What Now for the BNP?

[past caring]

Sounds more like an article of faith than any real analysis, I'm afraid.

Where - in even relatively recent times - has "a national working class movement with a socialist agenda , linked to an internationalist perspective" begun to "DELIVER a coherent radical reponse to the capitalist crisis"?

More to the point, what evidence is there of the left having even begun the process of critical self-examination that might allow it to come up with some answers to the central question of why it (and socialism) is seen as an irrelevance by the overwhelming majority of its target audience? Perhaps even more to the point, what evidence is there of the kind of honest accounting that might allow the left to recognise that this is how it is seen?

And to address your other point - what evidence is there of the BNP's vote having dropped because of its failure to deliver on a local level? Whilst it may well be the case that it may have eventually run into the buffer that you describe, for that to have happened would surely have required the BNP to have been the controlling party in a local authority. Yes, the BNP's train does seem to have been derailed, but not for the reasons you have described (internal fallouts, much of which were state inspired are the real reasons for its present problems) and certainly not to the extent that its politics have been discredited in the eyes of its former support. And that's the crucial thing.

 

[1%er]

Where - in even relatively recent times - has "a national working class movement with a socialist agenda , linked to an internationalist perspective" begun to "DELIVER a coherent radical reponse to the capitalist crisis"?

It would appear that many countries at this time don't even have control of their own budgets, so little chance of funding any agenda other than that dictated by the market.

 

[past caring]

So that's what's stopped the growth of a viable socialist/left politics on a national scale?

 

[butchersapron]

It would appear that many countries at this time don't even have control of their own budgets, so little chance of funding any agenda other than that dictated by the market.

What predictions?

 

[1%er]

So that's what's stopped the growth of a viable socialist/left politics on a national scale?

No, it means what it says. If governments don't have control of the money they don't have control of the agenda/policy/spending.

 

[past caring]

So a fairly pointless comment, then.

 

[Pickman's model]

"who will campaign?" is a fair question, but there are still some active branches out there. Perhaps BNP voters are less bothered about being campaigned to, but with it being as close as it was last time that wouldn't keep them in. I certainly would caution against any kind of complacency. But as for making it to 2014 and onto the ballot: far smaller operations manage it. All you need is £5k and the paperwork done. I would be very suprised if they didn't muster that up.

the bnp's successes have always been based on their ability to mobilise canvassers - from beackon's victory in 1993 to the 2010 elections in barking, where the bnp vote went up, just not as much as the labour vote. the problem's also been one of supply of credible candidates: for every michael barnbrook there've had 20 tess culnanes. i accept that the far-right vote hasn't gone away because of the party's recent difficulties: but i think that it is unlikely to return to the bnp unless and until they regain the image of a potential winners. right now they look like a bunch of losers and that's likely to stay. when you consider griffin's demands for a modern database system as a precondition for the bnp to be able to take things to a new level, on his own terms they look a bit fucked. there are new nf branches opening up, such as one in essex recently. it's the other far-right parties which are doing better than the bnp at the moment. i don't doubt there will be a rump bnp in 2014: but whether they are in a position to do anything is, i think, extremely unlikely.

it's clear griffin is a busted flush. brons, the only other member of the bnp with any claim to being able, is no spring chicken. the young talent's left, and the action's going to be found in other ranks than those of the bnp.

 

[malatesta32]

spot on pickmans! they have a high turnover of activists, they are hampered by criminal convictions (pornographers, bombers, nazis) and altho the bnp brand is strong they cannot agree or get along enough to stabilise again (the infighting is apalling!) and the other grupuscules are too wee to be effective. griffin is on the way out, he has said so himself -it cant have been easy for him and hes getting old and too rotund { : 0 ( - and as for brons, blech! this is not to underestimate their possible revival but at the moment it aint looking good and hasnt since the last GE and there is no one who can recreate griffins relative success.

 

[Cloud]

They all like fighting too much, almost like an excuse, jesus I even know of some that have the friends they are trying to get rid of. Tbh the nobhead I know is just up for a scrap, likes to take sides, like old days, one in red one in blue and have a right good fight.

 

[1%er]

So a fairly pointless comment, then.

Is it? Governments not having control of their agenda is "fairly pointless" that's an interesting view to hold.

 

[past caring]

We weren't talking about governments. We were talking quite specifically about the extra-parliamentary left and the reasons for the failure of its politics to have any purchase in the working class.

 

[1%er]

Your question was

So that's what's stopped the growth of a viable socialist/left politics on a national scale?

Your question implies there is only one reason and clearly there isn't only one reason.

 

[intersol32]

We weren't talking about governments. We were talking quite specifically about the extra-parliamentary left and the reasons for the failure of its politics to have any purchase in the working class.

Depends what you mean by the 'extra-parliamentary left'. If you're making reference to groups like the SWP etc I think it's already common knowledge.

