The Black Hand
Unclean
I did not promote it, I put information in public domain where it should be. Your opinion here appears to be the residue of a by gone age of party purity.
Griffin and BNP strategy
- Thread starter durruti02
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I did not promote it, I put information in public domain where it should be. Your opinion here appears to be the residue of a by gone age of party purity.
The Black Hand
Unclean
There is some logic to this. A high voter turnout increases the numbers the BNP has to turn out to get those seats. Also in terms of class formation it makes sense to have strong anti fascist communities does it not?
Perhaps you or other ultra leftists can mobile in those 3 wards in Canning town then Jim, it is not after all much left to do...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The Black Hand
Unclean
I did say 'some logic' to this. I am not one of them remember.
audiotech
wav, aiff, mp3, ogg, flac
Not entirely, I've heard of examples (well one so far) where hundreds of local people themselves have come out to oppose the BNP.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence - I don't know how easy it is 'prove' - that much of the BNP's recent (ie over the last decade) electoral support comes from disaffected labour voters in traditionally white working class areas (viz barking & dagenham and thurrock in the SE, and that's probably the case in the North,too). Given the BNP's concentration on 'community issues' like housing and anti-social behaviour, isn't too simplistic to argue that the BNP vote is just a racist vote?
Seems to me that the best way to counter this is to engage disillusioned ex-labour voters in these wards in a struggle for improved conditions on a cross-ethnic basis, hence both undermining the racist logic of the BNP AND the social policy of the mainstream parties which has created the conditions for BNP growth. I guess it's easier said than done if there are no local movements to put this into operation, but surely it's better to argue for this strategy than for anti-fascists to associate themselves with all-party, top-down alliances which only serve to reinforce in the minds of abandoned working class communities that the Left is just as out-of-touch with their concerns as New Labour is, which then simply encourages protesting voting for the BNP?
Seems to me that the best way to counter this is to engage disillusioned ex-labour voters in these wards in a struggle for improved conditions on a cross-ethnic basis, hence both undermining the racist logic of the BNP AND the social policy of the mainstream parties which has created the conditions for BNP growth. I guess it's easier said than done if there are no local movements to put this into operation, but surely it's better to argue for this strategy than for anti-fascists to associate themselves with all-party, top-down alliances which only serve to reinforce in the minds of abandoned working class communities that the Left is just as out-of-touch with their concerns as New Labour is, which then simply encourages protesting voting for the BNP?
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Precisely. What is so sickening is that the undeniable logic of your argument has been ignored by so called anti-fascists since the mid-90's at least. 'Ultra-left' is the slander for those who endorse it these days.
KeyboardJockey
Clowns to the Left of me
Common sense answer there. I've been saying for years that some of the actions of 'leftists' are part of the problem and that the sort of left alliances are being seen as anti working class.
The Black Hand
Unclean
You are talking about some anti fascists joe, not all. See the article on Autonomous Anti fascism which does not have this line, here in MAYDAY magazine;
http://platypus1917.home.comcast.net/~platypus1917/mayday_uk_issue1_win2007-08.pdf
Infact it doesn't take your ultra left line, or Searchlights. Rather it is the space between the 2 which is seen as the area of growth.
begs the Q that if exactly those areas that are experiencing BNP growth are those same areas that have no - or at least very few/effective - anti-fascist activists, how do we engage with those communities where "we are needed most"?
Parachuting in, as it were, on away-days, is equally likely to be met with justifiable mistrust from working class communities as those Leftists who turn up, piss everybody off with moralising leaflets, and then fuck off back home.
I used to live in Newham and spent some time working with the ANL there - in Beckton and Canning Town - during local elections when the BNP were standing. We were hardly met with open arms, despite the fact most of us only lived just t'other side of the A13. Thing is, even then, I understood completely why we were treated with some derision: we didn't live there, didn't drink in the same pubs, etc, and you can hardly do justice to your arguments within the confines of an A5 leaflet - however sound the text (and I'm not suggesting that the ANL leaflets were particularly sound!) - if you aren't around day-to-day, shoulder-to-shoulder, living and breathing the problems of those communities.
(One of the reasons, incidentally, why I grew disillusioned with the ANL.)
