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What fascism is and how to fight it - a dayschool, Sheffield, 24 April

Sheffield AWL | 19.04.2010 14:55 | Anti-racism | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Sheffield

Two years of capitalist economic crisis have seen a sharp growth of the BNP and the rise of groups like the English Defence League. Existing anti-fascist campaigns have been totally ineffective at stopping these developments. Why?

This dayschool, organised by Workers' Liberty, is an attempt to locate a socialist understanding of the BNP and EDL in the classical Marxist tradition of analysing fascism, and use that tradition to get to grips with the issues confronting anti-fascists so urgently today.

What fascism is and how to fight - a Sheffield AWL dayschool

11-3.30pm, Saturday 24 April
Sheffield University Union

Facebook event here
 http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=310188152864

Agenda:

11am Opening plenary: the capitalist crisis and the rise of the far right
11.30am How do Marxists understand fascism? Trotsky on the rise of Nazism
12.40pm Break
1.10pm
a) What are the BNP and EDL?
b) Nationalism, migration and the working class
2.20pm
a) 'No platform', free speech, self-defence and the state
b) What's wrong with 'don't vote Nazi'? The politics of UAF and Searchlight

The school closes 3.30pm, after which we will be going to Firth Park to campaign against fascist candidate Mark Collett, recently expelled from the BNP, using this leaflet from the Socialist Campaign to Stop the Tories and Fascists.
 http://www.dlandmj.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/docs/scstf-antibnp.pdf
The BNP have been trying to build a base in Firth Park.

Sheffield AWL
- e-mail: sheffield@workersliberty.org
- Homepage: http://www.workersliberty.org

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Don't vote Nazi?

19.04.2010 17:14

Bearing in mind that 94% of Euro 2009 voters still voted against the BNP, it was a combination of Proportional Representation and the low turn-out caused by Labour and Tory expenses scandals that delivered the BNP their European parliamentary seats last year. So...

Q: "What's wrong with "Don't vote Nazi"?
A: Proportional Representation

Fast forward to last weekend. For the first-past-the-post election we're currently facing, Hope not Hate called-out over 500 activists and delivered over 80,000 Anti-Fascist newspapers in Barking alone, so whatever you think of HnH and the UAF, you better be able to come up with something BETTER, and be able to deliver it BEFORE MAY 6th

Don't vote Nazi


Baby-and-Bathwater The joke is Crass.

19.04.2010 18:45

In the blue corner we have the English Defence League (EDL), a collection of football crews and frustrated ex-street-fighting BNP types picking on an easy target in the hope that they will somehow be seen as virtuous rebels rather than the violent louts they are.

In the red corner we have Unite Against Fascism (UAF) a collection of middle class stoodents, lecturers and social workers who don't need to prove anything to anybody because they already know that they're your intellectual and moral superiors.

And caught in the middle are the English; a proudly diverse (both culturally and racially – although 'race' is has virtually no meaning when you look at the science rather than the myths) group of people who live in a little county with a long history of tolerance, freedom and justice – which is why people like moving here in the first place ;-)

This is not to say that things are perfect in our little country. England today is more unequal – in terms of incomes, wealth, health, education, life chances – than at any time since 1914. Economic inequality in the UK is at the highest it has been since records began in 1961. A third of our children live in poverty and all the evidence shows that a child's social class background at birth is still the best indicator of how well he or she will do in school and later on in life. The lower your socio-economic position the greater your risk of low birth-weight, infections, cancer, coronary heart disease, respiratory disease, stroke, accidents, nervous and mental illnesses.

Social mobility is at the same level it was in the 1950s, only now the family and community bonds that once helped people in impoverished communities are no longer in place. As impoverishment and inequality rise so does anti-social behaviour and violent crime.

And the EDL think that the only thing we have to worry about is Muslim extremism!

The best way to fight the terrorists would be to screen Chris Morris's new film, 'Four Lions', in every school in the country. In truth your average militant-Muslim and right-wing-boot-boy have a lot more in common with each other than they care to admit. Both act without recourse to reason or ethics and both believe that the rest of us should surrender ourselves to their intolerant world-views.

The less fascistic right-wing have also caused us a lot of grief. With the introduction of neoliberal economics they started a process that would ultimately lead to the social, economic and ecological impoverishment of millions of people living in England. Through privitisation, deregulation, deindutrialisation and blatant theft the Tories effectively disempowered local communities, centralising power so that our lives are now under the absolute control of the state and the market.

