Far Right on the ‘Rise’ in London – How Do We Stop Fascism?

The news that the ‘Rise: London United against Racism’ Festival will no long carry an “anti-racism” message is pretty shocking news. For all Ken’s faults, as Mayor, he supported anti-racist campaigning strongly, particularly the ‘RISE Weeks’ run in Students’ Unions (SUs) across London. They are always well received at LSE, where we hold an International Food Fair and other events to encourage diversity and understanding.

This sends out a significant message from Mayor Boris – that anti-racism and diversity events are not a priority. Essentially, Rise has been stripped of all meaning, and will become just another festival promoting bands and artists. An event held by trade unions and anti-racist campaigners since 1996 has been taken over by a new Mayor who is so keen to distance himself from Ken that he is willing to drop support for his more successful and meaningful endeavours.

The decision comes not that long after Richard Barnbrook, the BNP’s London Assembly Member, submitted a question to Boris asking:

Can the Mayor give his assurance that no public money is being utilised to support the “Love Music Hate Racism” march in London on June 21st and also give us an assurance that the organisers of the march will be required to pay for the full policing costs and clean up costs of this event so that the bill is not borne by London tax payers?

The BNP are going to be ruthless in seeking to undermine anti-racist and anti-fascist campaigning in the capital by appealing to populist anti-public spending waste impulses – so our efforts need to be stepped up to neutralise the new platform and resources they have been given.

This raises the wider question of how we stop fascism, especially in London.

Some people note that there is a lot to suggest that we should have some hope and optimism in defeating the BNP. Firstly, the BNP’s vote didn’t increase by much in the election – up only 0.6% to 5.3% – which only just tipped them over the 5% required to get an Assembly Member. Secondly, the history of concerted, united anti-BNP campaigning is quite successful across the country, and has certainly stopped further advances for the BNP. Thirdly, one might argue that there has been a backlash to the BNP getting elected that has opened people’s eyes to their threat, and might swell the ranks of those determined to put a stop to them.

But each of these points has a flip-side that scares the hell out of me. On the first point, while the vote only increased slightly, it still increased, and was already high enough to be extremely close to an electoral breakthrough – suggesting that the BNP’s support is high and fairly durable, and remained so in an election of unusually high turnout. For the second issue, despite successes elsewhere, while a huge anti-racist effort across parties and different groups might have stopped the BNP doing even better, it did not stop them completely in London in 2008, and questions need to be asked as to why this happened. Thirdly, and perhaps most worryingly, one can sense that having such a high profile elected official will legitimise the BNP, as evidenced by Barnbrook getting a blog with The Daily Telegraph (which is nonetheless exceptionally poorly written), and there is a feeling that the BNP are becoming more respectable and treated as just another party, not the fascist, Hitler-sympathising, homophobic, racist, sexist and violent party that they really are.

This makes me extremely worried. In the short-term, it might lead to more electoral success; it will shift the agenda right, as it already seems to be doing in Boris’s latest decision; and, where the BNP do well, racist attacks increase. In the longer-term, I have nightmares that the BNP, if they are not stopped soon, will do very well praying on apathy and disatisfaction, and exploiting their ‘outsider’ angle, to make a real breakthrough – particularly on the issue of the environment, as they already claimed to be the ‘Real Green Party’ because they appeal to Malthusian fears of over-population with their anti-immigrant message.

If the main parties continue to fail to act on the environment and the Green movement does not organise well enough, come the visible effects of climate change, the BNP may well exploit the situation, just as fascists exploited crises in the past, with their own brand of ‘eco-fascism’.

But this is only possible if we fail to stop them now.

This weekend on Saturday 21st May there will be a huge anti-racist march through London organised jointly by Love Music Hate Racism and Unite against Fascism. With huge trade union backing, we need a big turn out to show that there is a movement to fight fascism and defeat its arguments.

But I am worried that the ‘Grand Old Duke of York approach’ of yet another march with no clear outcome is not enough. Telling people that the BNP are bad, nasty and naughty will not work. The march must (and no doubt will) be used as a rallying event to point people in the direction of real, grassroots anti-fascist action.

The reason people vote BNP is not because 5% of London is bigoted, but because people feel neglected, and either choose the BNP as a direct protest or come to see the BNP as their defenders because they’re the only party that pretends to care about them. On the council estates of East London, where ‘Labour’ has neglected its working-class backbone and condemned people to problems with housing and other issues – and where the Tories and Liberals are afraid to tread, and other parties (including mine) don’t have enough activists – people have no-one to turn to, so if a party like the BNP actually bother to go and talk to people, they are seen to care. What they say is usually a racist lie to garner votes – for instance, blaming housing on immigrants let in by a ‘left-wing’ government – but they are actually there saying something.

We need to expose the BNP as people that really offer nothing – and that means offering a progressive alternative. As I mention above, we all have to accept our blame: the Green Party are not that strong in East London. We have some brilliant activists but not the resources that the main parties have (who have much more potential to do better). I think the London Green Party as a whole need to have a more proactive approach to party building in East London and throw our resources behind offering a real alternative to ‘Labour’s’ neglect. Our decentralist principles often mean that we see party building as an organic, local process that happens naturally, but we need to go into East London, talk about our policies on defending public services and council housing, reducing living costs, the Living Wage, local democracy and accountability, and the overall message of the connection between environmental and social justice – in short, we need to build progressive alternatives through campaigns and on the doorstep, and at the same time defeat the BNP and obliterate their false promises.

So let’s get a big turn out for the demo on Saturday, meeting at 12pm in Tooley Street, London SE1 (behind the Greater London Assembly building, near Tower Bridge, nearest tube London Bridge), but use it as a launch pad for solid anti-racist campaigning on the streets wherever the BNP does well, including in the two by-elections coming up in East London. If you want to know more about the by-elections and get involved in anti-BNP campaigning, see the Stop the BNP website.

Anti-fascist campaigning will be slow and patient, but it will bring measurable results. Most of all, we have to do it – otherwise, the future doesn’t look very bright at all.