Anyway, any suggestions, short of anti-fascists trying to get housed in these areas (which in any case, at best, sounds like the tactics used by middle-class Leftists in the 70's who, when they had finished their university studies in sociology, went to work in factories alongside the heroic proletariat...)?
Parachuting in, as it were, on away-days, is equally likely to be met with justifiable mistrust from working class communities as those Leftists who turn up, piss everybody off with moralising leaflets, and then fuck off back home.
I used to live in Newham and spent some time working with the ANL there - in Beckton and Canning Town - during local elections when the BNP were standing. We were hardly met with open arms, despite the fact most of us only lived just t'other side of the A13. Thing is, even then, I understood completely why we were treated with some derision: we didn't live there, didn't drink in the same pubs, etc, and you can hardly do justice to your arguments within the confines of an A5 leaflet - however sound the text (and I'm not suggesting that the ANL leaflets were particularly sound!) - if you aren't around day-to-day, shoulder-to-shoulder, living and breathing the problems of those communities.
(One of the reasons, incidentally, why I grew disillusioned with the ANL.)
Anyway, any suggestions, short of anti-fascists trying to get housed in these areas (which in any case, at best, sounds like the tactics used by middle-class Leftists in the 70's who, when they had finished their university studies in sociology, went to work in factories alongside the heroic proletariat...)?
The Black Hand
Unclean
Hi - I have looked on the Rugby website here; http://www.rugby.gov.uk/site/scripts/documents.php?categoryID=524
And can find no trace of the election you mention.
The Black Hand
Unclean
The Middlesborough one is here;
http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/ccm...ernment-and-democracy/elections/by-elections/
http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/ccm...ernment-and-democracy/elections/by-elections/
The Black Hand
Unclean
2 Middlesborough seats up for grabs, here's one set of details.
Gresham.
BNP candidate: TOWERS, Barry Graham 71 Clive Road, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough, TS5 6BQ
British National Party - nominated by Horton Malcolm
The Black Hand
Unclean
Another;
Marton West
BNP candidate - BROUGHTON, Kevin, 89 Hollowfield, Coulby Newham,
Middlesbrough, TS8 0RS
British National Party candidate nominated by Hartley Gabrielle - now there's a toffs name if there ever was one.
Marton West
BNP candidate - BROUGHTON, Kevin, 89 Hollowfield, Coulby Newham,
Middlesbrough, TS8 0RS
British National Party candidate nominated by Hartley Gabrielle - now there's a toffs name if there ever was one.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Just to back this up, there used to be a table of the BNPs gains over the last 4 or 5 years on the searchlight ran 'stop the bnp' site. Normal chart, candidate on left, followed by vote, %, turnout etc - and on the right end the party they had won the seat from - just about everyone of them read labour. (I don't know if this is why they removed the table after getting back in bed wirth labour and the unions)
cockneyrebel
New Member
I agree with what you're saying geoff, but would add that I find it hard to believe that anyone would vote BNP if they were anti-racist or black or Asian (apart from a handful of nutters). But agree that the reasons for the increase in the BNPs vote are along the lines of what you've said.
But the problem is that while people bang on and on about an ever dwindling and irrelevant left (who aren't doing in any harm in most places because they just don't exist), they don't move beyond that obsession and suggest a positive alternative.
Posters on here are content to moan on about what the far left are doing (like it matters) but never suggest a coherent alternative that is working. The most you get is IWCA supporters who seem totally unable to use this model in their own area.
But the problem is that while people bang on and on about an ever dwindling and irrelevant left (who aren't doing in any harm in most places because they just don't exist), they don't move beyond that obsession and suggest a positive alternative.
Posters on here are content to moan on about what the far left are doing (like it matters) but never suggest a coherent alternative that is working. The most you get is IWCA supporters who seem totally unable to use this model in their own area.
The Black Hand
Unclean
Well done Apron.
Louis MacNeice
Autumn Journalist
Not quite fair re. Oxford, Islington and Hackney Independent.
Cheers - Louis MacNeice
apart from Islington South, though, (which I could conceive the BNP trying their arm in, if it weren't for the presence of IWCA) is it the case that the BNP are going to stand in any of these areas to be able to test the IWCA model? I don't know about Oxford, but the BNP are very unlikely to stand candidates in Hackney, even in Hoxton now where the far right used to be very strong.