Not that the left fare much better when it comes to liberty - these people are so authoritarian they even want control your language (Political Correctness anyone?). Under the Labour government things were set to get a lot worse. Not only would power become even more centralised, but the new, left-wing (despite the protests of other sections of the left,

Labour's attacks on liberty do follow left-wing ideology) government would even invade the private lives of the people of England. So nowadays, in a typical English town: you will be filmed an average of 300 times as you go about your daily business; you may be stopped and searched at any moment; you may be given an extra-judicial fine without recourse to the legal protections that have been at the heart of our country’s law for 800 years; you can be banned from entering public spaces at the whim of a ‘public servant’; and the police are allowed to arbitrarily detain (kettle) anyone who takes it upon themselves to protest about the state of the world. But don’t worry it’s all ‘for your own protection’.

What we really need to 'defend' ourselves from is the political parasites (both left and right) who threaten the liberties, freedoms and equality that the common people of England have held dear for millennia (even, in fact, before the idea of 'England' was born). We must abandon the politicos and take power into our own hands if we are ever to realise the dream of one of the greatest ever Englishmen, Col. Thomas Rainsborough, who said at the Putney Debates...

“LET THE WORLD REST IN PEACE AND ANARCHY!”

Barnsley Bill


The AWL have never known the TRUTH.

19.04.2010 18:52

31.03.2010 22:19 | Sheffield
Mark Adrian Collett (born 3 October 1980) is a former chairman of the Young BNP, the youth division of the British National Party (BNP), and is Director of Publicity for the Party.

From Rothley, he was educated at Loughborough Grammar School and the University of Leeds where he gained a 2.2 in Economics.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT" from BNP Organisers’ Bulletin - March 2010

Collett featured on a Channel 4 documentary on the BNP - Young, Nazi, and Proud broadcast in 2002 which concentrated almost exclusively on Collett. He declared his admiration for Adolf Hitler and UDA terrorist Johnny Adair, unaware he was being filmed. Collett was sacked from his position in the party and expelled days after the broadcast, although party leaders continued to share speaking platforms with him.

However he was allowed to rejoin a few days later with chairman Nick Griffin saying that he must change his views on the subject. Collett is was the party's head of publicity and produces the party's monthly magazine Identity.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT" from BNP Organisers’ Bulletin - March 2010


For several months the party’s internal security team has been running an extensive and long-running investigation. This was initially tasked to investigate:

1) Alleged financial irregularities and ‘scamming’ concerning the
procurement of print, especially large election print run,
leaflets and regular publications including Identity magazine.

2) The leaking onto the internet of sensitive party information.

3) The ongoing, co-ordinated and sustained hate campaign,
feeding lies to certain anti-BNP blog sites.

More recently, its focus has moved on to the catalogue of recurring and seemingly inexplicable ‘gaffes’ being made at various stages in our preparations for the general election by
certain individuals within the party.

As a result of this investigation, a very serious matter has been uncovered.

Earlier this week, the police were made aware of very serious allegations potentially affecting the personal safety of Party chairman Nick Griffin MEP and senior management/fundraising
consultant James Dowson. Formal statements have now been made to the police, including by Mr. Griffin.

We therefore concluded that it was necessary to act on this immediately to ensure the safety of those at risk. Thus the timing of this affair was, from the very beginning, out of our hands.

The entire matter is therefore now in the hands of the police. We are unable to provide any further details in order not to prejudice any resulting legal proceedings.

Since political, as opposed to allegedly criminal, conspiracies are not illegal, we are able to say that Mark Collett was conspiring with a small clique of other party officials to launch a ‘palace coup’ against our twice democratically elected party leader, Nick Griffin, and that in order to create the artificial climate of disillusionment necessary for this to stand any chance of success, lies and unfounded rumours have been spread, and wereplanned to be spread much further. Mr. Collett has therefore been relieved of all positions within the Party with immediate effect.

All General Election leaflets already with the printers will be unaffected. Alternative measures are already being put into place to ensure that late submissions and local election addresses will
be produced. Contact details for this and related operations will be issued shortly.

There is also extensive circumstantial evidence that those involved have been working to sabotage our forthcoming local and national election campaigns. More specific examples and details
of such underhand efforts will be presented to an emergency meeting of the Advisory Council and key officials from all over the country, which will take place in the Midlands on Monday 5th
April.

All in all, we believe we have uncovered the most serious and dangerous threat to this Party and its officers that we have ever witnessed.

We understand that all the evidence and exhibits are now in the hands of the police who are investigating several serious allegations uncovered by our security operation.

