Leaflet text for anti-fascist mobilisation against the BNP's RWB festival, Aug 15th
Aftermath of an Abysmal Election - Living in Dangerous Times
A few minutes after the election of the Andrew Brons, the first BNP MEP, Andy Burman, New Labour Minister for Health was on the radio saying how terrible it was that such a party had won a seat. But rather than taking sides with those who are targeted by the fascists he said "we must listen to what the electorate are telling us about immigration." In other words, responding by yet more attacks on migrants, being seen to be "tougher".
In these same European Elections in June the United Kingdom Independence Party came second pushing Labour into 3rd place. An extraordinary result. One of UKIP's central slogans in their election campaign was "No to unlimited immigration - Defend Britain's borders". Nicholas Farage leader of the UKIP said in an interview with the Guardian 30 May said that Enoch Powell was his political hero. "Enoch Powell was an extraordinary fellow. I admired him for having the guts to talk about immigration, society and how we want to live."
Shortly after his election BNP leader and MEP, Nick Griffin said on radio that the boats carrying immigrants ought to be sunk!!
Fascists, the Recession and Immigration
The fascists have always campaigned against immigration - vilifying both people coming to the country and settled communities that have come to Britain and are 'destroying its character'. They will make particular attacks on different groups. In the early part of the 20th century it was the Jews who were taking over. Today it is the Muslims, whilst Eastern Europeans take everyone’s jobs. They play on people’s fears of change and security. They claim that asylum seekers get priority housing and better access to public services. In a period of recession these fears are particularly high. People are worried about job security, wages and conditions and the fascists blame migrants 'flooding to the country' for this.
Axis of Evil and Stupidity - Hurrah for the Black Shirts!
In this they are ably assisted by a series of bodies - Migration Watch who produce bogus statistics to show how "we are being swamped by them". UKIP as we pointed out above. The press, especially papers like the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Gordon Brown and Trades Union leaders, who go around bandying slogans about "British Jobs for British Workers".
UKIP, the Daily Mail, Gordon Brown and the TUC will all say that they are totally opposed the BNP. But objectively they help them. In the 30s things were clearer because the Daily Mail openly supported Hitler and Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Since the turn of the century the Daily Mail has attacked migrants just as viciously as the fascists. In 2003 when we demonstrated against the racism of the Daily Mail against migrants, the BNP turned up on the other side of the road with banners defending the Daily Mail. They know who their friends are.
The Reality of migrant’s lives is a million miles from the picture painted by the BNP. Immigration controls ensure that migrants have totally unequal rights, and in many cases, no rights at all. They face the 3 Ds - Detention, Deportation and Destitution - three faces of immigration controls defined by little or no access to public services, rights at work and so forth, or being seized directly. Migrant workers are increasingly subject to paper checks and raids by the Border Agency at work. This often happens when migrants are fighting back in trades unions. These are ultimately attacks on ALL workers and need to be resisted by the entire trade union movement.
Anti-Fascists must fight for migrants rights – what should the anti-fascist movement do?
First we must nail the lies. We must challenge the myths put out not only by the BNP but also UKIP, the press and all the other purveyors of falsity and hate. And the AF movement needs to do more to give migrants a voice to say it like it really is to communities and trades union branches and conferences.
But facts are not enough. We must challenge the whole ethos of "them and us" which lies behind immigration controls. In arguments and in our literature we must challenge the idea that people have less rights because they are born somewhere else, aren't white, don't have English as their first language etc.
Hold the line against Appeasement. There are a number of reasons why Governments make immigration controls more and more draconian. Certainly one of these is to appease the Daily Mail and the fascists. When opposition against migrants is whipped up, the screw is turned again. Governments have been responding in this way ever since the anti-Semitic agitation by the British Brothers League which led up to the introduction of the Aliens Act in 1905. We must hold the line. Where anti-fascists build links with councillors, MPs, MEPs from the mainstream parties, we must demand that they oppose these attacks if they want to be regarded part of our movement.
An injury to one is an injury to all We must hammer home the message that an attack on migrants is an attack on all our communities and on people at work. We must stand together against employers, against state attacks, to defend our services. Dividing us against each other is a disaster.
We believe that the logic of all these arguments is to abolish immigration controls altogether. There is a growing network of organisations - Campaign Against Immigration Controls, No Borders and No One is Illegal who are pushing the argument against immigration controls and supporting resistance against all aspects of controls.
We know that there will be differences on this and we will be pleased to debate them. But what we insist on is that the question of immigration must be addressed by the anti-fascist movement. If we leave that territory to the fascists, their apologists and the State, they will seize it and push us back and back.
We meet once a fortnight on Mondays at: Transport House, 128 Theobalds Road, Holborn (5 minutes from Holborn Tube). Our next meeting is on Monday 17th August at 7pm