Black people need to stop treating homosexuality as if it's a white man's disease. We need to embrace the vibrant presence of gays and lesbians in our community and stop siding with bigots and racists. Over the past few weeks the homophobic murder of Ian Baynham in Trafalgar Square and the assault on PC James Parkes in Liverpool have shocked the gay community. Every anti-gay opinion adds strength to their attackers and supports other gay bashers. Whenever the subject of homosexuality is raised in the black community there is hysteria and denial; we who are black and lesbian or gay are considered at best a joke and at worst just plain wrong, weird or dirty. Many think we are somehow infected with a western decadent ifestyle and are undermining our race. This thinking is fuelled by a combination of ignorance, fear, hatred, Christian and Islamic-based homophobic religious beliefs, and perversely racial pride. This deadly combination of prejudice forces us to be invisible in our own communities. Being black and lesbian or gay makes it harder for many of us to come out.
The fear of losing our families in a racist society, and therefore our connection with our culture, is very real. Also having to negotiate through a white gay scene makes it doubly difficult to forge an identity or gain support from our peers. The knee-jerk reaction of many African or African Caribbean parents is to either throw their lesbian and gay children out of the house at 16 or 17 or disown them. The wider community is hostile, too. I heard of one teenager who was chased out of his school in East London by a group of 40 armed youths with dogs. An alternative to coming out for many young people and even adults is to live invisible lives. Through disguise and deceit many black lesbians and gay men establish friendships, networks and lovers and never tell their families - the stress on themselves and their relationships can be unbearable. The underlying problem we are faced with is to choose between our sexual identity and our race. The reality is that we cannot choose because both are intrinsic to us. One cannot be hidden while the other cannot be denied.
Sadly, in today's world, for black people who are "flamboyant" whether gay or straight or just more bookish or more sensitive or even academic (or for girls more sporty) we cannot escape the "accusation" that we are gay. Homosexuality is as natural as eyesight. It is not a choice. It cannot be denied or made subject to one's race no more than you can change your place of birth. Over the past 10 years the confidence and presence of black lesbians and gay men has been growing steadily. There have been a number of long-running clubs (Queer Nation, Caribana, Bootylicious), publications (MOC) and websites that have struggled against the odds to exist and reflect our lives. Also there have been two Black Pride events (UK Black Pride and Outburst) every year for the past three years. On the Friday that Ian Baynham's vigil took place, OutburstUK hosted the only black gay event in Black History Month – attended by more than 200 black lesbians and gays. It would benefit all of us if more such events happened next year because visibility is the key to overturning ignorance.
In many ways black people are the last people to celebrate prejudice against homosexuality and for this we should be ashamed. We are systematically harming our own. If you are black and reading this you probably assume there is no lesbian, gay or bisexual person in your family. Has it occurred to you that your mother, father, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, son or daughter might be "one of them"? If we don't look out for our own we cannot complain when others lecture us about our prejudices. I do not agree with Peter Tatchell telling the black communities what to do as he did in the Guardian recently, but our own silence around sexuality only allows others to fill the vacuum and to lead the debate in our absence. It's time to wake up. The wider black communities should beware. There are too many black people in prison or under mental health supervision. Meanwhile black boys are killing each other wantonly. We should not be adding to disadvantage by persecuting or ostracising even more black people because of who they are compelled to love.
Saturday, 26 December 2009
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
The rot at the core of public services
New Labour's big idea for its second term of office is more privatisation. They argue private companies can make profits at the same time as providing decent public services. New Labour claims all public services would benefit from bringing management in from the private sector. But now it's time to dissect the gulf between Labour spin and the reality and experience of ordinary working people. In everything from rail, health, housing to BT, privatisation has been a disaster. TWENTY YEARS of Thatcherism tore down many services but Labour has continued the destruction faster than the Tories dreamt of. Even proposed increases in spending on education and health, came after what the Financial Times described as "three years of astonishingly tight control of public-sector spending." Even this extra spending will barely have an impact. Public investment is in almost continuous decline. The share of investment by central government has fallen from 5% of GDP 30 years ago to 1.5% in 1998; if anything it puts the UK at the bottom of the European investment league.
Walk through any housing estate in Britain and you will see housing stock in a state of disrepair. This is after years of neglect, followed now by the wholesale sell-off of entire estates to the private sector. In 1953, 220,000 new council homes were built. An average of 100,000 council homes a year were being built, though just 20 years ago local authorities controlled just over five million homes, 30% of all housing stock. 75,000 new homes were built every year. Today councils only control 3.3 million homes, just 15% of the housing stock. Only 1,000 homes were built last year. 2,000 people sleep rough every night, 10,000 will be homeless over the next 12 months. It would cost £20 billion to clear the housing repair backlog. 300,000 homes have been transferred to the private sector since 1998. Councils are being bribed with an additional £12 billion to write off debts, only if they agree to transfer their housing stock. Stock transfers mean rent increases, lack of security of tenure, an increase in evictions and the decimation of thousands of jobs.
Talk is cheap, especially if you happen to be the PM, Gordon Brown. For all the Labour government's spin on tackling poverty, it has actually been rising since 2004 according to an authoritative study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report shows that poverty, unemployment and property repossessions all started to rise during the first half of the decade. Some 13.4 million people live in low income households - defined as households earning less than 60% of the national average, the same level as in 2000. And the number of very poor households earning less than 40% of the average is at its highest level for 25 years, at 5.7 million. Two million children lived in low income, working households - the highest figure since the Foundation started collecting records. The report's author, Peter Kenway, points to the impact of 30 years of long-term unemployment and chronic levels of low pay as contributing to widespread poverty.
Socialists were out in Coventry on 5 December campaigning against the closure of the Ericsson Research and Development facility at Ansty, which will mean the loss of at least 700 jobs. Coventry has already seen a complete decimation of its manufacturing jobs with the closure of Massey Fergusons and Peugeot, to name just two major employers in the city. In the last few weeks hundreds of ordinary people have signed the petition which demands "government action to defend the jobs of these skilled manufacturing workers and to provide a future for our youth." Socialist Party councillor Rob Windsor, who represents the St Michael's ward of the city, was one of those collecting signatures: "It's simple really, the government should step in and nationalise Ericsson, bringing it under public ownership - why is that the bankers with their obscene bonuses get bailed out but when workers are losing their jobs New Labour doesn't want to know. How about a bail out for ordinary people, not the bankers?"
When Labour came to power with a mission to sort out education, they bulldozed ahead with the mantra of "whatever works". All opposition to New Labour "reform" was met with this crude put-down. Tests were necessary to drive up standards. Ofsted was needed to root out bad teachers. This was a mask to continue Tory policies. It was a strategy to justify the centralisation of control of schools, the handing of lucrative contracts to their friends in big business for buildings and services, and to stop dead any opposition from teacher unions. A regime, initiated by the hated Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher, introduced the testing of children at seven. This has been pursued relentlessly over the last 12 years. Now every part of education - from children's early admission to school, the content of the curriculum, the building of schools under the Private Finance Initiative, the conditions of teachers and support staff, right through to university level - all have been infected with this suffocating top-down control. Targets, testing and league tables have led to bullying management, and a narrower curriculum than even that of the old Victorian era!
But the recent Cambridge Review completely shatters the New Labour and Tory myth. It supports much of what socialists and trade unionists, and a wide range of educationalists, have been warning over many years. Unfortunately for a generation of children - and their teachers - everything we said has been borne out. It bears out with evidence based on research that the narrowing of the curriculum is not good for children; and that the biggest contributor to under-achievement is poverty. It condemns the current system of SATs. But in the end it will be down to the unions to get SATs and all their ramifications thrown out. The unions, particularly the National Union of Teachers (NUT) have had chances to do just that. In 2003 the union, under a right-wing leadership at the time balloted teachers in primary schools to stop Key Stage 1 and 2 tests. Although the result was over 30,000 in favour of a boycott, the leadership buckled and stepped back, leaving teachers even more isolated. This gave the green light to the government to pile on more of the same, with one diktat after another, one fruitless literacy strategy after another.
Earlier this year the NUT conference voted again to call another ballot to stop SATs with delegates on their feet chanting enthusiastically: "No more SATs." The NAHT, the headteachers' union followed up by passing the same motion at their conference. It seemed that this time it was for real. Then absolutely nothing happened. Recently the heads, not unexpectedly, backtracked, and the now Left led leadership of the NUT fell in behind them. What has taken place is only an indicative ballot, not a real ballot for action. If strong action is not taken soon, the matter could be left to David Cameron and his crew to sort out. According to the Conservative shadow education minister Michael Gove, their view on less interference by central government is, true to Tory form, to hand over schools (including primaries) lock, stock and barrel, to all manner of private outfits. In other words they propose the complete dismantling of state education. The recommendations of the Cambridge Review, with some exceptions, are on the whole very welcome. However, the current system of testing and league tables will not fall down through evidence alone. Trade union action is the key. If teacher trade unionists take the first step to boycott they will find a huge pool of support from parents, other educationists, academics, and even the media, who could all be drawn in to bring about real changes for the benefit of children.
Not content with yearly pay-cuts, repossessing our homes, trying to rob us of our measly pensions and consigning our kids to the next 'lost generation' unemployment figures, this government of parasitic hypocrites, happy in its world of bonuses and backhanders, is now coming with a hatchet for our jobs. These cuts will be in the very services that are needed now more than ever, as the recession turns our lives upside down. How many times over do they expect us to pay the price for this mess of theirs? We will fight to defend our jobs, conditions, vital services and our children's futures. We'll make Brown and his cronies wish they'd never tried to make us the scapegoat for a system in crisis. How dare they spend millions of pounds on bailing out the banks with our money, as taxpayers, and then still want to attack our jobs, wages and pensions - a double whammy! How have they got the nerve? It makes us angry & confused by this abuse of trust by New Labour (or Old Tory) who make the working class once again pay for the foolishness of irresponsible rich Big Business. The union leaders should be railing against 'the market' and demanding the things that we want - jobs, decent wages, homes and pensions, instead of cowering in front of the great god 'the market' that brought us into this terrible economic recession.