Ideally, we need to put this method into practice in barking, newham south, bradford etc, but of course the IWCA, or anything like it, doesn't exist here.
There was an IWCA group in Harold Hill. That looks like an area that might bear fruit for the BNP. Anyone know what's happening there?
(NB I'm assuming that typical BNP heartland is a predominantly white area with small pockets of ethnic minorities within or large ethnic minority areas nearby. So Harold Hill makes sense for them, but not Hackney. Even without the presence of Hackney Independent - which seems to operate in the South of Hackney - I can't see the BNP trying their luck there.)
Ideally, we need to put this method into practice in barking, newham south, bradford etc, but of course the IWCA, or anything like it, doesn't exist here.
There was an IWCA group in Harold Hill. That looks like an area that might bear fruit for the BNP. Anyone know what's happening there?
(NB I'm assuming that typical BNP heartland is a predominantly white area with small pockets of ethnic minorities within or large ethnic minority areas nearby. So Harold Hill makes sense for them, but not Hackney. Even without the presence of Hackney Independent - which seems to operate in the South of Hackney - I can't see the BNP trying their luck there.)
hi geoff .. the harold hill example is very relevent .. classic bnp potential .. massive iwca vote initially then the collapse of the group due to family reasons as i understand and bnp have waltzed in .. it needs repeated .. the bnp fill voids .. shouting at them does no good .. we need to fill those voids before them
and without an iwca in south islington and HI in hoxton/haggerston it is inconceivable the bnp would not have had a go even just with paper candidates .. there is no question about this, though demographics and white flight do make a differrence .. in the past they stood almost to make trouble .. now they stand where they think they can win
cockneyrebel
New Member
I was talking about IWCA supporters on here who don't seem to be able to get anything off the ground in their areas. The fact is that people drone on about the far left but don't seem to be able to get anything substantial off the ground. And even where there have been successes they have been very isolated and limited.
People can give all the reasons they like about why it hasn't worked, but at the end of the day the above is the case like it or not. Why aren't IWCA supporters able to build that method in other parts of the country or find others to support that model?
But what's more strange is the amount of time that people on here spend moaning on about the far left when why don't they just get on with building what they see as a positive alternative and ignore the far left.
Agreed, but noone here has yet offered a means for anti-fascists to achieve this. if we don't have an 'organic' presence in these communities how do we take the fight to them without (and apologies for repeating myself) being perceived as outsiders who can be dismissed on those grounds irrespective of the strength of the argument?
Joe Reilly, Butchersapron, Durutti and others, you seem to agree with what i have been arguing, what's your take on this? Do we all get together and 'parachute' into Canning Town (for eg) with leaflets? Or what?
The Black Hand
Unclean
I would do it more subtley tbh. A gig here one week, a gig there the next week, and so on, initially non confrontational easy to establish events. Make the contacts, try and establish a dynamic eg. a poster campaign on a solid class issue. Then add the more overt politics as if you mean business...
hi geoff .. i half agree .. while there is clearly grounds for arguing it is imperative to stop the bnp getting seats ( momentum/rise in race attacks etc though i hear race attacks have gone DOWN in BnD rcently .. i have NOT checked this though) we have the dilema ..
clearly the more working class groups like IWCA HI and w/c @'s could put together a leafleat and campaign that would undercut the bnp to a certain extent, WITHOUT calling for a vote for LabLibCon etc, in, e.g canning town, or BnD, BUT it would be parachuting in and short termism .. it would not help resolve any of the underlying reasons why people are turning to the bnp
for me there is NO alternative to slow work where we live ( and hard anti capitalist/anti status quo propagandising too at a higher level ) .. we can NOT at this stage affect the bnp vote e.g in the GLA .. they have already leafletted most of outer east london and i suspect have their 5% across london .. the people who will vote for them will only be reached in the long term by the creation of a genunine w/c alt .. one that imho only groups like the IWCA HI and the w/c @ communitry organisers are approaching
Agree with you in the long run, and is sad that every effort to the left unity needed to provide a political alternative to the the BNP seems to have been variously stillborn, divided, subverted, or falls apart at the first opportunity.
In the absence of this alternative, or anything looking like it on the horizon, its down to No Platform as the only tactic on offer to stop them.
I think nothing short of the BNP Getting elected to the GLA will wake people up to the urgency of the need to unite, and form that left alternative.
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