They ditched the majority of their W/C activists throughout the 80's to concentrate (in their words) on "getting Marxism across to those who frequent the coffee shops and libraries". Which ironically tends to leave them outside the sphere of the majority of the population they claim to speak on behalf of. Which is also why they come across as outsiders when they parachute into areas on the back of things like the UAF. Interestingly Searchlight used to produce a booklet called When Hate Comes to Town, about campaigning against the BNP. I always wondered why no-one ever wrote a similar booklet called When the SWP Comes to Town - seeing as they had an almost equal impact in literally pissing everyone off.

The sad thing is that since those years the left has fundamentally chosen to ignore these mistakes in favour of University/Middle Class recruitment and a fetish for 'lifestyle politics'. They can't relate to the Working Class, and in fact go out of their way to seemingly and intentionally alienate them. Most of these groups have academic leaderships that dictate strategy based on what they think is best for the masses, rather than the other way round.

We have to acknowledge that it took the BNP to show the left the potential that could be gained through slogging away on those rainy council estates and listening to people's problems.

The failure of (many) of the extra-parliamentary left to have any purchase in working class areas is simply because they're useless and shamefully deluded.

 

[Pickman's model]

Depends what you mean by the 'extra-parliamentary left'. If you're making reference to groups like the SWP etc I think it's already common knowledge.

They ditched the majority of their W/C activists throughout the 80's to concentrate (in their words) on "getting Marxism across to those who frequent the coffee shops and libraries". Which ironically tends to leave them outside the sphere of the majority of the population they claim to speak on behalf of. Which is also why they come across as outsiders when they parachute into areas on the back of things like the UAF. Interestingly Searchlight used to produce a booklet called When Hate Comes to Town, about campaigning against the BNP. I always wondered why no-one ever wrote a similar booklet called When the SWP Comes to Town - seeing as they had an almost equal impact in literally pissing everyone off.

The sad thing is that since those years the left has fundamentally chosen to ignore these mistakes in favour of University/Middle Class recruitment and a fetish for 'lifestyle politics'. They can't relate to the Working Class, and in fact go out of their way to seemingly and intentionally alienate them. Most of these groups have academic leaderships that dictate strategy based on what they think is best for the masses, rather than the other way round.

We have to acknowledge that it took the BNP to show the left the potential that could be gained through slogging away on those rainy council estates and listening to people's problems.

The failure of (many) of the extra-parliamentary left to have any purchase in working class areas is simply because they're useless and shamefully deluded.

i'd go a bit further than you and say that the concentration by many left groups - eg swp, awl - on recruiting students also shows the paucity of their support among the middle class. instead they target the vulnerable and isolated fresher, in the hopes of getting a few months work out of them before the student discovers sex and fucks off.

 

[past caring]

Your question implies there is only one reason and clearly there isn't only one reason.

It implies nothing of the sort.

 

[The39thStep]

I of course accept that it was important to demolish the myth that the fascists had been beaten in the 90's, and to point out that the BNP's electoral, "respectable" right populism tack based on local community work was going like a train in terms of growth and influence. I do though think many putting forward this "Filling the vacuum" position, seguing as it did with your own version of "build it local in working class communities" strategy, were very slow to see the BNP strategy falter and fail in a catastrophic mix of infighting and corruption.

Partly I would suggest because, just as "municipal fascism" is a very hard tactic to continue for long before the failure to make a big difference to the lives of ones supporters and voters at local level derails the movement, so , as Militant found in Liverpool in the 80's, a radical movement of Left OR right just can't get enough access to POWER and resources via localist strategies to break the wider political mould - as it needs to do to maintain momentum.

You may see no relevance nowadays in the socialist agenda, but in reality it is ONLY the socialist agenda that has any radical answer to the current world capitalist crisis . Localism based on some sort of concept of "a working class agenda" separate from socialism just aint going to deliver to working class communities I'm afraid. As the Radical Left who gained control of Berlin Council recently discovered, in a capitalist crisis the resources at purely local level are so tight that a local party even of the radical Left , in isolation, ends up having to IMPLEMENT" the very austerity cuts it got elected to oppose. Only a national working class movement with a socialist agenda , linked to an internationalist perspective, can DELIVER a coherent radical reponse to the capitalist crisis - alongside LOCAL organisation too obviously.
"

And the million dollar question is how such a national working class movement can emerge and whether or not it has to be 'socialist' in the cobweb left tradition using the same tired formulas and quotes.. Louis McNeice on here put together some suggestions about how and what such aims and aspirations could be that would make sense in the 21st century rather than 1917.

For those of us who were attracted to the 'socialism from below' agenda such a movement would be precisely based on local working class organisation ( rather than it being 'alongside') otherwise we are into umpteen re runs of socilaist unity type quick fixes, rebuiding the fifth international , book fairs or waiting for the RMT.

Lets face it most of the existing left have never been active in local communities but prefer to go to page seven of 'linking to an international perspectice' . I can remember meting years ago some Trot who had joined the RMT who spent his time with a copy of the Daily Mirror in his pocket handing out articles about Cuba.

I read last year or reread Hobsbawns Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion, and Jazz and there is a marvellous and thoughtful chapter in there about a CP organised village festival in the 50s or 60s which describes just how local workers support for the CP was routed in a tradition of local organising and standing together as part of a working class community and equally just how hard that had been.