It is an outrage and tantamount to theft on a grand scale that health workers and other Unison members are expected to suffer service cuts, job cuts and exploitative working conditions to pay for the capitalists' economic crisis. We both provide and depend on these very services. A mass campaign of coordinated action by the public service trade unions should be called urgently, linking up with service users, to answer these plans of this parliamentary cross-party coalition of the greedy. Public and Commercial Service union members are essential workers and we would be in a far better position to support people if the government hadn't slashed 30,000 staff and 700 offices. Brown should remember the mess that his last assault on the civil service caused and think before doing it again. He should scrap Trident and close all the tax loopholes. Billions of pounds are going uncollected because of the cuts that have been made to PCS members working in tax offices; it is fundamentally a slap in the face for those barely able to afford living costs.
It's a disgrace that public sector workers are expected to pay the price through cuts in jobs, pay and conditions. The three main parties all say cuts are inevitable after the election. In reality cuts are already taking place. At our hospital there has been a recruitment freeze in domestic services since January, putting extra strain on existing workers to make up for the resulting staff shortages. Gordon Brown's comments that frontline services won't be hit are false and condescending to the highest degree - at the end of last term, thousands of schools throughout the UK laid off teaching assistants. Social care services remain chronically understaffed and experienced social workers are drowning in paperwork, not allowing them to provide safer environments for vulnerable children and adults. There is a huge amount of resentment and anger being stored up which eventually will explode to the surface as public sector workers defend their services against Brown, Cameron or whoever.
"Savage cuts needed". This refrain sung by Nick Clegg at the Liberal Democrats' annual conference is going to be repeated, albeit in different keys, at both the New Labour and Tory conferences. All the establishment parties accept the logic of capitalism, therefore demanding that working class people and public services should pay the price for capitalist crisis and bankers' greed. Anxious to add his party's voice to the 'slash and burn' frenzy, Nick Clegg has abandoned the few policies which made his party appear fractionally to the left of the big two; particularly the pledge to abolish tuition fees for students. Leaders of the Liberal Democrats have expressed outrage at Tory leader David Cameron's declaration that there is barely a cigarette paper's breadth of difference between the two parties' policies but this is merely a statement of fact. Beyond the general election a Tory-Liberal coalition is possible if the Tories do not achieve the majority they are hoping for. New Labour prime minister Gordon Brown used his speech to the TUC congress to 'reveal' the open secret that Labour too plans to make drastic cuts in public spending after the general election.
The TUC leaders recognise that a Tory government would be a disaster for the working class. For the majority of them, however, the only way forward is to continue clinging to the coat-tails of New Labour. The biggest trade unions in Britain have handed over many millions of pounds of their members' money to New Labour. The CWU alone has handed over £6 million since 2001. Yet its members in the Royal Mail are currently being forced to take strike action against an onslaught of attacks designed to prepare Royal Mail for privatisation. Brown has presided over a public sector pay freeze and the slashing of tens of thousands of civil service jobs. At the TUC he made it crystal clear - using the word 'cut' four times even in one sentence - that a future New Labour government would also decimate public services. Rank and file trade unionists are increasingly unwilling to accept that their money should be used to fund a party which is attacking their pay, conditions and public services - and why exactly should they?
In London, CWU members have organised a regional indicative ballot over whether the union should continue to give money to the Labour Party. In the PCS, which does not fund New Labour, members are going to be consulted over whether the union's political fund should be used to back trade union candidates in opposition to New Labour in future elections. Of most immediate importance, the RMT is currently organising discussions with others on taking part in a coalition that would stand trade union and left candidates in the next general election; the RMT called a potentially important conference to discuss the relevant issues on Saturday 7 November, in London. A glimpse of the potential for a trade union-backed left coalition in the general election is shown by the German general election. There, Die Linke - the 'Left Party', established three years ago, is currently on 14% in opinion polls for Sunday's general election. Despite the present political limits of Die Linke, it is winning support by standing in defence of public services and for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In Britain, a trade union backed left coalition would mark a significant step forward in the struggle to create an independent voice for working class people. It could stand candidates that argue for a socialist programme and demand that working class people do not pay the price of the capitalist crisis. Such candidates would stand in stark contrast to all the establishment parties, and would play an important role in giving confidence to the struggle to defend public services, which will be crucial after the general election, whichever of the axemen is prime minister.
Walk through any housing estate in Britain and you will see housing stock in a state of disrepair. This is after years of neglect, followed now by the wholesale sell-off of entire estates to the private sector. In 1953, 220,000 new council homes were built. An average of 100,000 council homes a year were being built, though just 20 years ago local authorities controlled just over five million homes, 30% of all housing stock. 75,000 new homes were built every year. Today councils only control 3.3 million homes, just 15% of the housing stock. Only 1,000 homes were built last year. 2,000 people sleep rough every night, 10,000 will be homeless over the next 12 months. It would cost £20 billion to clear the housing repair backlog. 300,000 homes have been transferred to the private sector since 1998. Councils are being bribed with an additional £12 billion to write off debts, only if they agree to transfer their housing stock. Stock transfers mean rent increases, lack of security of tenure, an increase in evictions and the decimation of thousands of jobs.
Talk is cheap, especially if you happen to be the PM, Gordon Brown. For all the Labour government's spin on tackling poverty, it has actually been rising since 2004 according to an authoritative study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. The report shows that poverty, unemployment and property repossessions all started to rise during the first half of the decade. Some 13.4 million people live in low income households - defined as households earning less than 60% of the national average, the same level as in 2000. And the number of very poor households earning less than 40% of the average is at its highest level for 25 years, at 5.7 million. Two million children lived in low income, working households - the highest figure since the Foundation started collecting records. The report's author, Peter Kenway, points to the impact of 30 years of long-term unemployment and chronic levels of low pay as contributing to widespread poverty.
Socialists were out in Coventry on 5 December campaigning against the closure of the Ericsson Research and Development facility at Ansty, which will mean the loss of at least 700 jobs. Coventry has already seen a complete decimation of its manufacturing jobs with the closure of Massey Fergusons and Peugeot, to name just two major employers in the city. In the last few weeks hundreds of ordinary people have signed the petition which demands "government action to defend the jobs of these skilled manufacturing workers and to provide a future for our youth." Socialist Party councillor Rob Windsor, who represents the St Michael's ward of the city, was one of those collecting signatures: "It's simple really, the government should step in and nationalise Ericsson, bringing it under public ownership - why is that the bankers with their obscene bonuses get bailed out but when workers are losing their jobs New Labour doesn't want to know. How about a bail out for ordinary people, not the bankers?"
When Labour came to power with a mission to sort out education, they bulldozed ahead with the mantra of "whatever works". All opposition to New Labour "reform" was met with this crude put-down. Tests were necessary to drive up standards. Ofsted was needed to root out bad teachers. This was a mask to continue Tory policies. It was a strategy to justify the centralisation of control of schools, the handing of lucrative contracts to their friends in big business for buildings and services, and to stop dead any opposition from teacher unions. A regime, initiated by the hated Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher, introduced the testing of children at seven. This has been pursued relentlessly over the last 12 years. Now every part of education - from children's early admission to school, the content of the curriculum, the building of schools under the Private Finance Initiative, the conditions of teachers and support staff, right through to university level - all have been infected with this suffocating top-down control. Targets, testing and league tables have led to bullying management, and a narrower curriculum than even that of the old Victorian era!
But the recent Cambridge Review completely shatters the New Labour and Tory myth. It supports much of what socialists and trade unionists, and a wide range of educationalists, have been warning over many years. Unfortunately for a generation of children - and their teachers - everything we said has been borne out. It bears out with evidence based on research that the narrowing of the curriculum is not good for children; and that the biggest contributor to under-achievement is poverty. It condemns the current system of SATs. But in the end it will be down to the unions to get SATs and all their ramifications thrown out. The unions, particularly the National Union of Teachers (NUT) have had chances to do just that. In 2003 the union, under a right-wing leadership at the time balloted teachers in primary schools to stop Key Stage 1 and 2 tests. Although the result was over 30,000 in favour of a boycott, the leadership buckled and stepped back, leaving teachers even more isolated. This gave the green light to the government to pile on more of the same, with one diktat after another, one fruitless literacy strategy after another.
Earlier this year the NUT conference voted again to call another ballot to stop SATs with delegates on their feet chanting enthusiastically: "No more SATs." The NAHT, the headteachers' union followed up by passing the same motion at their conference. It seemed that this time it was for real. Then absolutely nothing happened. Recently the heads, not unexpectedly, backtracked, and the now Left led leadership of the NUT fell in behind them. What has taken place is only an indicative ballot, not a real ballot for action. If strong action is not taken soon, the matter could be left to David Cameron and his crew to sort out. According to the Conservative shadow education minister Michael Gove, their view on less interference by central government is, true to Tory form, to hand over schools (including primaries) lock, stock and barrel, to all manner of private outfits. In other words they propose the complete dismantling of state education. The recommendations of the Cambridge Review, with some exceptions, are on the whole very welcome. However, the current system of testing and league tables will not fall down through evidence alone. Trade union action is the key. If teacher trade unionists take the first step to boycott they will find a huge pool of support from parents, other educationists, academics, and even the media, who could all be drawn in to bring about real changes for the benefit of children.
