BNP At The BBC

After much ado, the BBC invited the BNP leader on to its “Question Time” programme. It looks as though the invite was part of a choreographed attempt, by the British State, and its various arms, to rein in the BNP, which has, over the last couple of years, started to become a hindrance to the interests of Capital. In the days leading up to the show, the BNP was attacked in the media by former Generals, by a new organisation of soldiers and ex soldiers, and by even the rabid, racist press such as the Mail, Sun, Express, and Star, whose vile attacks on immigrants, and asylum seekers, and Little Englander attacks on the EU, have largely been responsible for creating the kind of narrow minded, nationalist climate in which the BNP has thrived. The fact that the bosses State has decided, for now, to put the fascists back in their box, should not, of course, blind us to what the fascists are, or lead us to place any kind of reliance on the bosses and their State for dealing with the fascists.

The fascists remain what they have always been, the bosses’ last resort, to be used when their backs are against the wall, and they fear the working class. Only because the bosses backs are not against the wall, only because the working class is still relatively weak, only because under those conditions the activities of the fascists are destabilising, are the bosses and their State acting against the BNP. As Marxists, we understand what the State is. It is the means by which the bosses maintain their rule, through a complex of organisations, that range from the physical means of suppressing workers struggles, such as the armed forces, the police, the Courts and prisons, to more subtle means such as the Church, Schools, Colleges, Universities and the media, to even more subtle means such as the basic units of Capitalist society like the family, which act to socialise workers, and to transmit all of the ideas, morals and customs that arise out of the material conditions of Capitalist Society.

For that reason, Marxists do not delude workers into believing that this State is in any way neutral, or that it can be persuaded to act in their interests. We do not make any calls on this State, then, to act in that way, whether it be to look after the workers economic interests by, say, nationalisation, or by acting as some kind of impartial arbitrator in industrial disputes, like the current Postal strike, nor in the workers political interests by, for example, acting against the fascists, or even defending basic bourgeois freedoms such as free speech. On the contrary, we point out that, if the State does any of those things, it does it, not for the workers interests, but the interests of the bosses. As such it will always do so in a way that meets that goal. That is why we are against State Bans, for example, banning the Dutch politician Geert Wilders; it is why we are against that State acting as a censor, by banning certain publications, plays etc. All of these things will be, and have been, used far more extensively against the working class than they will be used against the fascists. The State has regularly banned free movement of workers – Immigration Controls are an obvious example – as it did by preventing Miners free movement during the 1984 strike. In the early part of the last century, and during WWII, the Communist Party was banned. But, more importantly, as Marxists we believe that the only force that can liberate the whole of society, and create Socialism, is the working class itself, through its own activity and effort. For that reason, above all, we try to get workers to rely on their own strength, initiative and organisation to achieve all these things.

The SWP, was completely wrong to try to get the BBC to ban Griffin’s appearance. If Griffin was to be stopped then the way to do it was for BBC workers to have simply pulled the plug on the programme, just as in the past print workers have blanked pages of newspapers. Griffin’s appearance has created some discussion on the Left, though, about whether we should abandon the idea of “No Platform For Fascists” as a principle, rather than seeing it simply as a tactic. The Weekly Worker, in recent weeks has carried stories about the way in the 1920’s, Communists shared platforms with fascists, and in doing so not only undermined the fascists arguments, but won over some of the fascists supporters.

The SP, too, seems to be coming around to the idea that in a situation where the fascists are regularly being interviewed by the bourgeois media, refusing to appear alongside them challenging their views just gives them a free ride. It is not the fascists who are No Platformed, but the Socialists doing it to themselves. Of course, as the “Question Time” programme demonstrated, this in itself provides a problem, because the question then arises who should actually confront the fascists ideas? What has become clear over recent months is that the organisations that currently exist to oppose the fascists be it the UAF, or various local anti-fascist groups linked to Searchlight, are woefully inadequate. They are inadequate, because they operate on the basis of a limited, negative ant-fascism, not on the basis of providing workers with a realistic solution to their problems, as an alternative to the easy solutions offered by the racists and fascists. Still less can we expect the bourgeois politicians like those on the Question Time Programme to provide such an alternative. They cannot because they are themselves advocates of that very Capitalist system, which creates the problems that affect the workers, and upon which the BNP breed.

