Paul Stott’s “Giving Up ‘No Platform’?”
Sugarbeet Bhoy | 05.11.2009 20:53
There was an interesting discussion at the Anarchist Bookfair this year by Morris Beckman, veteran anti-fascist of the 43 Group and Paul Stott on anti-fascism past, present, and where we go in the future.
The full text of Paul Stott’s part of the discussion is posted below and on his blog.
Hopefully many who attended the Bookfair and further afield will be able to access this piece of writing and take serious stock of what it says, and, in my opinion, it would be a shame not to see an especially large public national anti-fascist conference come out of it sometime next year…..it’s certainly well overdue.
The full text of Paul Stott’s part of the discussion is posted below and on his blog.
Hopefully many who attended the Bookfair and further afield will be able to access this piece of writing and take serious stock of what it says, and, in my opinion, it would be a shame not to see an especially large public national anti-fascist conference come out of it sometime next year…..it’s certainly well overdue.
SPEECH TO ANARCHIST BOOKFAIR – Saturday 24th October 2009
Thank you to the organisers for inviting me.
I have the rather dubious task of bringing things up to date, to 2009.
The circumstances for anti-fascists have changed radically over the past decade since Nick Griffin became BNP leader in 1999.
He and Tony Lecomber started the gradual modernisation of the BNP into what I think is still essentially a fascist party, but one that is willing to bend with the wind, to try out different ideas to see what will work, and is positioning itself as the type of Euro-Nationalist party that we have seen gain great electoral success in France, Belgium, Austria, Italy etc
1999 also saw probably the last successful riot by demonstrators in the UK – J18. Afterwards, the police promised a war of attrition against activists and have broadly delivered on that.
Virtually unlimited resources have been thrown at recording, cataloguing and following members and supporters of any organisation or current that may actually achieve anything. Anti-fascists have been high up on this list.
Nothing distracts from this task. Two days after the 7/7 bombing, Londoners may not have been surprised to see a large police operation at Kings Cross station. But this was not some follow up to the attacks – but police officers deployed to take pictures and compile intelligence of demonstrators returning from the G20 protests in Scotland.
A curious set of priorities.
But such police action, combined with the saturation coverage of CCTV in cameras in most towns and cities, make the sort of actions the 43 Group carried out virtually impossible to replicate successfully today.
NO PLATFORM
The dominant method of dealing with fascists in Britain has been the strategy of No Platform. We heard the type of tactics Morris outlined.
Street level activism was combined with a general distaste in the political mainstream and media for fascist or Nazi organisations. That did not prevent politicians occasionally copying the rhetoric or even policies of the fascist right, but in general they were denied normality. John Tyndall would never have got on Question Time.
I am going to argue today that No Platform is now a dead duck as a strategy.
It is not a viable strategy to defeat a party with scores of councillors, 2 MEP’s, 12,000 members and perhaps the most popular website in British politics.
With the exception of London, BNP membership is probably higher in most towns and cities than the numbers interested in actively no platforming them.
If we take the example of Stockport – the last BNP membership leak suggested 60 odd members in the town. The number of active anti-fascists in the town is probably in single figures.
A handful of people cannot no platform a greater number.
I do believe No Platform still has its advantages and uses as a tactic.
There is much to be said for harrying BNP stalls, and leafleting sessions. One of the things that continues to damage Nick Griffin are his bizarre public appearances surrounded by a security squad of wobblebottoms.
BNP security chief Martin Reynolds may be successful at his internet dating requests for ‘women who look like Dawn French’ but providing a discreet security presence is not his forte. No other public figure conducts himself in this way, surrounded by goons, and it was noticeable after one successful Antifa intervention in Yorkshire, Griffin turned up for a court appearance in a car complete with metal grilles over the windows.
So our pressure can have an effect on their behaviour. But there are other areas where anti-fascist pressure is simply side stepped.
