Independent community action is the key... (Part Two)

I unearthed the following article from a Staffordshire publication called The Sentinel, via the excellent anti-fascist resource blog Lancaster Unity.

As with the superb recent by-election victory by the Loughton Residents' Association (LRA) in a ward formerly held by the BNP, this latest development once again demonstrates the power of independent community action in defeating fascism where the politicians, whilst they talk a good fight, would appear to be powerless.


"Is BNP leader quitting now while he's ahead?"
from The Sentinel

The British National Party has been at the forefront of politics in Stoke-on-Trent for the past seven years, since outsider Steve Batkin stunned sceptical observers by coming third in the 2002 mayoral elections.

Since then, while more established political parties have crumbled and lost ground, the BNP has seized upon the slightest sign of weakness in its opponents.

Mr Batkin may have been a lone figure in the council chamber in 2003, but within five years he was joined by eight more members. In the same period, Labour's once total grip on power evaporated, leaving the party with little choice but to go into opposition for the first time in the city council's history. The Conservatives have had to form a tenuous alliance with centre-right independents to muster enough numbers to occupy key political posts.

The recent emergence of the Stoke-on-Trent Independent Group not only cut the Conservative and Independent Alliance to just seven members, but also made the BNP the outright third largest political group in the city, just five seats behind Labour.

When last year's mayoral referendum took place, the BNP backed the campaign to retain the elected mayoral system, leading many political commentators to speculate openly about the possibility of a BNP mayor running the city. In short, the BNP under Alby Walker's leadership had become a major political force. But that all changed on Wednesday evening when Mr Walker sent a tersely-worded email to council officers stating that he had quit as leader.

Of course, he would not be the first senior political figure to stand down for personal reasons. But the email made it clear that he was stepping down before his group had even begun to appoint a successor. In fact, that is not likely to happen until January. Then, when The Sentinel contacted deputy group leader, Councillor Michael Coleman, three hours later, he said he knew nothing of the resignation.

Leadership changes happen, but stable political parties try to plan ahead to smooth the transition and reassure their members and supporters. The BNP is not a localised council group operating in its own tiny bubble of influence. It is part of a large, organised political body with its own national and regional leadership structure. It is unthinkable that anyone in the BNP's hierarchy who knew of Mr Walker's intention would let him make his announcement without carefully managing the situation.

But party leader Nick Griffin certainly seemed to have no knowledge of the crisis developing in the city he likes to call the jewel in the BNP's crown. Speaking from the climate summit in Copenhagen, an obviously flustered Mr Griffin said: "I'm afraid I don't know anything about this. I've no idea what's happening in Stoke-on-Trent."

Clearly party chiefs, like the council group, did not know of Mr Walker's plans until after he had executed them.

When he confirmed his resignation that evening, he not only admitted that he was unlikely to stand for election to retain his seat in May, but also refused to say whether he would remain with the party at all. One source close to Mr Walker has suggested the announcement was timed to prevent someone else leaking the news of his planned resignation to "stab him in the back". But the fact that his own group did not know what he had done, even hours afterwards, implies that the attack he feared was expected to come from within, rather than from rival parties.

Since Wednesday, the group has been displaying a united front once again, and members are bullish about its chances of making yet more gains at the polls. Mr Coleman confidently expects to take 10 more seats in May and a further 15 in 2011. But he may have given an insight into the real mood within the group when he said: "It is going to be a difficult 18 months ahead of us. It's getting harder now, not easier."

He also said that he felt Mr Walker had "done the sensible thing" in resigning now, to let others take on the burden of fighting three Parliamentary and 20 council seats next year, as well as all 45 council seats in 2011.

Up until now, the BNP's successes have been victories against the mainstream parties on the back of mounting public discontent with New Labour, and the Blair and Brown Governments. It would seem that Mr Walker certainly has done the sensible thing – he is quitting while he's ahead, before the progress he has made begins to falter.

The current balance of power within the council means that, in order to continue their meteoric rise, the BNP is soon going to have to vie for votes with the independents – solid community candidates who are not shackled by party dogma and whips or hampered by the conduct of their representatives in Westminster.

Mr Walker was facing re-election in May, and would have been a prime target for his political foes. Defeat would have been a massive blow for his party and a major propaganda coup for his rivals. But his departure ahead of polling day means that, should another party take the seat, they will not be able to claim the trophy of toppling the BNP leader, and their victory cannot be recorded as a defeat for the far-right party.