Although the newspapers and media commentators talked about Griffin being at bay, in fact, I thought that in many ways, Griffin came out of the confrontation with several gains. Yes, he was left stumbling and mumbling in trying to defend his positions on the Holocaust, and sharing a platform with David Dukes, but some of that will be over the head of many viewers, will be swallowed up by the hard core racists, and will be looked at by others as resulting from the fact that here was one man, being attacked by four panellists and David Dimbleby, and a largely hostile audience. Griffin was right that, in fact, all of the attack was against him as an individual rather than a debate about politics, and that stems directly from that limited anti-fascism that has been the hallmark of all anti-fascist activity, plus the fact that bourgeois politicians like Straw are hard pressed to defend the anti-working class policies that they have pursued.

A classic example of that was Straw’s ridiculous attempt to portray Griffin – an extreme Nationalist – as in some way unpatriotic! Straw, decried Griffin’s statement that were he alive today Churchill would have been a member of the BNP. Actually, Griffin is right, he may well have been. Churchill was a well-known maverick. His views were well-known to be rabidly anti-semitic, and anti-working class. He sent troops to shoot striking miners in Tonypandy for instance. In the 1920’s and 1930’s like large sections of the Capitalist class, and alongside glowing Editorials and articles in papers like the Daily Mail, he was enthralled by the success of fascists like Mussolini and Hitler in smashing the working classes in their countries in order that the bosses could hold on to power, and increase their profits. None of that prevented Churchill as a Nationalist and representative of BRITISH Capital, from going to War with Hitler and Mussolini who equally represented the interests of German and Italian Capital in a War, to secure control over markets, and the right to exploit labour around the globe! Trying, then to portray Griffin and the BNP as Nazis, which, in this case, simply means equating them with German Nationalists, is not only ridiculous, but is itself thoroughly racist, because it leads to the idea that what was objectionable was not the set of ideas that the fascists represented, but was itself a function of the fact that they were German. Given the overhang of that from World War I, where it was suggested that these traits were in some way a national characteristic, the racist content of that is clear. Its ironic, but perhaps not surprising, that in utilising this kind of image of “Anti-Nazism”, the “socialists” of the SWP, themselves end up as proponents of racism. Not surprising, because much of the SWP’s attitude to the question of Israel and the Palestinians falls into the same trap, its politics are presented not as a struggle of Palestinian and Jewish workers against Capital, but of a struggle of all Palestinians against all Jews, who are tarred with the brush of the Israeli State.

And, having gone down this route, Straw was hung with his own rope, as Griffin retorted that, whereas his Father had served in the RAF during the War, Straw’s Father had been in gaol, for refusing to fight. In addition, because Griffin is a consistent Nationalist as opposed to the bourgeois politicians for whom Nationalism is just a convenient tool to be picked up and dropped as and when the occasion suits, Griffin was able to turn this attack on his patriotism around by pointing out that it was Straw and his Government that had handed over power to Brussels, who had refused to grant a referendum to British people on the Lisbon Treaty etc. On all those points, the groundswell of narrow minded nationalism, that the media, like the Mail, has created over the last decade or so, the fear that bourgeois politicians have created by their hyping up of the danger of terrorism, their own demonising of immigrants and asylum seekers through detention centres, immigration limits and so on, must have seen Griffin as being the one who was being consistent, and dealing with the fears that have been engendered. The bourgeois press, and politicians have created that situation, now they are reaping what they have sown.

Of course, none of these politicians on Question Time could take on Griffin on the ground on which he really should have been challenged, because to do so, they would have to have denied their own politics too. At the end of the day, all of these politicians Griffin included, stand on the same side of the class barricade. That is not to make the same claims as the Stalinists of the Third Period, who said that everyone who was not a Stalinist was some kind of fascist. Not at all, there are clear differences between the Labour politicians and the Tory and Liberal politicians, just as there are clear differences between the Tory and Liberal politicians and the fascists. But, as bourgeois politicians they do all serve the interests of Capital, not of workers. Only had there been a representative on the panel of workers could those politics have been taken up. Ironically, though Griffin complains about being subject to a lynch mob – even more ironical given the link to the KKK – had there been such a representative of the workers on the programme, it would have been they who would have been subject to the hostility of the Panel, if not of the audience.