Obviously the safety of those named as the intended victims in this alleged plot and the safety of their families are paramount to this party and the police at present. As a precaution and until the police advise us of the ongoing status of the alleged plot, extra security has been provided to several key party officials and aides.

The timing of this couldn’t be worse but we believe that thanks to the diligent and swift actions of our security apparatus we have prevented a most grievous attack on key individuals and
rescued our election campaign from a concerted effort to derail it.

No doubt the media will try to exploit this, but the timing was of course not of our choosing, and we trust that, whatever ‘spin’ our opponents try to put on all this, the public will see that we have employed the proper legal channels and procedures to deal with what many will perceive as just another underhand and deeply shady attack on our Party and the right of the public to an effective democratic choice at election time.

Like Gary Glitter, he's back again - Killer Collett rejoins TheBNP (maybe)

11.04.2010 13:07 | Sheffield
How confusing is it to be a member of the BNP? Just over a week ago, the world was informed that a plot to unseat the leader of the party had been discovered and that a taped telephone conversation between the party's treasurer David Hannam and the its former head of publicity Mark Collett revealed threats of murder and assault and talk of fraud and falsification of accounts, including 'skimming' off printing bills for the party.



Last Monday, party organisers met up and were treated to a ten minute snippet of the tape that apparently included the threats and non-specific mention of the fraud that had taken place, though the whole tape was held back until a committee declared on its authenticity. This committee, led by taxi driver and world-renowned tape authenticity expert [sarcasm] Michael Simpkins, declared that the tape was genuine and, we gather, the shortened version was given to the police.

Why the shortened version? Because the complete tape was almost an hour and a half of Killer Collett slagging off party leader Nick Griffin and fundraiser Jim Dowson, along with a multitude of accusations of theft and complicity in a massive and persistent fraud on the membership of the British National Party. These allegations were, we're told, so detailed that the police would have had at least enough information to begin investigating the party's finances - and that would have been disastrous for Griffin and the party itself.

According to information I have received, the police are not prepared to take any action based upon a tape that has clearly been tampered with, leaving the police with nothing to investigate.

Given that the party is anxious to hide any sign of wrongdoing by its officers - particularly by its leader - for fear that a whole financial can of worms would be opened up, the only thing to do was, in the words of one of our correspondents, 'to take that wanker Collett back at least until after the elections'. Thus, we're informed that Collett is back in the BNP fold though on a much-reduced salary and only on condition that he keeps his mouth firmly shut in future.

It's hard to know what Collett will be doing in the party after his reinstatement because it seems that the design of leaflets has been handed over to the detestable Paul Golding, a Griffin-acolyte who appears to be much-loathed in the party, while printing has been shifted to - surprise - one of Jim Dowson's many companies, leaving Paedo-boy to sit around twiddling his thumbs.

Nevertheless, the man who, just a week ago, was accused of conspiracy to unseat Porky Griffin as leader of the BNP and was said to have uttered threats to kill him, is apparently back because the party leadership is terrified of what havoc he could wreak by exposing the corruption that saturates the party from top to bottom.

It could only happen in the BNP...

Barnsley Bill


Your wasting your time

19.04.2010 20:07

While your poncing about worrying about a bunch of white trash tossers from some grim back water, the real fascists are running the country, like as in westminster white hall and the houses of corruption and vice and the Fascist States of Europe otherwise known as the EEC !!

Euro Pee Ann


What's wrong with 'don't vote Nazi'?

20.04.2010 08:33

What a joke when the AWL are out canvassing for a Labour vote -- they are loyal footsoldiers of the Empire.

Vote Nobody


Extreme Danger

25.04.2010 09:47

The important thing in the BNP is that the genuine Nazis reverse the Night of the Long Knives and take out the Hitlerites before the Hitlerites take out the genuine Nazis.

All the Parties have policies that will lead to a Hyperinflation just like led to the rise of Hitler. Inflation led growth is the road to a disasterous collapse. No Party has policies that will restore sound Money. The Monetarists turned traitor to their own ideas and have started the collapse into Chaos - it will continue. Read up Stafford Cripps' tax policies.if you want to see how to set about getting some stability. Growth leads to Extinction.

?


What the

26.04.2010 20:35

God I thought I was seeing things when I saw this lol.

If you lot think the BNP are bad what the hell do you think of the three main partys that got us in the shit were in ?.

Not very left wing were they when they all had there hands in the till while telling us to tighten our belts.

so when your next out leafleting for them think about there duck houses, fantom mortgages, gold plated bog seats and such.

The Real Barnsley Bill


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