Not content with yearly pay-cuts, repossessing our homes, trying to rob us of our measly pensions and consigning our kids to the next 'lost generation' unemployment figures, this government of parasitic hypocrites, happy in its world of bonuses and backhanders, is now coming with a hatchet for our jobs. These cuts will be in the very services that are needed now more than ever, as the recession turns our lives upside down. How many times over do they expect us to pay the price for this mess of theirs? We will fight to defend our jobs, conditions, vital services and our children's futures. We'll make Brown and his cronies wish they'd never tried to make us the scapegoat for a system in crisis. How dare they spend millions of pounds on bailing out the banks with our money, as taxpayers, and then still want to attack our jobs, wages and pensions - a double whammy! How have they got the nerve? It makes us angry & confused by this abuse of trust by New Labour (or Old Tory) who make the working class once again pay for the foolishness of irresponsible rich Big Business. The union leaders should be railing against 'the market' and demanding the things that we want - jobs, decent wages, homes and pensions, instead of cowering in front of the great god 'the market' that brought us into this terrible economic recession.
It is an outrage and tantamount to theft on a grand scale that health workers and other Unison members are expected to suffer service cuts, job cuts and exploitative working conditions to pay for the capitalists' economic crisis. We both provide and depend on these very services. A mass campaign of coordinated action by the public service trade unions should be called urgently, linking up with service users, to answer these plans of this parliamentary cross-party coalition of the greedy. Public and Commercial Service union members are essential workers and we would be in a far better position to support people if the government hadn't slashed 30,000 staff and 700 offices. Brown should remember the mess that his last assault on the civil service caused and think before doing it again. He should scrap Trident and close all the tax loopholes. Billions of pounds are going uncollected because of the cuts that have been made to PCS members working in tax offices; it is fundamentally a slap in the face for those barely able to afford living costs.
It's a disgrace that public sector workers are expected to pay the price through cuts in jobs, pay and conditions. The three main parties all say cuts are inevitable after the election. In reality cuts are already taking place. At our hospital there has been a recruitment freeze in domestic services since January, putting extra strain on existing workers to make up for the resulting staff shortages. Gordon Brown's comments that frontline services won't be hit are false and condescending to the highest degree - at the end of last term, thousands of schools throughout the UK laid off teaching assistants. Social care services remain chronically understaffed and experienced social workers are drowning in paperwork, not allowing them to provide safer environments for vulnerable children and adults. There is a huge amount of resentment and anger being stored up which eventually will explode to the surface as public sector workers defend their services against Brown, Cameron or whoever.
"Savage cuts needed". This refrain sung by Nick Clegg at the Liberal Democrats' annual conference is going to be repeated, albeit in different keys, at both the New Labour and Tory conferences. All the establishment parties accept the logic of capitalism, therefore demanding that working class people and public services should pay the price for capitalist crisis and bankers' greed. Anxious to add his party's voice to the 'slash and burn' frenzy, Nick Clegg has abandoned the few policies which made his party appear fractionally to the left of the big two; particularly the pledge to abolish tuition fees for students. Leaders of the Liberal Democrats have expressed outrage at Tory leader David Cameron's declaration that there is barely a cigarette paper's breadth of difference between the two parties' policies but this is merely a statement of fact. Beyond the general election a Tory-Liberal coalition is possible if the Tories do not achieve the majority they are hoping for. New Labour prime minister Gordon Brown used his speech to the TUC congress to 'reveal' the open secret that Labour too plans to make drastic cuts in public spending after the general election.
The TUC leaders recognise that a Tory government would be a disaster for the working class. For the majority of them, however, the only way forward is to continue clinging to the coat-tails of New Labour. The biggest trade unions in Britain have handed over many millions of pounds of their members' money to New Labour. The CWU alone has handed over £6 million since 2001. Yet its members in the Royal Mail are currently being forced to take strike action against an onslaught of attacks designed to prepare Royal Mail for privatisation. Brown has presided over a public sector pay freeze and the slashing of tens of thousands of civil service jobs. At the TUC he made it crystal clear - using the word 'cut' four times even in one sentence - that a future New Labour government would also decimate public services. Rank and file trade unionists are increasingly unwilling to accept that their money should be used to fund a party which is attacking their pay, conditions and public services - and why exactly should they?
In London, CWU members have organised a regional indicative ballot over whether the union should continue to give money to the Labour Party. In the PCS, which does not fund New Labour, members are going to be consulted over whether the union's political fund should be used to back trade union candidates in opposition to New Labour in future elections. Of most immediate importance, the RMT is currently organising discussions with others on taking part in a coalition that would stand trade union and left candidates in the next general election; the RMT called a potentially important conference to discuss the relevant issues on Saturday 7 November, in London. A glimpse of the potential for a trade union-backed left coalition in the general election is shown by the German general election. There, Die Linke - the 'Left Party', established three years ago, is currently on 14% in opinion polls for Sunday's general election. Despite the present political limits of Die Linke, it is winning support by standing in defence of public services and for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. In Britain, a trade union backed left coalition would mark a significant step forward in the struggle to create an independent voice for working class people. It could stand candidates that argue for a socialist programme and demand that working class people do not pay the price of the capitalist crisis. Such candidates would stand in stark contrast to all the establishment parties, and would play an important role in giving confidence to the struggle to defend public services, which will be crucial after the general election, whichever of the axemen is prime minister.
LGBT Americans fight for their rights
Frustrated by the inaction of the Obama administration and unwilling to continue to accept their second-class status, gay rights activists called a national march for equality in Washington, DC, on 11 October. This coincides with National Coming Out Day, and is 30 years after the first national march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. The march has one simple demand: full equality under the law for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in all 50 states. Despite advances over the past 40 years, LGBT people continue to face tremendous oppression. Yet recent months have witnessed an upsurge in confidence among LGBT rights activists, alongside growing impatience with the political establishment's refusal to grant equal rights. Many were emboldened by the massive, spontaneous outpouring of support for gay rights on 15 November 2008, when 130,000 people in 200 plus cities demonstrated against the passage of Proposition 8 in California banning same-sex marriage. Since then, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, and Iowa have legalised same-sex marriage, making it legal in six states - Connecticut and Massachusetts are the others.
Obama's election raised hopes. Many LGBT activists enthusiastically supported his campaign. While saying he opposed same-sex marriage, Obama made a number of important promises: to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy in the armed forces, passing federal hate crimes legislation and the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. Yet, since taking office, his administration has taken little action. In June, Obama's Justice Department even issued a brief supporting DOMA, which allows states to refuse to recognise gay marriages from other states and prohibits recognition by the federal government. This brief compared same-sex marriage to incest and paedophilia. It claimed that DOMA does not discriminate against gays because they can still enter 'traditional marriages' (but not marry the person they love). Feeling pressure from the firestorm of outrage, Obama extended some federal benefits to same-sex partners of LGBT federal employees, but excluded healthcare. The response among many activists was that this was nowhere near enough.
There is a growing acceptance of LGBT people in society, particularly among youth. As CNN reported of a recent poll, "49% of those questioned say they have a family member or close friend who is gay. That's up eight points from 1998 and up 17 points from 1992. Fifty-eight percent of those aged 18 to 34 say they have a family member or close friend who's gay". Further: 44% of Americans now say same-sex marriage should be legal (up from 21% in November 2004). This includes 58% of those aged 18-34. There is a widespread willingness to struggle within the LGBT community and the refusal to continue to accept second-class status. There is a growing recognition that winning equal rights will require massive pressure on the political establishment. This is the context for the call to march on Washington. Just like the massive demonstrations against Proposition 8 last November, the march was initiated from the grassroots, bypassing the moderate establishment leaders of the mainstream gay rights organisations with their ties to the Democratic Party leadership. As leading gay rights activist Cleve Jones (one of the initiators of the march) put it: "We need a new strategy... We're tired of this state-by-state, county-by-county, city-by-city struggle for fractions of equality. There is no fraction of equality. You are an equal people, or you are not". The march attempted to link up the local struggles, and demand federal recognition of equal rights, which should be guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying "the equal protection of the laws" to anyone. There is the potential for 11 October to be one of the largest demonstrations for LGBT rights in US history if a bold lead is given. Such a demonstration would strike a blow against homophobia and discrimination. By showing the collective support that exists for equal rights, it would raise the confidence of millions of LGBT people and allies across the country, forcing discussion on the issues and bringing real pressure to bear.
To build the most effective movement, activists should not concern themselves with the supposed needs of 'friendly' Democratic politicians, but start from the standpoint of the needs of LGBT people. Leading Democratic politicians have shown again and again that, rather than take a principled stand, they are willing to sell out the interests of LGBT people for narrow electoral gains - just as they have refused to take a principled stand on war, workers' rights, and so on. While winning legal equality is a crucial step, the struggle must be taken further to transforming the social conditions faced by LGBT people. This includes fighting for more resources for LGBT youth, against homophobic bullying in schools, and for decent, guaranteed healthcare and jobs for all. This will require linking the struggle of LGBT people with the struggles of all workers and oppressed peoples. Socialists wholeheartedly supported the national demonstration and see it as part of the struggle to build a better world, free from oppression and exploitation. We link the struggle for equal rights for LGBT people to the need to replace the capitalist system, which gives rise not only to economic crises and wars, but also feeds off sexism, racism, and homophobia. We stand for a new, socialist world in which people are able to define their own relationships and sexuality, free from economic constraints and discriminatory laws.
