So, following the egg attacks yesterday,
Nick Griffin it seems did get his rally, albeit in a small pub in Manchester. He managed to avoid too much attention, but a small contingent of anti-fascists were in position.
Assuming that you want to fight the
BNP (and why would you not?
Nick Griffin is a racist and White Supremacist), how can this be done?
Many groups, notably the
ANL used to proclaim "no platform for the Fascists". This is all well and good, but we cannot proclaim freedom of speech for all and yet similarly try to ban a legitimate political party.
However, I would argue that having the BNP in power would be a bad thing. Therefore, just as with other events or groups I have disagreed with in the past (such as the
war in Iraq and Students top-up fees), I am willing to take action, be that protesting or direct action, and even if this means civil disobedience.
The anti-fascist movement has two opposite routes down which to travel; Allow the BNP to speak, and then argue against them, or bully harass and make lots of noise whenever they are around, stopping them from being heard. The former will not attract any opposition, nor will it attract attention to the BNP, but it will allow them to better spread their message, whilst the latter may stop the message from being heard, but will also give the BNP the media attention they crave, afford them the chance to play the victims and may turn sympathisers away, seeing the ant-fascist movement as violent. Already this week, a protest called by
UAF in London has resulted in at least two
people being hospitalised, although it is unclear how the injuries happened.
So, how can we stop the BNP? Bizarrely, Mr Griffin himself had some pearls of wisdom for us here:
"They are entitled to demonstrate, but not to use violence or stop me from talking to constituents." he said, before going on to say
"If we are so evil and bad, expose us, don't shut us up using violence."Jon Cruddas,
Labour MP for Dagenham agreed, telling Sky News
"They want to pit themselves as victims, the only ones to challenge the Westminster bubble. As soon as they come here, they have eggs or whatever thrown at them. This reinforces the image they have tried to set up to set up. We should be challenging them in terms of policy, ideas and their views about black people, rather than reinforcing the sense that they are victims and outsiders."What is needed is not simply to harass, but to provide an alternative. UAF has made significant headway in one area traditionally very difficult - Left Unity, but is currently a negative, rather than a positive campaign. The time is right for the the
parties, factions and sub-factions on the left to unite in one grand coalition. Bring Together the
Socialist Labour Party,
Socialist Workers Party,
AWL,
CPGB,
International Socialist Group,
Revolutionary Democratic Group,
Socialist Party,
Workers Power,
Broad Left,
Left List,
Communist Party of Britain,
Respect Renewal and all the others under the old
Socialist Alliance label, and let's explain to the public why they should not vote BNP, but who they can vote for instead.
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