alternative, where is it, how's it going and where can I read a bit more about it?

A bunch of masked up antifa hasn't been an appropriate way to deal with the BNP this century.

I think there is a clear difference to Farage going to a pub when on the campaign trail, accompanied by the press and other party members and having lunch in a pub with his family.

My political alternative is whining on the internet, failing to recruit people to my union at work and failing to do very much pro-working class community politics.

 

[Joe Reilly]

I went to an AFA public meeting at Manchester town hall the week before the ANL was relaunched. I was still in the SWP at that time and personally had never agreed with the winding down if the ANL in the first place. It was quite clear from that public meeting, well attended btw with what would have been considered to be the sort of audience the SWP should have been relating to, that there was a clear case and a clear demand for an anti fascist movement. I think workers power came out with some sort of open letter to the SWP and a week after as if by magic ANL mark 2 was launched . No doubt in my mind that it was to attract some of AFAs following and head off their their intended audience .

In the November 1991 AFA led 4,000 strong march through Bethnal Green. Two months later the ANL was re-launched. I would suggest the events were connected.

 

[The39thStep]

In the November 1991 AFA led 4,000 strong march through Bethnal Green. Two months later the ANL was re-launched. I would suggest the events were connected.

I think it was two factors , first the attacks on the paper sales which were never discussed openly in the branches and secondly that AFA was attracting precisely the sort of people who we had initially recruited around Lewisham and ANL mark one.For an organisation which had to some extent earnt a reputation as being at the forefront of anti fascism we were being outflanked.The problem was that ANL Mark 2 was toothless , much of the branch leadership emphasising no 'squadism' and tied to not upsetting its backers. So much so that in mobilising for a demo against far right meeting in a hotel in Manchester even Bamberry had to come up to the Manchester branches to nudge the local leadership into some form of at least verbal physical force anti fascism activity to try and gain some local credibility.

 

[miktheword]

I went to an AFA public meeting at Manchester town hall the week before the ANL was relaunched. I was still in the SWP at that time and personally had never agreed with the winding down if the ANL in the first place. It was quite clear from that public meeting, well attended btw with what would have been considered to be the sort of audience the SWP should have been relating to, that there was a clear case and a clear demand for an anti fascist movement. I think workers power came out with some sort of open letter to the SWP and a week after as if by magic ANL mark 2 was launched . No doubt in my mind that it was to attract some of AFAs following and head off their their intended audience .

I was at a public meeting in a district of Manchester at the same time. ('91?) Only reason I remember it was that Pat H speaking stated that if Joe Public was in here, s/he would have been out the door in a few minutes following the lefty sectarian in fighting from the poorly attended hall.
Obviously, the difference in attendance may have made a difference...it was raining in the summer.. but not unusual for there I believe.

I think it was two factors , first the attacks on the paper sales which were never discussed openly in the branches and secondly that AFA was attracting precisely the sort of people who we had initially recruited around Lewisham and ANL mark one.For an organisation which had to some extent earnt a reputation as being at the forefront of anti fascism we were being outflanked.The problem was that ANL Mark 2 was toothless , much of the branch leadership emphasising no 'squadism'

And isn't this precisely the point. AFA Mk II was always going to be toothless, 'avoiding politics of punch up' at it s launch, as it wasn't after the same sort of membership. The leadership emphasising 'no squaddism' were advocating the same as the leadership who expelled the squaddists in late seventies / early eighties. So if no rumblings, discussion from branches, as you say, from where was the pressure to launch ANL Mk II, in your second factor? I previously stated it was just a numbers game for them, with ARA also bandwagon jumping, documentaries etc. So, I don't get how the leadership were seeing themselves as outflanked by AFA having the type of people who they had previously, and still, viewed as proletarian upstarts, with ideas above their station. Are you saying that after previously expelling those working class elements a decade earlier, they were now looking at recruiting them, as part of their motivation for AFA Mk II?

I may have misunderstood...

 

[The39thStep]

Jim ( W) was the main speaker from AFA with I think Ray Hill? Or I might be getting a bit mixed up. It was well attended though in the main town hall perhaps 250?
From what I remember there were quite a few people there who at one time had been around the SWP orbit or at least as we used to call them in those days contacts. I think I was the only SWP member there and it seemed to me both strange and sad that AFA were seen by the party as persona non gratis. What was clear though was that AFA, and to some extent the appalling ARA, had not surprisingly attracted a periphery precisely because of the SWPs abstention from anti fascist work . Yes it probably was about numbers, and I think part of the logic was to use the ANL brand to launch a more sanitised version without any ' upstarts' to attract that periphery or to stem the flow.