 

[The Black Hand]

I can't recall anyone bigging up the BNP. What some of us have argued is that the BNP needed to be taken seriously as a political organisation and not just dismissed a nazis in cheap suits that could be no platformed by 'anti fascists'.

Rather than trying to rebuild a left that has little or no relevance for working class communities I would suggest that building local working class organisation might be a more pressing need.

There's been no end of threads of contradictory quality about the anti fascist issue, here's one of them. http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/analysis-of-bnp-vote-in-b-d.250368/ and another http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/griffin-and-bnp-strategy.134960/page-56#post-4463253
You just are in denial.

As for the left, and anarchist movements, and their relationship with the working class, only nuggets like you try to pose a difference. In reality, a dialectical reality, the working class movement IS the left and anarchists, and the left/anarchists are the working class movement, of course, you can argue indefinately about respective levels of leadership and influence and so on, but some of us would rather do it than argue ad infinitum on u75

 

[The Black Hand]

Whatever happens to the BNP, they've created a pool of about a million people, most of them working class, who are prepared to vote for an overtly racist party.

You, meanwhile, will continue to hold your meetings in phone booths, and the opposition you speak of is entirely imaginary.

Letsa, you're full of shite, you don't let reality get in the way of your inane windbag shite.

Our meetings are far from in 'phone booths', you are just projecting your own lack of numbers and credibility onto us. Whereas we do things LARGE

As you will see as the year unfolds, I'm quite confident of providing a leadership of ideas and practice in our wide area across the North East from inside the actually existing working class movement and beyond for this period. We (the various groups and organisations I am involved with) have been and we will be doing a combination of theory, practice, agitation, propaganda and action. TINA.

The opposition you try to argue out of existence is part of the tradition so ably described by EP Thompson, it IS the average and not so average union member, it is the 10K people who attended the march through Newcastle, it is the 100000 who attend the Durham Miners Gala, etc and there are working class organisations containing political differences. You just don't try to work with people who think differently to you, infact, I'm not convinced you do anything. xx

 

[The Black Hand]

Sad though it is, this guy knows how it is.

No, he doesn't. That vein of critique was still born, and he's still using it years later.

 

[Red Storm]

There's been no end of threads of contradictory quality about the anti fascist issue, here's one of them. http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/analysis-of-bnp-vote-in-b-d.250368/ and another http://www.urban75.net/forums/threads/griffin-and-bnp-strategy.134960/page-56#post-4463253
You just are in denial.

As for the left, and anarchist movements, and their relationship with the working class, only nuggets like you try to pose a difference. In reality, a dialectical reality, the working class movement IS the left and anarchists, and the left/anarchists are the working class movement, of course, you can argue indefinately about respective levels of leadership and influence and so on, but some of us would rather do it than argue ad infinitum on u75

Who do you mean by 'the left'.

 

[past caring]

His funders.

 

[The Black Hand]

His funders.

I wish I did get several thousands, come and bribe me

 

[The Black Hand]

Who do you mean by 'the left'.

The Left is parts of the labour party, trade unions and to the left, all the different groups - LRC, SP, SLP the anarchists and so on. In Scotland, Ireland and Wales all the socialist/nationalist variants too. The political spectrum is wide, the labour party straddles the centre ground, to the right and a bit to the left, and so on. It would take ages to describe everything relevant so I'll leave it to your imagination.

 

[1%er]

If only the working-class understood what was good for them

 

[Red Storm]

The Left is parts of the labour party, trade unions and to the left, all the different groups - LRC, SP, SLP the anarchists and so on. In Scotland, Ireland and Wales all the socialist/nationalist variants too. The political spectrum is wide, the labour party straddles the centre ground, to the right and a bit to the left, and so on. It would take ages to describe everything relevant so I'll leave it to your imagination.

I was just fishing to see if the answer was 'SWP, SPEW et all'. I wasn't sure if you meant 'left' as in the labour movement or the far left. Your definition seems to be inbetween the two.

 

[LLETSA]

The Left is parts of the labour party, trade unions and to the left, all the different groups - LRC, SP, SLP the anarchists and so on. In Scotland, Ireland and Wales all the socialist/nationalist variants too. The political spectrum is wide, the labour party straddles the centre ground, to the right and a bit to the left, and so on.

All of which is condemned to go round in ever-decreasing circles.

 

[LLETSA]

No, he doesn't. That vein of critique was still born, and he's still using it years later.

Whatever 'critique' you're on about, I'm unaware of it. I'm just describing what I see.

 

[Red Storm]

All of which is condemned to go round in ever-decreasing circles.

*Yawn*

 

[LLETSA]

*Yawn*

Tell me why it isn't true, because this is actually what's been happening for decades.

All you're doing on here, with your inane 'rah, rah' stuff, is proving that even 'reds' these days are largely apolitical.

 

[Red Storm]

Tell me why it isn't true, because this us what's been happening for decades.

All you're doing on here, with your inane 'rah, rah' stuff, is proving that even 'reds' these days are largely apolitical.