In Barnsley in 2007 BNP street stalls were disrupted, tables smashed, papers stolen etc etc. The difficulty is, the BNP still stood in the subsequent local elections, still polling strong votes, and moving towards a position where they are seen as the alternative, or the radical opposition locally to the Labour Party.
So – anti-fascists managed to disrupt the BNP, to wound them, but not to kill them off.
Perhaps we need to think a little bit less about the BNP, and a little bit more about their voters.
Which brings us onto the next question:
CAN WE DEFEAT FASCISM, PURELY WITH ANTIFASCISM
This to me is the core issue, and the debate we need to have.
Morris and the 43 Group did.
The ANL and other currents who opposed the NF in the 1970s did.
Anti-Fascist Action and those opposing the BNP in the 1980s and early 1990s did.
I still think anti-fascists, using No Platform, are more than a match for those on the loopey fringe of the far-right – the British People’s Party, Racial Volunteer Force, Blood & Honour etc.
But in the long term, they are not the groups we have to worry about. The BNP is. And its electoral strategy, and electoral success, is something in the UK we have not seen before.
This question is a particular problem for Anarchists who by and large don’t vote and uncomfortable with organisations that are electoral.
If people think back to the formation of the Independent Working Class Association, I think that was one of the main reasons for its failure. A political current was not going to emerge from Anti-Fascist Action without the Anarchists.
Of course no one was more poorly placed than Red Action to lead a political initiative of that type. Red Action had a disastrous record of failing to maintain working relationships with virtually everyone they came into contact with, but I suspect deep down the real problem for Anarchists was that the IWCA was clearly going to be an electoral beast.
Of course the BNP’s is not a purely electoral strategy – there is a cultural element present, a desire to build up a cadre of members – Larry O’Hara, if he writes the book he should have written years ago on the British far-right - has the best analysis of this, (although in the meantime you can read some of his thinking in Notes From the Borderland) but the BNP are very much engaged in a war for position, attempting to take advantage of each opportunity that arises.
MULTI-CULTURALISM
In the case of the ANL, a mixture of methods were used here – from No Platform, to the development of a cultural strategy that brought together white, black and Asian youths around shared interests, music and football in particular.
You had even as late as the early 1990s a generation of broadly secular Asian youth who had cut their teeth in such politics – the Asian Youth Movements.
What we had in that era was a sort of voluntary multi-culturalism was practicesed that is and was very different to the type of top down funding based multi-culturalism to be practiced by councils like the GLC, Bradford and Birmingham City Council’s and Ken Livingstone’s London.
Kenan Malik has analysed this better than I could.
I think that brand of politics has been very damaging to our cause. After all if there is such a thing as the black community, or a Muslim community, or a Vietnamese community, there is by definition surely a white community. And just as ‘community leaders’ emerge to represent the Muslim community and to lobby on its behalf, we cannot proclaim ourselves to be shocked when someone steps up to say they represent the ‘white’ community. Whatever that is.
This is what happens when we abandon class politics, or we have sometimes well intentioned politics foisted onto our communities by government. We need to move away from the idea of communities fixed by race or religion, and raise the banner of class politics.
In doing this our enemy won’t only be the BNP – it will actually be those in the state, in local government, in faith groups and in the establishment parties who gain from the current system, ignoring the long term damage it does us all.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Well the answer to that question in my 17 years in the Anarchist movement has always been the same – to the pub.
But there is a point when the drinking stops and we have to ask ourselves – do we have an Anarchist movement, do we have an anti-fascist movement that is – in management speak – fit for purpose.
I don’t think we do.
I do think we have potential. There are more than enough people passing through the doors of this bookfair over the course of today to form a successful campaign, group or resource if people put their minds to it.
The problem is we have to look beyond harrying the BNP, being against them, and instead look towards replacing them.
And that requires an Anarchist movement, socialist movement, community campaign – call it whatever you want – that does things, and does things that are relevant to people’s lives and aspirations.
We can do better.
http://paulstott.typepad.com/i_intend_to_escape_and_co/2009/11/giving-up-no-platform.html
Thank you to the organisers for inviting me.