Only a representative of workers could have pointed out that the reason there are not enough affordable houses for workers is not due to immigration, but is due to the fact that the bosses’ state prefers to spend billions on foreign wars and expensive missile systems than on workers housing needs, and that because Capitalists own the big construction companies, their decisions on whether to build or not are dependent not upon the needs of society for decent houses, but on their individual need to make large profits. That the reason house prices had soared beyond the ability of many workers to buy them, was the action of the bosses State to print huge amounts of money to keep the system afloat, that led to the Banks making loans to people they knew could not pay them back, on the basis that those Banks could always sell those houses later when the prices had risen. In short that the workers housing problems were not at all due to immigration, but were due to the Capitalist Casino economy, whose croupiers continue to pay themselves huge bonuses out of taxpayers money!

Only a workers representative could have pointed out that the reason there are insufficient jobs is nothing to do with immigration, but is due to the workings of that same Capitalist Casino economy, which produces without knowing that there are customers for its products, which wastes vast sums on paying astronomical salaries to a few already rich executives, whose decisions are based not on what is good for society, but what is good for themselves and their shareholders, whose motivation is the maximisation of profit not employment, and who, therefore, have shifted production overseas where they have been able to employ cheap labour.

Only a workers’ representative could have argued that the reason for low pay, and poor conditions is not the immigrants coming in to fill these low-paid jobs, but is the actions of the bosses who control the means of production, and take advantage of ALL workers wherever they can to impose such pay and conditions. Only a workers representative could explain that the reason that the NHS fails to meet the basic needs of workers has nothing to do with immigration – without which most of the hospitals and Care Homes would have no staff – but is due to the inefficiency, and bureaucracy of State capitalist provision, which wastes huge resources on the pay of top bureaucrats and Consultants, and much more on the empires they create to sustain their status and position, as opposed to the provision of a service to the public. Only a workers representative could explain that the reason our schools provide an inadequate education, and that there are inadequate places, is not due to immigration, but is due to the fact that for the bosses and their state, education like health and social care is an unwelcome but necessary overhead for the running of their system, and so they keep spending on it down to the bare minimum compatible with meeting its requirements for providing workers.

For all those reasons the bourgeois politicians could offer no real political challenge to Griffin. And, its because organisation like UAF seek to ally with these bourgeois politicians, even including some rabid Tories, that they too can never present a real political alternative to the fascists, and instead fall back on personal attacks, and straightforward negativism. A strategy, which is not only bound to fail, but quite clearly has failed as the BNP has continued to gain ground.

What we need is not just a movement that is “anti-fascist”, let alone “Anti-Nazi” (with all the racist anti-German connotations that has), but which is pro-socialist, pro-working class. Even a limited programme that provided a series of working-class solutions to these problems – for example, the creation of Estate Co-ops to manage workers housing estates, and from there Construction Co-ops to begin to build decent workers housing, and create construction jobs at decent wages and conditions; the demand for real democratic control of the NHS in each area, prior to workers ownership of health provision, real democratic control over education and school facilities so that they can be opened up properly to all workers within the community to advance themselves and through which real workers education can be conducted; for a large increase in the Minimum Wage, and demand that all work done in Britain be paid at proper Trade Union rates of pay; that the various European Social Democratic Parties work towards the creation of a single European Workers Party linked to a single European Trade Union Movement; that such a Movement campaign for and commit its MEP’s to a democratisation of the EU, abolishing the unelected bodies, and vesting sovereignty in the elected Parliament, and campaigns for and commits its representatives to a single set of Pensions, Benefits and conditions, for all workers throughout the EU, to prevent bosses in one country suppressing wages and conditions to undercut another – could be put forward as an alternative to the racist solutions of the BNP, and could be hammered home by the spokespeople of such a movement in confronting the BNP whenever the media give them a platform. On that basis if that media refused to allow such a spokesperson to present this alternative to the bile of the BNP, we would have every reason to point out the bias of the bosses media, and call on the workers employed in it to act accordingly.

The problem at the moment is that the Labour Movement is itself so infected with bourgeois ideas that even the solutions of the Left amount to nothing more than radical bourgeois solutions such as State Capitalism. We have to rediscover the ideas of Marx, we have to re-arm the Labour Movement with those ideas, only on that basis can we move forward.