CPGB defends Nick Griffin’s “democratic rights”

The English Defence League (EDL) are the BNPs boot-boy front. The fact that they have staged a series of provocations just a couple of months after the fascists won two seats in the Euro elections should be proof enough of that. But of course the links are far more explicit, not only do BNP activists mobilise, organise and promote their activities, its website was constructed by a BNP member. Of course the BNP wanting to maintain some distance between its respectable profile and its street fighting wing has publicly disavowed the EDL and even threatened that it will “discipline” members involved in its activities. 

This entirely bogus separation is strictly for public consumption, but it is nonetheless enough to fool the gullible Ben Lewis. In a recent Weekly Worker article he says “However, it is quite clear that the BNP wants nothing to do with organising EDL street protests or to be associated with it in any other way.”  

Lewis deliberate naivety serves a purpose. The theme of his article is that the EDL are little or no threat. There is no need to worry. Comparisons between the street fighting EDL and Moseley are plain wrong according to Lewis, OK he admits things could change in the middle of a recession, but nonetheless concern about the EDL is still “based on an overestimation of the far right’s current influence.” At one point in his article Ben Lewis accepts the abstract possibility of organising self-defence against fascist groups like the BNP and EDL. But this is strictly window dressing. Ben Lewis does not mention his attitude to the fascist EDL marching through Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, and in propaganda and practice of course the Weekly Worker tries to persuade people trying to stop the Nazis is a waste of time. 

A second article by James Turley continues this theme concentrating on the BNP. It suggests the left are over-hyping the fascist threat by declaring that “the June elections did not represent any explosion of support for the BNP”. This sleight of hand carefully ignores the fact that over the last ten years the BNP has gone from an insignificant organisation to one with a swathe of councillors, two MEPs and 950,000 votes.

Like Ben Lewis, Turley does not rule out action against the fascists, but not now of course. “If our working class organisations, meetings and demonstrations are being directly threatened in a given locality, then socialists, trade-unionists and others should take whatever steps are necessary to defend them. But this is not true of the situation in British politics at large.” This is utter complacency. If it had any influence, which fortunately it doesn’t, it would completely disarm the struggle against fascism and the BNP. This precisely needs to take place before it has built roots and can mobilise its passive voting base onto the streets. 

State bans and the UAF

Lewis’ particular target is Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and some on the left who call on the state to ban or proscribe the fascists. He attacks the UAF’s popular frontist strategy, one seeking to build an alliance between workers organisations and respectable bourgeois elements. But do not be fooled into thinking this is a communist critique.

Lewis attacks the SWP/UAF not in order to counter pose a working class united front against fascism but to propose that Marxists should instead debate with the fascists. “It should be blindingly obvious that the tasks of Marxists now should not consist in appealing to the BBC to ban the BNP, but to start articulating our solutions and our programme, build our own electoral base, see our own councillors and MEPs elected, and force the establishment to start taking us seriously!” So while the BNP are busy spreading their fascist politics across the media, the Marxists need to win elections in order to force “the establishment to start taking us seriously”. As if the establishment have ever been forced to do anything by the election of MPs. Ben Lewis is a liberal wearing a communist mask. 

Like the CPGB we oppose calling on the state to ban BNP and EDL marches and to ban and proscribe BNP members from certain jobs. Such bans and proscriptions implemented by the state are nearly always turned on the far left, as the history of banning anti-fascist demonstrations shows. But the CPGB also sets its face against workers taking such action themselves because it thinks it is better to debate the fascists, to defend their “democratic rights”, the very fascists who want to destroy all our democratic rights and the labour movement along with them.

Thus James Turley declares “We should not demand the BBC ditch Nick Griffin on October 22 - but that the establishment make room for the Marxist left on its platforms.” The fact is Bectu and the other media unions who are opposed to the BNP being invited onto the BBC, and have called a demonstration against it, are absolutely right. The workers themselves should organise to “pull the plugs on the fascist thugs”, just as the PCS and teachers unions should mobilise to drive known fascists out the workplaces.

The CPGB actively works to undermine such actions and demonstrations, showing once again that they remain merely democrats not communists. 

Thu 15, October 2009 @ 18:56