I have the rather dubious task of bringing things up to date, to 2009.
The circumstances for anti-fascists have changed radically over the past decade since Nick Griffin became BNP leader in 1999.
He and Tony Lecomber started the gradual modernisation of the BNP into what I think is still essentially a fascist party, but one that is willing to bend with the wind, to try out different ideas to see what will work, and is positioning itself as the type of Euro-Nationalist party that we have seen gain great electoral success in France, Belgium, Austria, Italy etc
1999 also saw probably the last successful riot by demonstrators in the UK – J18. Afterwards, the police promised a war of attrition against activists and have broadly delivered on that.
Virtually unlimited resources have been thrown at recording, cataloguing and following members and supporters of any organisation or current that may actually achieve anything. Anti-fascists have been high up on this list.
Nothing distracts from this task. Two days after the 7/7 bombing, Londoners may not have been surprised to see a large police operation at Kings Cross station. But this was not some follow up to the attacks – but police officers deployed to take pictures and compile intelligence of demonstrators returning from the G20 protests in Scotland.
A curious set of priorities.
But such police action, combined with the saturation coverage of CCTV in cameras in most towns and cities, make the sort of actions the 43 Group carried out virtually impossible to replicate successfully today.
NO PLATFORM
The dominant method of dealing with fascists in Britain has been the strategy of No Platform. We heard the type of tactics Morris outlined.
Street level activism was combined with a general distaste in the political mainstream and media for fascist or Nazi organisations. That did not prevent politicians occasionally copying the rhetoric or even policies of the fascist right, but in general they were denied normality. John Tyndall would never have got on Question Time.
I am going to argue today that No Platform is now a dead duck as a strategy.
It is not a viable strategy to defeat a party with scores of councillors, 2 MEP’s, 12,000 members and perhaps the most popular website in British politics.
With the exception of London, BNP membership is probably higher in most towns and cities than the numbers interested in actively no platforming them.
If we take the example of Stockport – the last BNP membership leak suggested 60 odd members in the town. The number of active anti-fascists in the town is probably in single figures.
A handful of people cannot no platform a greater number.
I do believe No Platform still has its advantages and uses as a tactic.
There is much to be said for harrying BNP stalls, and leafleting sessions. One of the things that continues to damage Nick Griffin are his bizarre public appearances surrounded by a security squad of wobblebottoms.
BNP security chief Martin Reynolds may be successful at his internet dating requests for ‘women who look like Dawn French’ but providing a discreet security presence is not his forte. No other public figure conducts himself in this way, surrounded by goons, and it was noticeable after one successful Antifa intervention in Yorkshire, Griffin turned up for a court appearance in a car complete with metal grilles over the windows.
So our pressure can have an effect on their behaviour. But there are other areas where anti-fascist pressure is simply side stepped.
In Barnsley in 2007 BNP street stalls were disrupted, tables smashed, papers stolen etc etc. The difficulty is, the BNP still stood in the subsequent local elections, still polling strong votes, and moving towards a position where they are seen as the alternative, or the radical opposition locally to the Labour Party.
So – anti-fascists managed to disrupt the BNP, to wound them, but not to kill them off.
Perhaps we need to think a little bit less about the BNP, and a little bit more about their voters.
Which brings us onto the next question:
CAN WE DEFEAT FASCISM, PURELY WITH ANTIFASCISM
This to me is the core issue, and the debate we need to have.
Morris and the 43 Group did.
The ANL and other currents who opposed the NF in the 1970s did.
Anti-Fascist Action and those opposing the BNP in the 1980s and early 1990s did.
I still think anti-fascists, using No Platform, are more than a match for those on the loopey fringe of the far-right – the British People’s Party, Racial Volunteer Force, Blood & Honour etc.
But in the long term, they are not the groups we have to worry about. The BNP is. And its electoral strategy, and electoral success, is something in the UK we have not seen before.
