Gonna need more than a vote to defeat fascism to be honest.

It's not as if returning a labour or plaid councillor is gonna lead to the destruction of racist or facist views in the area is it?

'voting doesn't smash fascism'

Nor does sitting on your arse in the pub saying 'voting doesn't smash fascism'.

Well done, Swansea anti-fascists. :-)

especially when it is the Labour Party and all statist pro-capitalist parties which use racial division as a political tool to push through neo-liberal and anti-working class policies. This is the failure of the left in general to keep on with the same old tired tactics of voting against the BNP. As is the case across the UK, when the BNP do have councilors they show their complete incompetence at the job in hand, if anything this is the best propaganda that we have - to attribute to the enemy BNP the actual activity they are responsible for. - plus a few kick in's of course :-0)

This election is being fought on race issues. Here's what the Labour party are saying in their leaflets:

“Many commentators see this current bye election as a referendum on the gypsy encampment on Swansea Vale.

“With the Labour Party commitment to getting the site removed and the Liberal Democrat, Independent alliance (kept in power by the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru) unwilling to take the necessary action to remove it [sic]. Every vote Labour gets in the bye election will add strength to the resolve to remove this site on council land.


“Vote Labour. Vote to remove the illegal travellers site.”

Oh and to you english in lancaster, I'm not in a pub and working against fascists in my area thank you very much.

...every time the BNP get a councillor elected it gives them more credibility, most importantly with journalists. It has recently helped them get interviews on mainstream TV news programmes (something that has not happened before, as far as my memory goes) and gives them a bigger opportunity to spread their insidious propaganda. They have become sophisticated at presenting themselves as NOT being just about racism, and since most TV news consists of short, shallow soundbites, journalists don't have an opportunity to quiz them thoroughly about what they really represent, even if they wanted to.
Of course getting people to vote against the BNP won't stop fascism by itself (that will take a lot of education, counter-propaganda, and "direct action" as well) but it is still a very useful tool in opposing it. People who work to organise an anti-BNP vote should not be denigrated.
Also: can we really count on BNP members to ALWAYS make useless councillors? They may yet find candidates who can muster enough brain cells to be effective, and if they do, we will have a very big problem.

After spending a few hours talking to local people in an attempt to get them to go along to the meeting yesterday, I soon realised that the type of person likely to vote for the BNP in this bye election seem to be those who only get their information about the world they live in from the telly and consequently they generally don’t know the difference between asylum seekers and economic migrants and subsequently talk rubbish about “Polish asylum seekers claiming benefits”.

Of course, the propaganda war means these same people also like to stereotype all Muslims as extremists because in their tiny little world Islam is an evil religion that supports terrorists.

However, voting for the BNP would lose its logic (for want of a better word) if these people had to admit to themselves that the BNP have extremist criminal and terrorist connections - yet, all too often, they refuse to believe that about the BNP (quite possibly because they believe it would be all over the telly if it were true). So just telling people about the BNPs criminal and terrorist connections, or giving them a leaflet or print out from the tinternet, is simply not enough – even if it is the only way to counter them at the moment.

To make a real breakthrough in the public’s consciousness we need speak to people through their TVs because, apparently, only then will these types of people believe the truth about the BNP.

Hopefully the unions and others can provide funding for a hard hitting advert to appear on the TV ready for next years elections which highlights the BNPs criminal and terrorist connections. I think, in the long run, it would be money well spent.