Mr Coleman may make an even stronger leader for the group; only time will tell. But if he fails to deliver on his morale-boosting promises of sweeping electoral gains over the next two years, then he could find himself at the head of a declining party with no political weapons he can use to fight back at the formidable independents.

My interview with Ed Saunt of the Hounslow Chronicle

A week or so ago I was contacted by Ed Saunt of the Hounslow Chronicle who wanted to write a piece about me and my former association with Nick Griffin, the Chairman of the British National Party (BNP), in the wake of his recent appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme.

I'm always happy to be of assistance, particularly in the case of young local journalists looking to showpiece their talents, and to put my specialist knowledge of the far-right to good use. Heaven knows I've been offering to do so for the past eighteen years but, as someone who has issues with the Labour Party even if only in a strictly local context, many of the most vociferous anti-racists, being possessed of a political conflict of interests, have preferred to perpetuate the myth that I am still in some way involved with the far right and of course, in order to keep that particular ball in the air, have had to dismiss any intelligence that I am able to offer as a "smokescreen".

So when Ed informed me that he wanted to carry a major piece on me and on my experiences with the far-right I agreed, but insisted that we should conduct the interview by e-mail where there would be a paper trail leading back to what I had actually said if in the event that I was in any way misquoted or misrepresented (that wasn't how I actually put it, but he was smart enough to understand).

Whilst I maintain that this was the correct thing to do in view of the sensitive nature of the subject (and Ed readily agreed to my proposed way of doing things anyway), as it happened I needn't have bothered. The two-page article demonstrated that Ed had a talent - unusual amongst local journalists, particularly the younger and more ambitious ones - for being able to write a feature which catches the eye and draws the crowds (inasfar as the Chronicle readership could be described as a crowd) without having to resort in any way to fabrication or distortion. Indeed, after a well-written and cogent introduction, the larger part of the feature consisted of a simple but effective reproduction of the question and answer interview that we had conducted, warts and all.

I am grateful to Ed and to the Chronicle for the mature approach which was taken in the production of this feature and would be happy to help them, or any other potential interviewer who is prepared to adopt the same ethics in seeking out good information on this most topical of subjects.

The full text of the interview can be found here.

If Britain were a village of 100 people

Sometimes it's not possible to repair the damage we cause

Being a technological caveman it took me a couple of years longer than most to discover the phenomenon that is Facebook.

But, prompted by my twelve-year-old twins who use it as a means through which to communicate with the world, I have finally activated the account that I'd forgotten I set up some time ago and I spent most of last night trawling through lists of friends of friends to see who was on there that I knew. Throughout the night I fired off a couple of dozen friend requests, and have received several returns, some from people with whom I'd lost contact years ago.

Two of these were brothers who attended my primary school. For the purposes of this article I'll call them Jimmy and Robert. I remember both of them well, Jimmy being about my own age and Robert a couple of years older. There were both really nice lads, well liked by everyone. I can't remember either of them ever getting into an altercation with a fellow pupil - not even me, and as a kid I made it my business to upset most of the other kids at some point or another.

Jimmy's and Robert's roots are in the Caribbean. They hail from a very famous sporting family in the West Indies. My recollection of Jimmy was that he could throw a cricket ball seemingly for miles. He also went on to become a very good boxer, although his progress was hampered by a nose which gushed with blood whenever you called it a name.

I had seen Jimmy more recently than Robert. He provided the disco at mine and Caroline's wedding back in 1995 (I do hope I haven't got the date wrong!). Although he himself had moved out of the area some of his folks still resided locally and I was able to make contact with him.

Well last night I came across them both and I sent off a request to them both to become my Facebook friends. A few hours passed before Jimmy responded, accepting my request and joining my thus far embarrassingly small but thankfully growing list. But this afternoon I received a message from Robert informing me that he had no wish to have anything to do with me on account of my political history.

I have to say I was quite hurt when I read Robert's response. Their different ethnicity hadn't even registered when I had sent off the request, just as it had seldom registered at primary school. It just simply wasn't an issue. I had almost forgotten that for so many years I had been an active member and organiser of the National Front. Robert's reply to me provided a disarming reminder of that dark period of my life.

The sense of hurt which I felt upon reading his words was not directed at Robert himself, but was more a reflection of my own feeling of shame at the unhappiness that I must clearly have caused to such a decent man to inspire him to react in that way. During the course of my political work as an independent community councillor I come across politicians all the time who speak to me and even drink with me privately one evening and then announce publicly the next day that they would never have anything to do with me because of my past political activities. This is tacky politicking at its worst and I really couldn't give a toss for the feelings of such people. But Robert's comments provided me with a sobering reminder that it is sometimes wrong to assume that any damage caused by our actions can always later be repaired.