Obama's election raised hopes. Many LGBT activists enthusiastically supported his campaign. While saying he opposed same-sex marriage, Obama made a number of important promises: to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy in the armed forces, passing federal hate crimes legislation and the Employee Non-Discrimination Act. Yet, since taking office, his administration has taken little action. In June, Obama's Justice Department even issued a brief supporting DOMA, which allows states to refuse to recognise gay marriages from other states and prohibits recognition by the federal government. This brief compared same-sex marriage to incest and paedophilia. It claimed that DOMA does not discriminate against gays because they can still enter 'traditional marriages' (but not marry the person they love). Feeling pressure from the firestorm of outrage, Obama extended some federal benefits to same-sex partners of LGBT federal employees, but excluded healthcare. The response among many activists was that this was nowhere near enough.
There is a growing acceptance of LGBT people in society, particularly among youth. As CNN reported of a recent poll, "49% of those questioned say they have a family member or close friend who is gay. That's up eight points from 1998 and up 17 points from 1992. Fifty-eight percent of those aged 18 to 34 say they have a family member or close friend who's gay". Further: 44% of Americans now say same-sex marriage should be legal (up from 21% in November 2004). This includes 58% of those aged 18-34. There is a widespread willingness to struggle within the LGBT community and the refusal to continue to accept second-class status. There is a growing recognition that winning equal rights will require massive pressure on the political establishment. This is the context for the call to march on Washington. Just like the massive demonstrations against Proposition 8 last November, the march was initiated from the grassroots, bypassing the moderate establishment leaders of the mainstream gay rights organisations with their ties to the Democratic Party leadership. As leading gay rights activist Cleve Jones (one of the initiators of the march) put it: "We need a new strategy... We're tired of this state-by-state, county-by-county, city-by-city struggle for fractions of equality. There is no fraction of equality. You are an equal people, or you are not". The march attempted to link up the local struggles, and demand federal recognition of equal rights, which should be guaranteed under the 14th Amendment, which prohibits states from denying "the equal protection of the laws" to anyone. There is the potential for 11 October to be one of the largest demonstrations for LGBT rights in US history if a bold lead is given. Such a demonstration would strike a blow against homophobia and discrimination. By showing the collective support that exists for equal rights, it would raise the confidence of millions of LGBT people and allies across the country, forcing discussion on the issues and bringing real pressure to bear.
To build the most effective movement, activists should not concern themselves with the supposed needs of 'friendly' Democratic politicians, but start from the standpoint of the needs of LGBT people. Leading Democratic politicians have shown again and again that, rather than take a principled stand, they are willing to sell out the interests of LGBT people for narrow electoral gains - just as they have refused to take a principled stand on war, workers' rights, and so on. While winning legal equality is a crucial step, the struggle must be taken further to transforming the social conditions faced by LGBT people. This includes fighting for more resources for LGBT youth, against homophobic bullying in schools, and for decent, guaranteed healthcare and jobs for all. This will require linking the struggle of LGBT people with the struggles of all workers and oppressed peoples. Socialists wholeheartedly supported the national demonstration and see it as part of the struggle to build a better world, free from oppression and exploitation. We link the struggle for equal rights for LGBT people to the need to replace the capitalist system, which gives rise not only to economic crises and wars, but also feeds off sexism, racism, and homophobia. We stand for a new, socialist world in which people are able to define their own relationships and sexuality, free from economic constraints and discriminatory laws.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Tories: Party of the rich hypocrites
David Cameron has failed to seal the deal with the British public, who believe the Conservatives would govern for the well-off and are not an attractive alternative to Labour. In a remarkable snapshot of national opinion just months ahead of the general election, a ComRes poll for The Independent found that people disagree with the statement that "the Conservative Party offers an appealing alternative to the Labour Party", by a margin of 49 to 45 per cent. Meanwhile, by 52 to 44 per cent, the public agrees with the statement that "a Conservative Government would mainly represent the interests of the well-off rather than ordinary people". The survey gives the Tories a nine-point lead over Labour, down one point on last month. If repeated at a general election, the figures would leave the Tories five seats short of an overall majority in a hung parliament. According to ComRes, the Tories are on 38 per cent (up one point on last month), Labour 29 per cent (up two points), the Liberal Democrats 19 per cent (down one point) and others 14 per cent (down two points).
The findings will add to the jitters in the Tory high command after the gap between the two main parties closed in recent weeks. Amid fears that the Tory message has been too "austere" because of the economic crisis, Mr Cameron will try to paint a more positive vision of life under a Tory government in a new year campaign. The survey will encourage those Labour strategists who are anxious to win back the party's traditional supporters. Mr Brown was accused of reigniting the class war after he said that the Tory policy of cutting inheritance tax was "dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton", where Mr Cameron was educated. Although ComRes found that the Tories enjoy a 20-point lead among the AB top social group, the two main parties are virtually neck and neck among the other groups. Twice as many C2 skilled manual workers and the bottom DE group are "certain not to vote" than are ABs. Labour appears to have clawed back some of its traditional support since this month's pre-Budget report. The proportion of those who backed Labour in 2005 and who would stick with the party has risen from 66 to 76 per cent. The Tories appear still to have work to do among women voters. They are 11 points ahead of Labour among men but only six points ahead among women.
There is some good news for the Conservatives in today's poll. By a margin of 55 to 38 per cent, people support the party's policy of raising the threshold for inheritance tax to £1m. This will encourage Mr Cameron to resist pressure to ditch the idea. The finding suggests that aspirational voters like the policy and do not necessarily buy Labour's line that it would only help millionaires. Sixty-three per cent of the top AB social group agree with the Tory policy, falling to 48 per cent among the bottom DE group. As expected, Conservative voters are the most enthusiastic about this policy – 64 per cent agree. Surprisingly, more Labour voters agree than disagree with it – by a margin of 50 to 42 per cent. Worryingly for Labour, the public is evenly divided over whether a Labour government would protect front-line public services such as health and education better than a Tory government would – seen by Mr Brown as the key dividing line between the two main parties. Some 47 per cent agree with this statement, while 46 per cent disagree. People in lower income brackets are more likely than those in higher income brackets (by 54 to 47 per cent) to agree that a Conservative government would mainly represent the interests of well-off people. Thirty per cent of Tory voters agree, as do 78 per cent of Labour and 64 per cent of Lib Dem voters. Worryingly for the Tories, 45 per cent of the "don't knows" (or those who refuse to say how they would vote) also agree with this statement. Senior Tories will be most concerned about the lukewarm support for the party. Although the public has lost faith with Labour, it has not sufficiently warmed to the Conservatives for their liking. Women are less likely than men to regard the Tories as an attractive alternative to Labour. With the exception of people aged 65 and over and the 18-24 age group, the majority of people in all the other age brackets do not regard the Tories as an attractive alternative.
Dodgy Dave Cameron does another policy back-flip, proving again he can't be trusted. Embarrassed by the tax tricks of his chief party bankroller, billionaire Lord Ashcroft, he tried to amend a law going through Parliament. But the Tory leader had to ditch his fake get-out-jail-card only hours later - leaving the Government to put things right. Labour will compel MPs and peers to be resident British taxpayers - or quit Parliament. The likes of Milord Ashcroft and rich Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith will pay their full share in future. Meanwhile, ask yourself : why do these very rich men want to make laws for the rest of us? Diddy Dave Cameron is upset because people harp on about him being a toff and an Old Etonian. And it’s true he didn’t decide where he was educated. His wealthy parents sent him to Britain’s top public school to get him off their hands. But it’s not where he went to school that matters; it’s what he did with his education and his uniquely-advantageous start in life. I’m having none of his fake indignation about being the poor-little-rich-boy victim of a class war. It’s not compulsory for little Lord Fauntleroys in their top hats and Eton collars to become Tory politicians with aspirations to rule Britain. Tam Dalyell, a well-born Scot, went to Eton. But he became a Labour MP and was the scourge of Maggie Thatcher throughout her premiership. In a long career in the House of Commons, he championed the cause of democratic socialism.Cameron could have reached the same conclusion as Tam.
The same evidence of social injustice was there for him to make a similar moral and political judgment about how best to serve his fellow man - but he chose to ignore it and take the Tory way. The way that leads to exploitation of workers and their families. The way of the bosses, not the people. The Conservative leader prattles on about being the friend of the poor and the disadvantaged. It’s all sphericals. When he’s with his own folk, in the City of London, he can afford to drop the pretence. Addressing bankers last week, he boasted that the City is in his blood. “My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker and my great-grandfather was a stockbroker,” he reassured the cream of the nation’s financiers. That just shows how remote he is from the harsh reality endured by most people, who have no stocks to broke and have a hard job to avoid going broke. Unlike smooth-talking Dave they can’t make the life choices he was privileged to make - and it's all about choices for the likes of him.
There is nothing inevitable about the path from private education to the high command of the Tory Party. Clement Attlee went to public school – Haileybury, in his case – but his experience as a social worker in the East End of London made him Labour for life. Country boy Cameron thinks the East End is a hell where you exile rivals for your job, like Boris Johnson. He might hire the locals as beaters for a day’s shooting – what ho! – but he could never understand them or sympathise with their condition, much less want to put things right. He chose to be what he is, and so did the rest of the hypocritical Tory toffs.
The findings will add to the jitters in the Tory high command after the gap between the two main parties closed in recent weeks. Amid fears that the Tory message has been too "austere" because of the economic crisis, Mr Cameron will try to paint a more positive vision of life under a Tory government in a new year campaign. The survey will encourage those Labour strategists who are anxious to win back the party's traditional supporters. Mr Brown was accused of reigniting the class war after he said that the Tory policy of cutting inheritance tax was "dreamed up on the playing fields of Eton", where Mr Cameron was educated. Although ComRes found that the Tories enjoy a 20-point lead among the AB top social group, the two main parties are virtually neck and neck among the other groups. Twice as many C2 skilled manual workers and the bottom DE group are "certain not to vote" than are ABs. Labour appears to have clawed back some of its traditional support since this month's pre-Budget report. The proportion of those who backed Labour in 2005 and who would stick with the party has risen from 66 to 76 per cent. The Tories appear still to have work to do among women voters. They are 11 points ahead of Labour among men but only six points ahead among women.