This question is a particular problem for Anarchists who by and large don’t vote and uncomfortable with organisations that are electoral.
If people think back to the formation of the Independent Working Class Association, I think that was one of the main reasons for its failure. A political current was not going to emerge from Anti-Fascist Action without the Anarchists.
Of course no one was more poorly placed than Red Action to lead a political initiative of that type. Red Action had a disastrous record of failing to maintain working relationships with virtually everyone they came into contact with, but I suspect deep down the real problem for Anarchists was that the IWCA was clearly going to be an electoral beast.
Of course the BNP’s is not a purely electoral strategy – there is a cultural element present, a desire to build up a cadre of members – Larry O’Hara, if he writes the book he should have written years ago on the British far-right - has the best analysis of this, (although in the meantime you can read some of his thinking in Notes From the Borderland) but the BNP are very much engaged in a war for position, attempting to take advantage of each opportunity that arises.
MULTI-CULTURALISM
In the case of the ANL, a mixture of methods were used here – from No Platform, to the development of a cultural strategy that brought together white, black and Asian youths around shared interests, music and football in particular.
You had even as late as the early 1990s a generation of broadly secular Asian youth who had cut their teeth in such politics – the Asian Youth Movements.
What we had in that era was a sort of voluntary multi-culturalism was practicesed that is and was very different to the type of top down funding based multi-culturalism to be practiced by councils like the GLC, Bradford and Birmingham City Council’s and Ken Livingstone’s London.
Kenan Malik has analysed this better than I could.
I think that brand of politics has been very damaging to our cause. After all if there is such a thing as the black community, or a Muslim community, or a Vietnamese community, there is by definition surely a white community. And just as ‘community leaders’ emerge to represent the Muslim community and to lobby on its behalf, we cannot proclaim ourselves to be shocked when someone steps up to say they represent the ‘white’ community. Whatever that is.
This is what happens when we abandon class politics, or we have sometimes well intentioned politics foisted onto our communities by government. We need to move away from the idea of communities fixed by race or religion, and raise the banner of class politics.
In doing this our enemy won’t only be the BNP – it will actually be those in the state, in local government, in faith groups and in the establishment parties who gain from the current system, ignoring the long term damage it does us all.
SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
Well the answer to that question in my 17 years in the Anarchist movement has always been the same – to the pub.
But there is a point when the drinking stops and we have to ask ourselves – do we have an Anarchist movement, do we have an anti-fascist movement that is – in management speak – fit for purpose.
I don’t think we do.
I do think we have potential. There are more than enough people passing through the doors of this bookfair over the course of today to form a successful campaign, group or resource if people put their minds to it.
The problem is we have to look beyond harrying the BNP, being against them, and instead look towards replacing them.
And that requires an Anarchist movement, socialist movement, community campaign – call it whatever you want – that does things, and does things that are relevant to people’s lives and aspirations.
We can do better.
http://paulstott.typepad.com/i_intend_to_escape_and_co/2009/11/giving-up-no-platform.html
Sugarbeet Bhoy
Homepage:
http://thesugarbeetbhoy.wordpress.com/
Comments
Hide the following 13 comments
Good points but real meaning of no platform is....
06.11.2009 01:24
But the real meaning and origins of no platform was not about state or media bans. It was about not allowing them on the platforms we create by our own efforts - in our communities and our unions. This means trades unions, but also students unions... and it is this I want to concentrate on here:
this issue might now come up in student unions in the colleges, raised by naive liberals who want to follow Question Time.... and the BNP would love to be allowed to organise on campuses, recruiting a generation of articulate young activists...
We need to say the following loudly and clearly:
Students unions - and Trades Unions - have one main task - to UNITE people in the fight to defend their basic rights. This means uniting people of all races and religions. Fascists, organised racists and other hate groups have the opposite principle - to DIVIDE people against each other on the base of race or religion. They are therefore in essence opposed to the basic mission of the union. We should not let them use our organisations, our community media, our community centres, venues and meetings halls as a platform to spread their division and divide us and undermine us. On the contrary, students unions and trades unions must use these resources to continually oppose and expose the fascists and organised racists. This means not allowing the BNP to organise in colleges, and stopping any attempt by them to set up BNP student societies. Such societies would have one aim - to organise and divide students on racial and nationalistic lines - thus sounding the death knell of students unionism. The BNP are not there yet - lets keep it that way.