If my experience today strikes a cord with anybody who is still labouring under the illusion that they can reconcile their far-right activity with a "normal" life outside of extremist politics then they should think again, and think carefully. The deeper you sink, the more difficult it is to get back to where you need to be should you ever wish to reconnect with the real world.

Keep fascism out of football

According to the Searchlight-backed campaign Hope Not Hate one of the ringleaders of the enigmatic but distinctly unpleasant English Defence League, which draws most of its recruits from soccer hooligan firms around the country, is a regular at Brentford FC home fixtures.

The EDL claims to be non-racist and has attracted criticism from the BNP, however given its anti-Muslim appeal it is likely that the primary cause of any antipathy is its potential as a rival. Embracing as it does the militant street activity which the BNP rejected some years ago in favour of its new suited and booted electoral approach it has the potential to recruit younger, more excitable BNP types and thereby to starve the BNP of valuable membership dues.

As a local activist though it is the Brentford connection which bothers me. Brentford has an excellent record as a family club which speaks out against racism, and I'll be contacting the club in my capacity as Hounslow Council's (non-Executive) lead member with responsibility for liaison with Brentford FC to impress upon it the need to put some distance between itself and the EDL.

SORTED!

"BNP will not be back!" says pub landlord

The landlord of an Isleworth pub which unwittingly played host to a meeting of the far-right British National Party (BNP) on Wednesday evening will not be re-admitting his unwanted guests after the ICG exposed their true identity.

The "Hounslow" BNP (in reality a motley collection of activists from all across West London and beyond) had used the venue to discuss plans for its forthcoming general election campaign in the Feltham & Heston constituency, as well as its proposed participation in the local elections. Although it aspires to contest all sixty council seats, it currently admits to having only four volunteers, at least one of whom is believed to live in Brentford.

ICG councillors have worked hard to promote unity and cohesion in their wards and believe the BNP strategy was to destabilise these communities and to divide residents on the basis of their ethnicity. The landlord of the pub, which has a multi-cultural clientele, was grateful for our intervention.

Our work against the BNP is actively supported by council colleagues from all the major political groups and we would like to acknowledge and thank them for their help in achieving this result.

More readily fall victims to the Big Lie than to the Small Lie - unless you get caught

We all know that what Churchill might have described as "terminological inexactitudes" are prevalent in our politics. In my borough one party publicly proclaims its acceptance of untruthful campaigning as a fact of political life without any suggestion that it rues the fact.

However, whilst not accepting the inevitability of deceit in political life I do reluctantly accept that there is in politics, as everywhere else, a question of degree. Put another way, there is a world of difference between the sometimes irritating ways of the mainstream politician and the persistent and quite deliberate efforts of the far-right to destabilise our multi-ethnic community by resort to shameless scaremongering and often quite outrageous lies.

This week we witnessed the suspension of Barking & Dagenham councillor and BNP Greater London Authority (GLA) member Richard Barnbrook after he admitted that claims he had made about three alleged murders having taken place is his borough were completely untrue. The disgraced councillor claimed that "dyslexia" had led his extraordinary claims to "come out wrong" (and also, presumably, inspired him to repeat the claims on his blog and to refuse to remove them when it was pointed out to him that there was no factual basis for them).

Although Mr. Barnbrook is of a similar age to myself I never knew him in my far-right days. He clearly arrived on the scene after my time. I can offer no personal insight into the man nor into what makes him tick. However as I write I have heard no word of any impending censure or disciplinary action to be taken against him by his superiors in the BNP, many of whom I did know personally.

What I can say is that it has been a typical tactic of the far-right down through the years to try to whip up the fear and mistrust that it simultaneously claims to be protecting us from. Despite claiming no longer to be a racist party, the BNP is content to allow one of its very most senior members to fabricate three serious crimes in the borough he has been elected to represent and then to try to associate those non-existent crimes in the public mind with the presence of immigrants in our community.

This is not a normal political party we are dealing with here, and institutions such as the BBC should not be treating it as such by attempting to ease it into the mainstream through such devices as its Question Time programme. Democratic politicians from across the board should be doing everything they can to highlight the moral chasm that exists between the likes of the BNP and themselves. And the best way to achieve that, apart from denying fascists the oxygen of publicity, is not to act like them ourselves. To any degree.