There is some good news for the Conservatives in today's poll. By a margin of 55 to 38 per cent, people support the party's policy of raising the threshold for inheritance tax to £1m. This will encourage Mr Cameron to resist pressure to ditch the idea. The finding suggests that aspirational voters like the policy and do not necessarily buy Labour's line that it would only help millionaires. Sixty-three per cent of the top AB social group agree with the Tory policy, falling to 48 per cent among the bottom DE group. As expected, Conservative voters are the most enthusiastic about this policy – 64 per cent agree. Surprisingly, more Labour voters agree than disagree with it – by a margin of 50 to 42 per cent. Worryingly for Labour, the public is evenly divided over whether a Labour government would protect front-line public services such as health and education better than a Tory government would – seen by Mr Brown as the key dividing line between the two main parties. Some 47 per cent agree with this statement, while 46 per cent disagree. People in lower income brackets are more likely than those in higher income brackets (by 54 to 47 per cent) to agree that a Conservative government would mainly represent the interests of well-off people. Thirty per cent of Tory voters agree, as do 78 per cent of Labour and 64 per cent of Lib Dem voters. Worryingly for the Tories, 45 per cent of the "don't knows" (or those who refuse to say how they would vote) also agree with this statement. Senior Tories will be most concerned about the lukewarm support for the party. Although the public has lost faith with Labour, it has not sufficiently warmed to the Conservatives for their liking. Women are less likely than men to regard the Tories as an attractive alternative to Labour. With the exception of people aged 65 and over and the 18-24 age group, the majority of people in all the other age brackets do not regard the Tories as an attractive alternative.
Dodgy Dave Cameron does another policy back-flip, proving again he can't be trusted. Embarrassed by the tax tricks of his chief party bankroller, billionaire Lord Ashcroft, he tried to amend a law going through Parliament. But the Tory leader had to ditch his fake get-out-jail-card only hours later - leaving the Government to put things right. Labour will compel MPs and peers to be resident British taxpayers - or quit Parliament. The likes of Milord Ashcroft and rich Tory candidate Zac Goldsmith will pay their full share in future. Meanwhile, ask yourself : why do these very rich men want to make laws for the rest of us? Diddy Dave Cameron is upset because people harp on about him being a toff and an Old Etonian. And it’s true he didn’t decide where he was educated. His wealthy parents sent him to Britain’s top public school to get him off their hands. But it’s not where he went to school that matters; it’s what he did with his education and his uniquely-advantageous start in life. I’m having none of his fake indignation about being the poor-little-rich-boy victim of a class war. It’s not compulsory for little Lord Fauntleroys in their top hats and Eton collars to become Tory politicians with aspirations to rule Britain. Tam Dalyell, a well-born Scot, went to Eton. But he became a Labour MP and was the scourge of Maggie Thatcher throughout her premiership. In a long career in the House of Commons, he championed the cause of democratic socialism.Cameron could have reached the same conclusion as Tam.
The same evidence of social injustice was there for him to make a similar moral and political judgment about how best to serve his fellow man - but he chose to ignore it and take the Tory way. The way that leads to exploitation of workers and their families. The way of the bosses, not the people. The Conservative leader prattles on about being the friend of the poor and the disadvantaged. It’s all sphericals. When he’s with his own folk, in the City of London, he can afford to drop the pretence. Addressing bankers last week, he boasted that the City is in his blood. “My father was a stockbroker, my grandfather was a stockbroker and my great-grandfather was a stockbroker,” he reassured the cream of the nation’s financiers. That just shows how remote he is from the harsh reality endured by most people, who have no stocks to broke and have a hard job to avoid going broke. Unlike smooth-talking Dave they can’t make the life choices he was privileged to make - and it's all about choices for the likes of him.
There is nothing inevitable about the path from private education to the high command of the Tory Party. Clement Attlee went to public school – Haileybury, in his case – but his experience as a social worker in the East End of London made him Labour for life. Country boy Cameron thinks the East End is a hell where you exile rivals for your job, like Boris Johnson. He might hire the locals as beaters for a day’s shooting – what ho! – but he could never understand them or sympathise with their condition, much less want to put things right. He chose to be what he is, and so did the rest of the hypocritical Tory toffs.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
BA fatcats vs. working class
The battle lines between union-busting British Airways (BA) boss Willie Walsh and 14,000 cabin crew workers have been drawn. Walsh is intent on slashing jobs, cutting pay and ripping up working agreements; he has already imposed damaging cuts on cabin crew numbers without agreement with the workers’ Unite union. But workers are refusing to take it – and have hit him with plans for a spectacular 12-day strike. Cabin crew delivered a massive 92 percent vote for action with over 80 percent turning out to vote in the ballot. This magnificent result shows the strength of feeling and determined spirit to fight that exists among workers. One stated "We worked hard in the good times and made BA lots of profits. They should have kept some of that money for the bad times. It’s not our fault that we’re now in a recession. I have to pay my mortgage and my bills, yet BA wants to cut my wages.” Walsh says he needs to make cuts to save money, and much of the media will back him up on this ridiculous claim. But what he’s really interested in is union-busting – and the workers know it.
Walsh built his callous reputation when he was chief executive of the Irish airline Aer Lingus – where he slashed a third of the workforce and pushed privatisation. “What BA really wants is to end the union,” another claimed. “We know Willie Walsh is a bully because we saw what he did at Aer Lingus. But I’m not worried because we are strong.” Walsh expects workers to swallow the cuts – while he grabs thousands of pounds. Last year he got a pay rise of 6 percent. Makes the blood boil, doesn't it? His basic salary was £735,000, compared to a basic wage of around £18,700 for a cabin crew member. On top of this, BA, which claims it has no money, threw an extra £90,000 into his pension fund. Walsh is proud of his bullying reputation. As he put it when he was at Aer Lingus, “A reasonable man gets nowhere in negotiations.” But this time he may be in for a shock. Bosses everywhere will be watching this battle closely. They know that if Walsh is pushed back then other workers facing similar attacks will have more confidence to fight. BA gives a snapshot of the bitterness that exists everywhere – and shows the potential for resistance to break through.
British Airways (BA) has won a court injunction to stop some 14,000 cabin crew workers from taking strike action; they were set to begin a 12-day strike on Tuesday. The injunction does not resolve any of the issues that led workers into a dispute. Unions should not allow an unelected judge to overrule the democratic vote of thousands of workers. They should defy the law and continue the fight to stop BA’s cuts. Cabin crew workers in the Unite union voted by over 92 percent on an 80 percent turnout in favour of strikes to fight BA plans to slash jobs, cut and freeze pay and cut allowances. The fact that BA imposed cuts on workers without union agreement last month has angered workers. Despite the overwhelming vote for action the court accepted BA management's position that the union had not correctly balloted its members on the strike action. The management argued that because some staff in the process of leaving the company had been balloted industrial relations law had been breached. Unite stated that this was a "disgraceful day for democracy" and that it would reballot if the dispute wasn't resolved. Talks are currently continuing between BA management and Unite. The mood among BA cabin crew is angry and the strength of the vote shows how determined workers are to fight BA’s cuts. They have the potential to win and they should make sure that union leaders don't throw it away.
Walsh built his callous reputation when he was chief executive of the Irish airline Aer Lingus – where he slashed a third of the workforce and pushed privatisation. “What BA really wants is to end the union,” another claimed. “We know Willie Walsh is a bully because we saw what he did at Aer Lingus. But I’m not worried because we are strong.” Walsh expects workers to swallow the cuts – while he grabs thousands of pounds. Last year he got a pay rise of 6 percent. Makes the blood boil, doesn't it? His basic salary was £735,000, compared to a basic wage of around £18,700 for a cabin crew member. On top of this, BA, which claims it has no money, threw an extra £90,000 into his pension fund. Walsh is proud of his bullying reputation. As he put it when he was at Aer Lingus, “A reasonable man gets nowhere in negotiations.” But this time he may be in for a shock. Bosses everywhere will be watching this battle closely. They know that if Walsh is pushed back then other workers facing similar attacks will have more confidence to fight. BA gives a snapshot of the bitterness that exists everywhere – and shows the potential for resistance to break through.
British Airways (BA) has won a court injunction to stop some 14,000 cabin crew workers from taking strike action; they were set to begin a 12-day strike on Tuesday. The injunction does not resolve any of the issues that led workers into a dispute. Unions should not allow an unelected judge to overrule the democratic vote of thousands of workers. They should defy the law and continue the fight to stop BA’s cuts. Cabin crew workers in the Unite union voted by over 92 percent on an 80 percent turnout in favour of strikes to fight BA plans to slash jobs, cut and freeze pay and cut allowances. The fact that BA imposed cuts on workers without union agreement last month has angered workers. Despite the overwhelming vote for action the court accepted BA management's position that the union had not correctly balloted its members on the strike action. The management argued that because some staff in the process of leaving the company had been balloted industrial relations law had been breached. Unite stated that this was a "disgraceful day for democracy" and that it would reballot if the dispute wasn't resolved. Talks are currently continuing between BA management and Unite. The mood among BA cabin crew is angry and the strength of the vote shows how determined workers are to fight BA’s cuts. They have the potential to win and they should make sure that union leaders don't throw it away.