 

[elbows]

I've been wading through the Tower Hamlets election judgement and I thought I'd post the judges synopsis of the EDL.

Usefulness of the EDL

258 All parties agreed – and it is probably a matter on which judicial notice may properly be taken – that the EDL was an overtly racist organisation, particularly hostile to Muslims. It was also agreed that it is an organisation which does not shrink from violence or attempting to provoke violence in others. In Tower Hamlets and indeed, in the UK, political terms it is wholly negligible. As far as can be ascertained, it does not often seek democratic election and, when it does, its level of failure is absolute. Its membership is tiny, though undoubtedly noisy.

The EDL’s modus operandi appears to be that, from time to time, it proposes a march, usually through an area with a large BME, preferably a large Muslim, population. A march by the EDL in Tower Hamlets in September 2013 featured in the evidence. Once the march is proposed, all the political and community organisations in the area normally vie with each other in demanding that the march be banned. If it is not, then, they plan a large counter-demonstration. Pausing there, this is (certainly on the evidence before the court) an opportunity for each group to castigate the supposed half-heartedness of the others and to adopt a ‘more anti-fascist than thou’ posture. The march occurs: the assembled political and community groups stage their counter-protest. Sometimes a few heads get broken. The police and (subsequently) the street cleaners deservedly earn substantial overtime. The dogs bark and the caravan moves on. Everyone congratulates themselves that they have ‘seen off the fascists’.

No apologies are made for this somewhat cynical view of the EDL’s activities, because the uses to which the EDL was put by Mr Rahman and THF were equally cynical. Apart from causing a brouhaha once a year or thereabouts, the power and influence of the EDL is, in somewhere like Tower Hamlets, non-existent.

But the EDL does have its uses. Because it dislikes Mr Rahman – undoubtedly, in the case of the EDL, because he is non-white – the EDL seizes on any criticism of Mr Rahman and repeats it on social media. This enables Mr Rahman and his cohorts to argue as follows: criticisms of Mr Rahman by his political opponents are adopted and repeated by the EDL: the EDL is a racist organisation: therefore anyone who criticises Mr Rahman is giving aid and comfort to the EDL: therefore anyone who gives aid and comfort to the EDL is himself a racist: therefore it is racist to criticise Mr Rahman. This series of propositions informed all the responses of Mr Rahman and his team to criticisms and may be taken to be an epitome of the thought processes of Mr Alibor Choudhury.

Truly, in Tower Hamlets, if the EDL did not exist, like Voltaire’s God, it would be necessary to invent it.

Taken from pages 84-86 of http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/judgment.pdf

 

[cantsin]

Can anyone really answer that question? Maybe a polling organisation. I suspect however that you already have the answer because like a lot of posters on here you imagine that the entire 'working class' is basically yourself writ large. Hence your ability to confidently pronounce on their likes and dislikes as if they were a monolithic body.

Obviously we're all guessing a bit here, all making assumptions, but instinctively, can you really see this kind of activist theatre type intervention vs Farage + family doing anything to put off anyone voting UKIP ? (Apparently) posh studes pulling off those kind of stunts just seems v likely to play straight into UKIP s paper thin ' UKIP vs the elite ' schtick surely ?

 

[Thunderfist]

Obviously we're all guessing a bit here, all making assumptions, but instinctively, can you really see this kind of activist theatre type intervention vs Farage + family doing anything to put off anyone voting UKIP ? (Apparently) posh studes pulling off those kind of stunts just seems v likely to play straight into UKIP s paper thin ' UKIP vs the elite ' schtick surely ?

Are you suggesting that Farage appeals only to those from the same background as himself?

Why do we assume that Farage can transcend his class background but any counter-protestors can't?

 

[Thunderfist]

I've been wading through the Tower Hamlets election judgement

It's gripping reading but pretty overblown in a lot of places , The Pickwick Papers?, Charles Parnell's mistress? and I'm only halfway through!

 

[cantsin]

Why do we assume that Farage can transcend his class background but any counter-protestors can't?

He talks simple " immigrants taking jobs / forcing wages down / all part of mainstream elites EU backed plans" bullshit , the "protestors" message is not nearly so clear / defined , and wrongly or rightly, the air they give off seems to smell of uni drama club .