While we need to rethink some aspects of 'no platform' - confusion as to what it means might mean that we give away too much in this 'rethink'. Thats the colleges for a start. Any other areas need mentioning?
Barry Kade
Homepage:
http://barrykade.wordpress.com
Wake Up Barry Kade
06.11.2009 06:16
But do carry on regardless wont you.....
Well done Paul Stott.
Johnty
Spot on.
06.11.2009 11:49
This sums it up for me. An anti-fascism tied to the Labour Party or UAF and the notion of political Mutliculturalism is doomed from the start.
There's an article here that goes into this in a bit more detail.
bruisedshins
What is the alternative to No Platform
06.11.2009 13:41
The notion that anarchists have "no class" is slightly insulting. Class may not be the term that anarchists routinely use to describe the us that are not them, but it is a strong, coherent concept that describes the situation. That anarchists are, by definition, the single largest "Class" does render the notion that class virtually invisible.
Yet, when you are the lone antifascist in a community dominated by fascists, the concept of class becomes painfully and permanently obvious. You are the recipient of 'no platform' and the articulation of that isolation is your class consciousness.
The concept of class articulated by Marxists is not the same as the concept emerging from Anarchist discourses. Careerist organisers on any side of a political spectrum are terrified of the new articulation of class. Class with consciousness intrinsically 'no platofrms' power. Wasting time and effort on the formal pursuit of 'no platform' is, as was stated at the bookfair, "a dead duck".
It is time to move on. It is time to ensure that activists of one cause are not 'no platforming' activists of another. Precisely because the state process of attrition of dissent and the manufacture of consent uses 'no platforming' to manage public politics. Kettling is, in many ways, a physical action that mirrors 'no platform' and it is tremendously effective. But only in what it does. Kettling becomes a self defeating strategy when those criticising highlight the nature of it as no platform.
Those who adhere to single issues are resistant to a changed political landscape. When people work for forty-five years in the same factory and suddenly find themselves retiring they also find the dominant single issue (work) has left their life. There is historical evidence that people simply cannot accept such a situation. Like it or not, this analogy is exactly what is happening to radical politics: the work has changed.
Unless there is a serious, considered and effective debate, fascists will not win through effort and effectiveness but will succeed through endurance. Reducing politics to a series of mangerial activities that exclude the vast class that nobody acknowledges exists. This is already evident in the managed failure of Trade Unionism in the 1990's as a response to the oppositional failure in the 1980's.
The truth is that all the single issue groups have won. Their victory has destroyed the unified opposition of 'no platform' to fascists. It is time for those groups to actually provide something that actually does transform society. Everybody is aware of the ends but nobody is articulating the means. Yes, there are tactics arguments everywhere. But there is no unified, radical policy. Unless such a policy can emerge, from the consensus, then 'no platform' transforms from an antifascist technique into a profascist technique.
Marxism might well be old fashioned and out of favour with modern liberal-individualist personal politics, but it did make a central and important contribution to intellectual history: things constantly change.
A Spectre
Give up anti-fascism: an anarchist response
06.11.2009 13:48
An article appeared in the August edition of Red Pepper magazine entitled Anti-fascism Isn't Working. Written by a non-aligned anarchist it was originally called Give Up Anti-fascism (presumably as a nod to the old Give Up Activism article written by disgruntled activists after the J18 mass mobilisation) and it is this version we shall be referring to here for the simple reason it's both the author's original edit and the one most read, by radicals at least.