Cameron's Tories under pressure
The parallels between the political situation now and 13 years ago (the last time Britain went into Christmas under a Tory government) are uncanny. Back in the final days of 1996 - just as today - Britain had in John Major an unpopular prime minister in charge of a tired, sleazy and incompetent government. Also, back then - just as today - an exciting opposition leader in his early 40s was offering voters a radical alternative. Yet there is one glaring difference. Tony Blair's New Labour was regularly scoring around 55 per cent in the opinion polls and enjoyed a sustained 30 per cent over John Major's Tory government. The subsequent General Election result was a foregone conclusion. Today, David Cameron has the support of just 40 per cent of voters in opinion polls with a lead over Labour of only 10 per cent. This is barely enough to command a Commons majority, let alone repeat the landslide victory secured by Tony Blair in the general election in May 1997. This failure to gain a consistently strong bedrock of support across all sections of the country is deeply troubling for David Cameron and is causing some unease and soul-searching in his inner team.
Faced with a broken government, limping pathetically towards next spring's general election at a time of grave economic crisis, the Opposition ought to be miles ahead in the polls. Cameron's failure to secure an unassailable lead over Labour is down to the weakness of his frontbench team; but the fact that it is not has led to increasingly disgruntled mutterings among Tory backbenchers, many of whom, privately, have never really taken to Cameron. If the Tory opinion poll lead falls much further, Cameron might face a major crisis of confidence. So the most important question in British politics this Christmas is this: why is David Cameron not doing a lot better? One answer lies in the character of his opponent, Gordon Brown. Although the Prime Minister is a spectacularly poor premier, he has an admirable inner resilience. Furthermore, Brown seems to have a remarkable ability to shine when he attends international summit meetings. For instance, he played a powerful role in bringing warring parties together at the Copenhagen conference yesterday. He also proved a doughty negotiator at the G8 meeting of world leaders in London last year. A second, more pressing, reason for Cameron's failure to secure an unassailable lead over Labour is down to the weakness of his frontbench team.
Back in 1996, Tony Blair led a very powerful campaigning organisation. Orchestrated by Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, it specialised in the vicious and unpleasant tactic of personal attacks on its enemies. Huge resources were employed in trying to annihilate John Major and his government. Such barbarous and unscrupulous politics is alien to David Cameron's nature and it is to his credit that he has not sought to emulate New Labour's unsavoury tactics. As a result, however, Cameron has repeatedly failed to take advantage of Gordon Brown's unpopularity. Cameron has also made one key error of judgment. Until six months ago, the Tories possessed one formidable and courageous attack dog in the shape of his frontbench spokesman Chris Grayling. But Cameron foolishly promoted him to be Shadow Home Secretary. Since then, Grayling has struggled to make an impact in his new brief, while the Tories have lost the services of their only seasoned rottweiler when it comes to attacks on Labour. But Cameron's biggest problem is his failure to resonate with ordinary voters in the same way that Blair did 13 years ago.
For a period, Blair seemed to encapsulate all the hopes and frustrations of an entire generation. Yet David Cameron has singularly failed to do the same. His inability to connect with wide cross-sections of Britain is, however, not a matter of social class as some commentators claim. Blair, of course, was also the product of an elite education-Fettes public school, Oxford University and the Bar) and yet found it easy to win over the public. Cameron's biggest problem is his failure to resonate with ordinary voters in the same way that Blair did 13 years ago To understand why one man has succeeded while the other hasn't, it is essential to understand the contrasting styles of these two politicians. As we all know, Tony Blair was a brilliant front man. He would never say or do anything without the approval of his two superlatively talented, if utterly unprincipled, spin doctors, Mandelson and Campbell. Indeed, it is not going too far to say that these two men dominated him both intellectually and morally, especially during his time in opposition. By contrast, David Cameron is very much his own man. Like Blair, he employs two skilled public relations experts in Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson. But they report to Cameron. With Blair, however, it was often the other way around - he did what he was told by the ruthless Mandelson and Campbell. Their advice was perfect for a party in opposition wanting to end 17 years of Tory government.
Like most political PR men, they were obsessed with the dark arts of spinning - involving style and image over substance and delivery - rather than the more important matters of how to run the country properly. And, as I say, they sacrificed all principles in order to present a desirable image of their leader. It is certainly true that Cameron at first betrayed his PR man past with such dubious stunts as being photographed with huskies on a Norwegian glacier and cycling to work with his chauffeured car carrying his shoes and papers following him. But as time has gone on, he has demonstrated he has strong principles. He knows that he must decide what his priorities would be in government and he has also slowly come to realise that an obsession with image won't wash with the public. Take, for example, his recent very unpopular decision to recant on his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. In public relations terms this U-turn was a kamikaze move. It badly damaged Cameron's reputation for integrity and lost many friends on the Tory right. Principally, it opened him up to deadly charge of betrayal of his principles. But the Tory leader went back on his word because he believed that if he becomes prime minister it would be quite impractical to reopen talks on the Lisbon Treaty once it had been ratified by all the other EU member states. And he realised that it would have been profoundly dishonest to pretend that he would still hold a referendum when its result would have no effect. So, at considerable political cost and to the despair of some of his advisers, Cameron ruled out a referendum. A similar attitude of realism came into play with regard Tory economic policy.
Twelve months ago, Cameron and his Shadow Chancellor George Osborne took the controversial decision to announce plans for very sharp public spending cuts. Nothing could have been more calculated to cost them votes and easy popularity. (Although, in a fascinating interview with Tim Shipman in today's Mail, Cameron has sought to empathise the positive side of his tough-minded economic policies, he still remains steadfast to the unpopular decisions that he would have to make in government.) There is, of course, a big risk to this strategy. By election day in 1997, the vast majority of voters believed Blair shared their views and aspirations. No wonder New Labour won by a landslide. It won't be like that with David Cameron. He's already signalled to the over-mighty public service unions that they'll have a tremendous battle on their hands with a Tory government determined to slash public spending and quickly reduce the nation's obscene levels of debt. David Cameron has, I believe, learned from the mistakes Tony Blair made in opposition. By the time Blair secured power, he had made so many pledges to so many different groups to secure their votes that he was powerless to effect the kind of changes he wanted in government. Cameron, by contrast, has made a mental trade-off - and is prepared to alienate sections of society (and risk a smaller Commons majority) if it means that he'll have much greater freedom to make the really difficult and unpopular decisions that he'll need to make after the election. As Tory leader Margaret Thatcher said two decades ago: 'It's only on the basis of truth that power should be won - or indeed can be worth winning.
Faced with a broken government, limping pathetically towards next spring's general election at a time of grave economic crisis, the Opposition ought to be miles ahead in the polls. Cameron's failure to secure an unassailable lead over Labour is down to the weakness of his frontbench team; but the fact that it is not has led to increasingly disgruntled mutterings among Tory backbenchers, many of whom, privately, have never really taken to Cameron. If the Tory opinion poll lead falls much further, Cameron might face a major crisis of confidence. So the most important question in British politics this Christmas is this: why is David Cameron not doing a lot better? One answer lies in the character of his opponent, Gordon Brown. Although the Prime Minister is a spectacularly poor premier, he has an admirable inner resilience. Furthermore, Brown seems to have a remarkable ability to shine when he attends international summit meetings. For instance, he played a powerful role in bringing warring parties together at the Copenhagen conference yesterday. He also proved a doughty negotiator at the G8 meeting of world leaders in London last year. A second, more pressing, reason for Cameron's failure to secure an unassailable lead over Labour is down to the weakness of his frontbench team.
Back in 1996, Tony Blair led a very powerful campaigning organisation. Orchestrated by Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, it specialised in the vicious and unpleasant tactic of personal attacks on its enemies. Huge resources were employed in trying to annihilate John Major and his government. Such barbarous and unscrupulous politics is alien to David Cameron's nature and it is to his credit that he has not sought to emulate New Labour's unsavoury tactics. As a result, however, Cameron has repeatedly failed to take advantage of Gordon Brown's unpopularity. Cameron has also made one key error of judgment. Until six months ago, the Tories possessed one formidable and courageous attack dog in the shape of his frontbench spokesman Chris Grayling. But Cameron foolishly promoted him to be Shadow Home Secretary. Since then, Grayling has struggled to make an impact in his new brief, while the Tories have lost the services of their only seasoned rottweiler when it comes to attacks on Labour. But Cameron's biggest problem is his failure to resonate with ordinary voters in the same way that Blair did 13 years ago.
For a period, Blair seemed to encapsulate all the hopes and frustrations of an entire generation. Yet David Cameron has singularly failed to do the same. His inability to connect with wide cross-sections of Britain is, however, not a matter of social class as some commentators claim. Blair, of course, was also the product of an elite education-Fettes public school, Oxford University and the Bar) and yet found it easy to win over the public. Cameron's biggest problem is his failure to resonate with ordinary voters in the same way that Blair did 13 years ago To understand why one man has succeeded while the other hasn't, it is essential to understand the contrasting styles of these two politicians. As we all know, Tony Blair was a brilliant front man. He would never say or do anything without the approval of his two superlatively talented, if utterly unprincipled, spin doctors, Mandelson and Campbell. Indeed, it is not going too far to say that these two men dominated him both intellectually and morally, especially during his time in opposition. By contrast, David Cameron is very much his own man. Like Blair, he employs two skilled public relations experts in Steve Hilton and Andy Coulson. But they report to Cameron. With Blair, however, it was often the other way around - he did what he was told by the ruthless Mandelson and Campbell. Their advice was perfect for a party in opposition wanting to end 17 years of Tory government.