 

[Thunderfist]

He talks simple " immigrants taking jobs / forcing wages down / all part of mainstream elites EU backed plans" bullshit , the "protestors" message is not nearly so clear / defined , and wrongly or rightly, the air they give off seems to smell of uni drama club .

To be honest I'm just amused by the reaction that this protest provoked on here. Some of us must be a bit closer to the 'uni drama club' than we care to admit.

 

[butchersapron]

No, you're posh but hiding it.

Fucking hell What a wasted two minutes i spent on you.

 

[butchersapron]

And if i hear one more posho saying lad i'm going to...dunno whatever big hard white lads do.

 

[cantsin]

To be honest I'm just amused by the reaction that this protest provoked on here. Some of us must be a bit closer to the 'uni drama club' than we care to admit.

You may be on your own a bit on this one i suspect, no shame in am dram and the like tho, fill yer boots !

( I used to live in the same road in Tufnell Park as Frances de la Tour from Rising Damp for a bit, fine actress in her day, and another Trot Thesp in the WRP -,not sure if her / the Redgraves / Gerry Healy wld have gone along with all this tho , " bourgeois adventurism" possibly.)

 

[Casually Red]

Why do we assume that Farage can transcend his class background but any counter-protestors can't?

Well farage isn't running about doing the conga for starters . Outside of the odd wedding you're highly unlikely to see the working class engaged in that activity .

That type of stunt did absolutely zero to challenge his political message . It did absolutely nothing to counter or address any political position that he advances . It put him in no political difficulty whatsoever , unsurprisingly because he wasnt even engaged in political activity at the time . It challenged absolutely nothing other than his right to sit down and have a private meal with his family unmolested .

It didn't advance any political point , political discussion or refute his utterances and message in any manner . The social background of those behind it , while contributory perhaps to its adoption as a method, is largely irrelevant as regards to its usefulness as a method . It was absolutely useless as it challenged nothing and asserted nothing of any political or social value , regardless of anyones class background . And in fact may have been worse than useless in terms of being counter productive , as well as its unpopularity demonstrating his opposition are out of touch with their supposed core audience . A message he positively thrives on and makes real political capital on when it comes to labour , lib dem and Tory alike . Outfits that have major support . When it comes from left groupuscle that nobody's heard of outside trendy lefty circles it just makes them look like cranks doing what cranks do . For the sake of it with no political relevance to any debate .

Ask yourself who appears to be the normal bloke on the street in such a situation ? Clapton ultra types doing a conga line in a restaurant or a man sitting eating a meal with his family ? Who do ordinary people identify with more in that scenario ? All it proved is a group of people hardly anyone's heard of don't like Nigel farage..for some reason or other that wasn't even remotely gotten across . That does hi no harm whatsoever . The very fact political parties and media appear to loathe him is a major reason why he's hoovering up the votes of the disillusioned .

 

[hocuspocus]

I have read threads for a while, my first post so here goes.

I have been to three EDL demos, as an observer. I talked to both sides, on one side were white males, uneducated, alientated, the poorest of the poor, angry and wanting a direction or purpose to their lives. I talked to a guy who had been in Belmarsh, he was angry needed something to direct it at.

Their main concern was a tunnel vision concern about Islamification, which irrationally overspilled into a dislike and hatred of everything Muslim.

I talked to the other side, mainly public sector workers, teachers, students etc. Their hatred was for the uneducated white males opposite, who I think deep down scared them, as a threat to their class. I probed them with a few questions, asking if concern over large Islamic areas with had no intergration in working class towns was a just concern, I also asked them as a self employed manual worker, if I had a justification in defending my living from people not as skilled who could work at half my rate, for asking such questions I was simply called a racist. In reality if teachers from overseas came in and replaced teachers in UK schools at half the rate of pay they would be up in arms.

My old man was a SOGAT shop steward, all my family were labour. Not any more. I have nothing in common with the new left, not in culture, nor values, nor outlook. By excluding the working class the left only really exists as a shell.

I beliEve racism against any individual is wrong as is sectarianism, But I cant side with those who write ofF poor uneducated white males as scum while seeking to apologise for those who side with ISIS and fight for them.

Its a sad reality, but I found myself more comfotrable in the pub with the edl, for all the faults then being lectured by middle class weekend leftists. The left is dead, it killed itself.