Putting a case together
Give Up Anti-fascism offers up an interesting and valid addition to the debate on anti-fascism and should be viewed positively in that regard. Too easily radicals adopt and maintain familiar political criteria out of ideological loyalty, or just plain laziness, that stops them looking critically at what it is they are trying to achieve and the methods and tactics employed to achieve it. Although the article doesn't mention anarchists relationship to anti-fascism, addressing itself as it does to the liberal left and radical left (we can only speculate as to why the author didn't mention or even acknowledge Antifa in his assessment), anything that encourages us to look at and reassess how we apply our ideas is always useful, especially at a time of the anarchist movement's continued disorientation and lack of purpose, impact and confidence.
The article focuses on three distinct aspects (1) where the BNP currently stand electorally, (2) the failure of the left to successfully combat the rise of the BNP and, (3) positive suggestions how the left could and should reformulate itself, laying out the problems with the ongoing strategies for opposing the BNP. In a frank and considered way it centres itself around the question: is anti-fascism the answer to the BNP?
Conditions of participation
On the surface it commits a common sense approach to the problem of the BNP, and has a lot to commend it, but it also suffers flaws and contradictions. The first part of the article is expressed as "some brief facts and figures to situate the debate". The problem with this is it doesn't put those figures in any social or political context. This is troubling for two reasons. Firstly it gives us nothing to anchor our understanding about just why people are voting for the BNP in the numbers they are; secondly we are given no frame of reference, no insight into just who the BNP are appealing to and under what circumstances. No political party is cut off from the social, cultural and economic conditions of the day and simply presenting statistics this way does just that. We have had 12 years of a Labour government most of which have been spent involved either directly or indirectly in wars in the Middle East bringing with it the rise of political Islam and the hardening of Muslim identities; we've seen the imposition of official multi-culturalism as government social policy; we've seen the opening and expansion of the internal European Union borders resulting in economic migration on an unprecedented scale; we've seen escalating military conflict across the globe creating mass population displacement; we no longer have in this country sustainable heavy industries or large scale manufacturing to bind communities together or build discernible class dynamics in the traditional way. As reported previously in Freedom we are living through a unique set of social conditions, and the BNP operate within these conditions. How and why the left have failed to address and capitalise on the same conditions in the same way is beyond the scope of this piece but one that will have to involve some fearless soul searching for all those concerned. The irony being in order for Labour to enjoy the longest uninterrupted term in office in its history it had to get rid of Clause 4, take away all elective and decision-making powers from the largely working class dominated area branches, effectively barren outposts of the Millbank Empire, and rope in endless middle-class consultants as policy makers to fill the gap. In abandoning the working class they have achieved their biggest victory.
Internal affairs
Similarly there is no mention of the internal mechanism of the BNP; Griffin's ongoing strategy of 'modernising' the party - appealing to a wider electorate by watering down its political rhetoric. This continues to be at the heart of the BNP growth but brings with it its own fragile tensions. To keep those newly won voters placated the party must continue to remain accessible and not too politically extreme, moving from the political fringes, both in policy and presentation, to be subsumed in the arena of bourgeois parliamentary democracy. This may allow the BNP the privilege of rubbing shoulders with other career politicians on Question Time but it means their fascist and overt racist tendencies must remain disused, if not completely discarded. It also causes divisions within the party with the more hardline membership feeling betrayed and sidelined by the current political trajectory. These ruptures can threaten to overwhelm the party at any point, as they almost did with the party split and challenge to Griffin's leadership in 2007 and remain manageable by the leadership only as long as the BNP's popularity is in the ascendant and the funds remain buoyant. If the party is diluting its political rhetoric in homeopathic proportions to gain votes, and have committed themselves not to engage in any 'street based' physical force activity, the revolutionary nature of fascism being all but buried beneath the desire for respectability, just where is the real threat from the BNP coming from? A question we shall come back to.
