The action of the BBC management in respect of Gary Lineker calling out the racist nature of the Government's latest asylum laws is crass. It shows the BBC for what it is, the official propaganda arm of the state. In fact, worse than that. Its unlikely that the British ruling class, and so its state actually supports the government's policy either, as it again makes Britain into a pariah, and makes relations with the EU more difficult. But, in Britain, a sizeable, reactionary, and nationalistic petty-bourgeoisie developed since the 1980's and has captured the Tory Party, itself leading to a continual battle inside the state itself, as also witnessed over Brexit, where the BBC again, was a bulwark of reaction, giving hugely exaggerated space to the likes of Farage.
As others have pointed out, the treatment of Lineker is in sharp contrast to the treatment of say, Andrew Neill, let alone those within the BBC, who are known Tories, former leaders of Tory students, and so on, and even helped organise finance for Boris Johnson. Even worse than being the propaganda arm of the British state, it, has been captured by, and is in thrall to the Tory Party, a party itself that represents all of the bigotry and reaction of the petty-bourgeoisie.
But, the response of Labour has also been typically crass and abominable. When the row first broke, during the week, Emily Thornberry appeared on TV, and gave Labour's lone that Lineker had gone too far in comparing the Tories line with that of the Nazis during the 1930's, and that it diminished the uniquely evil nature of the Holocaust. Other Labour spokespeople echoed this view. Now, as most of he country appears to have lined up behind Lineker, and BBC pundits, commentators and other workers have engaged in what amounts to 1950's/60's style wildcat strikes, to support Lineker, Starmer tries to hitch a ride on their back, and ignore the fact that they were also attacking Lineker only a day or so ago.
A Labour Party that trails along, several yards behind the working-class, like a lost puppy, before deciding which way to go, is of no use to the working-class, and certainly of no use to the cause of Socialism. Not that Starmer's Blue Labour Party, itself engulfed in the same kind of reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalism as the Tories, is in any danger of coming with a million miles of Socialism, anyway.
The truth is that Lineker's comparison with Nazi Germany in the 1930's is quite appropriate. Those that make he comparison with The Holocaust are wrong, because that occurred in the 1940's, not the 1930's. In the 1930's, the Nazis were still seeking to build support around their ultra-nationalist narrative, much as the Tories have done with Brexit. Its purpose was to divert attention away from the fact that the problems of workers was to be laid at the foot of capitalism, and instead to blame it on foreigners, again the same as is the intention of Brexit, and the Tories attempts to blame all ills on immigrants, and asylum seekers.
Of course, given Labour's commitment to Brexit, and its own reactionary nationalist stance, as it competes with the Brexitories as to who can wrap themselves in the biggest flag, its not surprising that they find it difficult to attack the Tories on that basis. And, having waged a witch hunt against the Left of the Labour Party on the basis of a fake concern over anti-Semitism, which they equated with anti-Zionism, of course, they want to make any reference to Nazism as being specific to a unique holocaust against Jews. To compare the racist propaganda of the Nazis to anything other than anti-Semitism, for Starmer and co. is to diminish the nature of anti-Semitism, as against any other form of racism, and they have tied themselves to that.
Forget that the Nazis propaganda was also aimed at Roma, at homosexuals, at the disabled, and so on, or that they began by first rounding up communists and socialists, and then trades union activists. having laid the ground for that during the 1930's, the narrative of Starmer et al, driven by their use of the fight against "anti-Semitism", can only see Nazism in these same terms as "anti-Semitism". That, of course, suits Starmer and co., because it turns opposition to Nazism into a purely moralistic question, a fight of good and evil. It denies any connection of Nazism to class interest, and class struggle.
The only thing wrong with Lineker's comparison is that it was too restricted. In the 1930's, it was not just in Germany that these references to Jews, or others were used to whip up bigotry, and divert attention away from the fact that capitalism had led to global mass unemployment and falling living standards for workers. It should be mentioned that this was not a crisis for capitalism, which had happened in the previous 20 years, when strong labour movements had been built on the back of labour shortages, and led to wages rising to squeeze profits. In the 1930's, it was labour not capital that was in crisis, as unemployment meant falling wages, but sharply rising profits, as also happened in the 1980's.
In Britain, not only did the ruling class and papers like the Daily Mail welcome the rise of Mussolini in Italy, and Hitler in Germany, but those papers, and the ruling class, and its representatives, like Churchill, used the same words and phrases to whip up hatred of jews - and in the case of Churchill, Indians Afghans and pretty much anyone else oppressed by British colonialism - that were used by the Nazis. The same was true in France, and elsewhere, including in the US, where people like Henry Ford, financed racist and anti-Semitic candidates in elections.
Lineker is right to make the comparison with the racism and anti-Semitism of the 1930's, precisely because it was the failure then to adequately deal with it, and to draw attention to the nature of it as a means to divert attention away from the class struggle, a struggle that is again intensifying, that enabled the Nazis and others to rise.
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