The second part of the article does a fairly assured job of highlighting the failures of current anti-fascist methods concerning Hope Not Hate, connected to the state-associated Searchlight organisation, and Unite Against Fascism, essentially a Socialist Workers Party front group (although supported by mainstream politicians and organisations across the political spectrum) and dismantling their various tactical approaches - 'isolate and expose' being the favoured one. This is where the author gets it spot on, from the absurdity of calling for 'vote anyone but BNP' to the policy of exposing the past indiscretions of various party members. Where the article is at its most interesting it is also at its weakest in the third section with the positive suggestions.
Real dangers, real solutions?
But first we must understand where the real danger from the BNP lies. According to the article it is in them "colonising the anti-mainstream parties vote and loyalty, thereby blocking the development of an independent working class politics capable of defending our conditions and of challenging neo-liberalism". This sounds like rhetorical bluster. Certainly future BNP strategy according to Griffin will be based around 'community politics work', intended to build trust within communities and ease people into the idea of the BNP as decent neighbours rather than political extremists. The problem with this is they can only be a certain type of good neighbour to a certain constituency. But does it necessarily follow that colonising the anti-mainstream vote means a block on the development of an independent working class politics? And if so how? It's wishful thinking or worst case scenario perhaps but it's a prediction that relies on a lot of good will afforded the BNP by the working class themselves (with or without the job of the left being the defenders of the needs of working class communities).
The point is we as radicals have had no impact in creating those social conditions listed above nor have any means of changing them directly. All we can do is be a part of the discourse. The whole thrust of Give Up Anti-fascism rests on the idea we don't stop the BNP operating but we become an alternative and competing voice to the BNP about 'the state we are in'. And the way that voice gains credibility is through operating in positive and practical ways in our communities. Essentially be a better good neighbour than the BNP.
Getting our hands dirty
The need to build 'community unions' is the article's key positive suggestion as an alternative to the current ineffectual model of anti-fascism. These unions would "work directly on helping to meet the needs of those politically abandoned working class communities where conditions are deteriorating by the day. Based around the self-identified needs and plans of those communities" All solid enough stuff but a little idealistic especially in the suggestion they could be funded by trade unions while remaining organisationally independent. The three groups London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP), Haringey Solidarity Group (HSG) and the Independent Working Class Association (IWCA) named as examples of those already engaged in this approach need to be looked at a little closer. LCAP base their activity on helping the homeless and unemployed gain access to what they are legally entitled to from the state. As an advocacy group they draw their core membership from the middle-class activist scene, skilled and experienced in dealing with officialdom to essentially help people less fortunate than themselves, the very same methodology as criticised by the original J18 Give Up Activism authors. Admittedly there are some in LCAP who wish to move beyond their current status and LCAP as a group should be encouraged and supported in that endeavour. HSG has been attempting for years to build a network of community groups in every London borough, based on precisely the same principles as these 'community unions', which only now seems to be bearing fruit. Going under the title Radical London it's a network of locally instituted groups made up largely of anarchists, or with anarchist sympathies, with the intention of offering practical support on local issues while engaging politically in working class resistance from an anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist perspective. Then there's the IWCA. Formed out of the ashes of Red Action who were more than successful in confronting the far right in the 80's and 90's the IWCA were the first to recognise and take seriously the BNP's shift from 'street based' politics to proper electioneering adopting a strategy of "promoting and celebrating the political independence of the working class" as a direct challenge to the BNP. But after almost 15 years in existence, and 8 years as a political party, the question remains why have the IWCA failed to engage with the working class on the same scale and with the same success as the BNP and why have the working class failed to turn to and embrace the IWCA as they have with the BNP? However valid the politics of the IWCA are they have yet to capture the imagination or interest of the working class in any significant way leaving the BNP to grow and indulge itself as a "radical alternative".
Another key point is why these community unions would be a part of the opposition to the BNP at all? Unless going head to head with the BNP on issues in those areas or unless they're invested with an outside political dynamic - confronting the BNP at election time, promoting a left-wing party alternative, this approach is simply one of successful community organising. Which brings us onto the confusion over voting/not voting. If these community unions aren't based on electioneering, how is their success defined? Less BNP votes, councillors, MEPS? Less support for Labour? All of which of course could only ever be validated at election time. Being critical of the failings of a government in power is still simply that, a critical voice.
The anarchists
Where does all this leave anarchists in the fight against the BNP? Solidarity Federation in the latest edition of their magazine Direct Action re-confirms it policy of no platform for fascists encouraging its members to support militant anti-fascist campaigns. Anarchist Federation state "The AF does not have a single perspective on fascism and the way to counter it", but offers no immediate methods of engagement with the BNP. Liberty and Solidarity have yet to express an opinion although their members have been active in physically confronting the BNP; none offer a coherent long term strategy of dealing with the BNP.
With Antifa currently gone to ground anarchists need to seriously consider how they organise around the issue of the BNP's continued and seemingly uninterrupted growth. Give Up Anti-fascism is worthy starting point for that discourse.
Anarchist Anti-fascist
'No platform' can be misused
06.11.2009 18:44
Jay Knott
The answer is already here
06.11.2009 21:55
But no, now the perspective has been reversed and now is the time NOT to fight the fascists?? Wot rubbish.
SO the communists shouldn't have continued to fight the Nazis in germany prior to 1933, when the Nazis were getting bigger? No, I do not see the logic at all.
Anyway, read Autonomous anti fascism in here, a few pages in;
Anarchism in action
The tired old analogy of the nineteen-thirties
06.11.2009 22:58
Jay Knott
Anarchism In Action
07.11.2009 10:27
06.11.2009 21:55
here is a perspective for a way forward beyond hit squads. Stott was way too genourous to Anti fa in the 1980s btw, the facists had no chance of anything then. If there ever was a time for working class political organising it was then.
But no, now the perspective has been reversed and now is the time NOT to fight the fascists?? Wot rubbish.
SO the communists shouldn't have continued to fight the Nazis in germany prior to 1933, when the Nazis were getting bigger? No, I do not see the logic at all.
Anyway, read Autonomous anti fascism in here, a few pages in;
Anarchism in action
Clearly you are a particular individual who has a personal grievance against the author which clouds your brain matter.
1. Antifa didnt exist in the 80's-AFA did.
2. In the 80's the BNP were active on the streets, today they don't even march.
3. Stott is not calling for a total boycott of harrassing fascists physically he is pointing out that today community organising is by far more important for 'seeing them off'.
4. You yourself are not involved in militant anti-fascism in any form whatsoever which is ironic considering you dare to slate this discussion.
5. Your magazine is frowned on as being...lame.
Cedric
Excellent speech paul
07.11.2009 20:03
Ellen S
Homepage:
http://www.libertyandsolidarity.org
are you sure ellen?
08.11.2009 10:37
- from 'give up anti-fascism: an anarchist reponse' above.
I just wish all those people saying this is the way forward in confronting the bnp would just get the fuck on with it, instead of blaming the failures of 'anti-fascism'.
aanala
portland fascists
08.11.2009 12:02
Jay Knotts "friend" (Tim Calvert) in Portland is a racist anti-semite just as he is himself. He was targetted for his fascist sympathies. Invite holocaust denying, white power supporting fascists to your loony conspiracy theory meetings and suffer the fallout.
@
Maydays firm political position
09.11.2009 09:53
Yes, the original post confused Antifa with AFA, but the point was that there was a confusing and contradictory streak in anti fascism, which IS a valid point.
They are active 'on the streets' doing demos stalls etc...
I was at the founding meeting of anti fa! in Freedom @ Whitechapel... Of course I will point out the problems there are with anti fascism, they are many and varied, just like your (inc Anti Fa/anarchists) lack of politics.
The magazine has a sophisticated political position, which includes anti facism. Just cos you think it is lame does not mean it is... eg. mayday magazine covered the postal workers dispute the best recently, the anarchists missed it. You're so lame.
Mayday
Homepage:
http://mayday-magazine.vpweb.co.uk/