Like most political PR men, they were obsessed with the dark arts of spinning - involving style and image over substance and delivery - rather than the more important matters of how to run the country properly. And, as I say, they sacrificed all principles in order to present a desirable image of their leader. It is certainly true that Cameron at first betrayed his PR man past with such dubious stunts as being photographed with huskies on a Norwegian glacier and cycling to work with his chauffeured car carrying his shoes and papers following him. But as time has gone on, he has demonstrated he has strong principles. He knows that he must decide what his priorities would be in government and he has also slowly come to realise that an obsession with image won't wash with the public. Take, for example, his recent very unpopular decision to recant on his pledge to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. In public relations terms this U-turn was a kamikaze move. It badly damaged Cameron's reputation for integrity and lost many friends on the Tory right. Principally, it opened him up to deadly charge of betrayal of his principles. But the Tory leader went back on his word because he believed that if he becomes prime minister it would be quite impractical to reopen talks on the Lisbon Treaty once it had been ratified by all the other EU member states. And he realised that it would have been profoundly dishonest to pretend that he would still hold a referendum when its result would have no effect. So, at considerable political cost and to the despair of some of his advisers, Cameron ruled out a referendum. A similar attitude of realism came into play with regard Tory economic policy.
Twelve months ago, Cameron and his Shadow Chancellor George Osborne took the controversial decision to announce plans for very sharp public spending cuts. Nothing could have been more calculated to cost them votes and easy popularity. (Although, in a fascinating interview with Tim Shipman in today's Mail, Cameron has sought to empathise the positive side of his tough-minded economic policies, he still remains steadfast to the unpopular decisions that he would have to make in government.) There is, of course, a big risk to this strategy. By election day in 1997, the vast majority of voters believed Blair shared their views and aspirations. No wonder New Labour won by a landslide. It won't be like that with David Cameron. He's already signalled to the over-mighty public service unions that they'll have a tremendous battle on their hands with a Tory government determined to slash public spending and quickly reduce the nation's obscene levels of debt. David Cameron has, I believe, learned from the mistakes Tony Blair made in opposition. By the time Blair secured power, he had made so many pledges to so many different groups to secure their votes that he was powerless to effect the kind of changes he wanted in government. Cameron, by contrast, has made a mental trade-off - and is prepared to alienate sections of society (and risk a smaller Commons majority) if it means that he'll have much greater freedom to make the really difficult and unpopular decisions that he'll need to make after the election. As Tory leader Margaret Thatcher said two decades ago: 'It's only on the basis of truth that power should be won - or indeed can be worth winning.
Saturday, 19 December 2009
The ugly face of BNP fascism
From leader Nick Griffin’s Holocaust denial through to Tony Lecomber’s proposed eugenics plan for a purer white race, the British National Party has expounded outrageous and downright dangerous views. Recently Mark Collett, leader of the young BNP was shown by channel 4’s Despatches to be an out and out Nazi sympathiser: “National Socialism was the best solution for the German people in the 1930s”, he told the cameras. “I honestly cant understand how a man who’s seen the inner city hell of Britain today cant look back on that era [Hitler’s Germany] with a certain nostalgia”. Despite the BNP’s public denunciation of Collett, he remains a full-time party worker and Yorkshire Regional Organiser. Formed in 1982 by John Tyndall, one of Britain’s foremost post-war nazis, the BNP spent much of the 1980s in the shadow of the larger National Front. The NF was to split quite dramatically, and, torn by internal conflict, left a space on the far right for the BNP to fill. In 1985, one of its main activists, Tony Lecomber, was sent to prison for trying to blow up the offices of a rival organisation. He was also caught with hand-grenades. Despite his attempted terrorism, he remains number two in today’s BNP. During the early 1990s much of its activities were focused on East London, where, in 1993, it secured a council by-election victory in the Tower Hamlets ward of Millwall. The price to pay was a massive rise in racial attacks. In the three months after the election, racial incidents rose by 300%. At about the same time the BNP spawned the violent Combat 18 as its security force. . C18 later emerged as a nazi terror group, responsible for a letter bomb campaign and a series of murders. C18 thugs, made up of football hooligans and nazi skinheads, protected BNP meetings and minded BNP leaders during party marches.
In 1993 the BNP became increasingly embarrassed by Combat 18 violence. After its victory in Millwall it decided it no longer needed the street thugs and banned dual membership. However most BNP members ignored this plea. In September 1995 four of the five London BNP branch organisers attended a C18 meeting. The Millwall seat was lost eight months later. The BNP lost momentum, with younger members going over to C18. Tyndall reversed the slide by adopting a more hardline strategy, which included bringing veteran US nazi leader, William Pierce, to London. Pierce penned the evil tract, The Turner Diaries, which inspired the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the London nailbomber David Copeland. Copeland learnt his politics in the BNP. After Nick Griffin became leader in 1999, the BNP began to adopt a more respectable image. It campaigned on rural issues and, publicly at least, watered down some of its more racist policies. However most of the key BNP personnel have remained the same. And it was only one year before Griffin became leader that he received a suspended prison sentence for inciting racial hatred. In 2002 the BNP won three council seats in Burnley and averaged 28% of the town-wide vote. In Oldham, the party came second in four of the five wards it contested and took an average 27%. Across the country the BNP averaged 16% in the council wards it contested, easily its best election results in its history. It is important remember that it challenged less than 1% of all seats up for election. But since then, they have added two more council seats and this looks set to grow in May.
Racism is at the very heart of the British National Party. It is racism that separates it from any other political party. And it is racism that attracts many of its members. Of course the BNP denies this. It knows how hateful its views appear, and has tried to make its language less crude. But the song remains the same. BNP publications are still filled with racist articles, lies about immigration and asylum, and distorted figures in an attempt to portray black people as criminals and dole scroungers. Today, the BNP has dropped its policy of compulsory repatriation and replaced it with a voluntary scheme. Make no mistake about it, this move is designed to win over supporters. The party recognise that the vast majority of people found its previous policy abhorrent. But the small print of BNP policy makes clear its true aims. The BNP claims that a BNP led government would consider forcible repatriation if not enough “non-whites” took up its offer. If the BNP does not publicly support compulsory repatriation, it makes no attempt to hide its backing for an apartheid state in Britain. Current party literature proposes to “protect and preserve the racial and cultural integrity of the British people – and of others too, the party believes in separation”. According to the BNP 2001 general election manifesto, “native Britons”, who they claim can only be white, would be given priority in the job market. “Non-whites” would instantly become second class citizens in Britain. Any black person who commits a crime would also be thrown out of the country, even those who were born here. Mixed race relationships would be outlawed.
Privately, the BNP leaders have continued to air their real political views. “All black people will be repatriated, even if they were born here”, BNP leader Nick Griffin told Wales on Sunday in 1996. “We must preserve the white race, because it has been responsible for all the good things in civilisation” - according to Tony Lecomber, the preservation of the white race can be done through a racial eugenic programme. On other occasions, the BNP has glorified racist attacks. In 1991, the BNP newspaper gloated after several BNP supporters stabbed an African immigrant at London Bridge station. The victim had his “kidney surgically removed”, the paper boasted. In the same year, the BNP leadership whipped up a racist riot in Bermondsey, London, and led an attack on an anti-racist meeting that was protesting against the BNP headquaters in Welling. Thirteen people needed hospital treatment. BNP supporter Stuart Kerr was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for firebombing an Asian shop in Chichester, Sussex. Tell me this - is this really the sort of political party you would vote for?
Muslims are now the main victims of BNP racism. Since September 11th was revealed to be the work of Islamic terrorists, Muslims in this country have taken the brunt of abuse by those wanting to exploit tragedy. All ethnic groups exist as a target for the BNP, but their choice of victim is cynical: “We reject both pro-Zionist internationalism… and the Islamification of our homelands. Which enemy is it in our political interest to be seen to be opposing more vigorously at the moment? To a party aiming to win seats in London, the West Midlands and the former mill-towns of Northern England, the answer should be pretty obvious”. It is clear then, that the BNP see racism against Muslims as a vote winner. Muslims are an easy target for fascists. This is why the BNP cowardly singles them out for abuse. Under British law, Muslims do not exist as an ethnic group, and so technically cannot be the victims of discrimination. In other words, the BNP can goad Muslims and get away with it. This is why the BNP was campaigning against Muslims long before the New York attacks. By getting support from Muslim haters in other ethnic groups, the BNP are fostering more division and race hate. These Sikh and Hindu BNP supporters represent only a handful of fanatics. They speak for no one but themselves. As far back as 1996, the BNP were attacking Muslims as being separate from other ethnic groups. Then members were active in campaigns against the opening of mosques in east and south London. They wrote at the time, “The BNP has no objection to Muslims having their own places of worship – providing they are in Muslim countries and not in Britain”. The BNP has recently claimed that Al-Qia’da is the true form of Islam and that moderate Muslims who want to live peacefully with other religions are non-believers. This is clear incitement and distortion. Most of all, Griffin’s anti-Muslim stance is hypocrisy. In the mid-1980s when he was a leading officer in the National Front he openly cavorted with Islamic extremists. He supported the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist regime in Iran, and sought backing from Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi .
Hatred of Jews has always been the backbone of nazi ideas. The BNP is no different. But antisemitism is not a vote winner. It reminds people of Hitler and the Holocaust. The BNP wishes to distance itself from the images of swastikas and concentration camps. Despite this, they still believesthat there is a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. In Nick Griffin’s pamphlet "Who are the Mindbenders?" Jewish names are listed as proof that they control the media. Mindbenders claims that, “The mass media in Britain today have managed to implant into many people’s minds the idea that it is ‘anti-Semitic’ even to acknowledge that members of the Jewish community play a large part in controlling our news”'; Jews are accused of “providing us with an endless diet of pro-multiracial, pro-homosexual, anti-British trash”. In Spearhead in 1996, Griffin spoke of “the controllers of Hollywood, almost entirely Jewish”, and has written that: “Some ‘anti-Semitism’ may be provoked by the actions of certain Jews themselves and thereby have a rational basis”. Now he is trying to distance himself from the label of antisemitism, and has toned down his views in public. Where he once spoke of “Jewish influence”, he now speaks of “Zionist influence”, showing that it is his language not his beliefs that have changed. Griffin has never withdrawn his views on the Holocaust that landed him with a suspended prison sentence in 1998. His publication The Rune, which denied that the Holocaust ever took place, resulted in a conviction for inciting racial hatred under the Public Order Act. So extreme were Griffin’s beliefs that he attacked David Irving, the leading British Holocaust denier, for daring to admit that some people might have died in the Holocaust, Griffin wrote: “True revisionists will not be fooled by this new twist to the sorry tale of the Hoax of the Twentieth Century”. Defaming the memory of British forces who fought the Nazis, he added, “Back in the 1960s the Jews quietly shifted the alleged sites of the mass gassings from the no longer believable German camps such as Dachau and Belsen to the sites in Communist Poland such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. Now that the very idea of Zyklon-B extermination has been exposed as unscientific nonsense, they are once and again re-writing bogus history, playing down gas chambers and talking instead of ‘hundreds of hitherto unknown sites in the East where more than a million Jews were exterminated by shooting”. Griffin sees the Holocaust as a lie invented by Jews to make money: “As your Hollywood friend is fond of remarking, (provided he is safely in select company) ‘there’s no business like Shoah business”. When the former MP Alex Carlisle reported Griffin for inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial, Griffin fumed: “This bloody Jew, our local MP who organised the raid whose only claim to fame is that two of his parents died in the Holocaust”. Star witness as Harrow Crown Court on Griffin’s behalf was Robert Faurisson, the famous French Holocaust denier; in he 1990s the BNP hosted a number of revisionism seminars that were addressed by some of the world’s most infamous Holocaust deniers. They included David Irving.
The BNP are all things to all people. They are populists whose politics change like the wind. If the public is concerned with asylum, the BNP will exploit the issue. When Islamic fundamentalists commit terrorist attacks, suddenly all Muslims are to blame for the world’s ills. No matter what problems exist in this country, someone else is always to blame. Now the BNP wants to take power in council elections. But they know their nazi image has to go. Britons fought for our freedom against Hitler’s Nazi Germany. No decent British citizens want homegrown extremists destroying the memory of those brave men and women who lost their lives to secure our future; this is why the BNP lie about who they are and what they stand for. The BNP are cynics. They pretend that they are not racists. But make no mistake about it, all minority groups would be under threat if faced with a BNP victory. The BNP promise the world but can deliver nothing. They say that they love this country, but they wish to destroy its harmony and diversity; they say that they stand for the ordinary worker, but the BNP would scrap Trade Unions given the chance. Extremism quite obviously still runs through the dark, sinister beating heart of the BNP.
In 1993 the BNP became increasingly embarrassed by Combat 18 violence. After its victory in Millwall it decided it no longer needed the street thugs and banned dual membership. However most BNP members ignored this plea. In September 1995 four of the five London BNP branch organisers attended a C18 meeting. The Millwall seat was lost eight months later. The BNP lost momentum, with younger members going over to C18. Tyndall reversed the slide by adopting a more hardline strategy, which included bringing veteran US nazi leader, William Pierce, to London. Pierce penned the evil tract, The Turner Diaries, which inspired the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the London nailbomber David Copeland. Copeland learnt his politics in the BNP. After Nick Griffin became leader in 1999, the BNP began to adopt a more respectable image. It campaigned on rural issues and, publicly at least, watered down some of its more racist policies. However most of the key BNP personnel have remained the same. And it was only one year before Griffin became leader that he received a suspended prison sentence for inciting racial hatred. In 2002 the BNP won three council seats in Burnley and averaged 28% of the town-wide vote. In Oldham, the party came second in four of the five wards it contested and took an average 27%. Across the country the BNP averaged 16% in the council wards it contested, easily its best election results in its history. It is important remember that it challenged less than 1% of all seats up for election. But since then, they have added two more council seats and this looks set to grow in May.
Racism is at the very heart of the British National Party. It is racism that separates it from any other political party. And it is racism that attracts many of its members. Of course the BNP denies this. It knows how hateful its views appear, and has tried to make its language less crude. But the song remains the same. BNP publications are still filled with racist articles, lies about immigration and asylum, and distorted figures in an attempt to portray black people as criminals and dole scroungers. Today, the BNP has dropped its policy of compulsory repatriation and replaced it with a voluntary scheme. Make no mistake about it, this move is designed to win over supporters. The party recognise that the vast majority of people found its previous policy abhorrent. But the small print of BNP policy makes clear its true aims. The BNP claims that a BNP led government would consider forcible repatriation if not enough “non-whites” took up its offer. If the BNP does not publicly support compulsory repatriation, it makes no attempt to hide its backing for an apartheid state in Britain. Current party literature proposes to “protect and preserve the racial and cultural integrity of the British people – and of others too, the party believes in separation”. According to the BNP 2001 general election manifesto, “native Britons”, who they claim can only be white, would be given priority in the job market. “Non-whites” would instantly become second class citizens in Britain. Any black person who commits a crime would also be thrown out of the country, even those who were born here. Mixed race relationships would be outlawed.
Privately, the BNP leaders have continued to air their real political views. “All black people will be repatriated, even if they were born here”, BNP leader Nick Griffin told Wales on Sunday in 1996. “We must preserve the white race, because it has been responsible for all the good things in civilisation” - according to Tony Lecomber, the preservation of the white race can be done through a racial eugenic programme. On other occasions, the BNP has glorified racist attacks. In 1991, the BNP newspaper gloated after several BNP supporters stabbed an African immigrant at London Bridge station. The victim had his “kidney surgically removed”, the paper boasted. In the same year, the BNP leadership whipped up a racist riot in Bermondsey, London, and led an attack on an anti-racist meeting that was protesting against the BNP headquaters in Welling. Thirteen people needed hospital treatment. BNP supporter Stuart Kerr was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment for firebombing an Asian shop in Chichester, Sussex. Tell me this - is this really the sort of political party you would vote for?
Muslims are now the main victims of BNP racism. Since September 11th was revealed to be the work of Islamic terrorists, Muslims in this country have taken the brunt of abuse by those wanting to exploit tragedy. All ethnic groups exist as a target for the BNP, but their choice of victim is cynical: “We reject both pro-Zionist internationalism… and the Islamification of our homelands. Which enemy is it in our political interest to be seen to be opposing more vigorously at the moment? To a party aiming to win seats in London, the West Midlands and the former mill-towns of Northern England, the answer should be pretty obvious”. It is clear then, that the BNP see racism against Muslims as a vote winner. Muslims are an easy target for fascists. This is why the BNP cowardly singles them out for abuse. Under British law, Muslims do not exist as an ethnic group, and so technically cannot be the victims of discrimination. In other words, the BNP can goad Muslims and get away with it. This is why the BNP was campaigning against Muslims long before the New York attacks. By getting support from Muslim haters in other ethnic groups, the BNP are fostering more division and race hate. These Sikh and Hindu BNP supporters represent only a handful of fanatics. They speak for no one but themselves. As far back as 1996, the BNP were attacking Muslims as being separate from other ethnic groups. Then members were active in campaigns against the opening of mosques in east and south London. They wrote at the time, “The BNP has no objection to Muslims having their own places of worship – providing they are in Muslim countries and not in Britain”. The BNP has recently claimed that Al-Qia’da is the true form of Islam and that moderate Muslims who want to live peacefully with other religions are non-believers. This is clear incitement and distortion. Most of all, Griffin’s anti-Muslim stance is hypocrisy. In the mid-1980s when he was a leading officer in the National Front he openly cavorted with Islamic extremists. He supported the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fundamentalist regime in Iran, and sought backing from Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi .
Hatred of Jews has always been the backbone of nazi ideas. The BNP is no different. But antisemitism is not a vote winner. It reminds people of Hitler and the Holocaust. The BNP wishes to distance itself from the images of swastikas and concentration camps. Despite this, they still believesthat there is a Jewish conspiracy to dominate the world. In Nick Griffin’s pamphlet "Who are the Mindbenders?" Jewish names are listed as proof that they control the media. Mindbenders claims that, “The mass media in Britain today have managed to implant into many people’s minds the idea that it is ‘anti-Semitic’ even to acknowledge that members of the Jewish community play a large part in controlling our news”'; Jews are accused of “providing us with an endless diet of pro-multiracial, pro-homosexual, anti-British trash”. In Spearhead in 1996, Griffin spoke of “the controllers of Hollywood, almost entirely Jewish”, and has written that: “Some ‘anti-Semitism’ may be provoked by the actions of certain Jews themselves and thereby have a rational basis”. Now he is trying to distance himself from the label of antisemitism, and has toned down his views in public. Where he once spoke of “Jewish influence”, he now speaks of “Zionist influence”, showing that it is his language not his beliefs that have changed. Griffin has never withdrawn his views on the Holocaust that landed him with a suspended prison sentence in 1998. His publication The Rune, which denied that the Holocaust ever took place, resulted in a conviction for inciting racial hatred under the Public Order Act. So extreme were Griffin’s beliefs that he attacked David Irving, the leading British Holocaust denier, for daring to admit that some people might have died in the Holocaust, Griffin wrote: “True revisionists will not be fooled by this new twist to the sorry tale of the Hoax of the Twentieth Century”. Defaming the memory of British forces who fought the Nazis, he added, “Back in the 1960s the Jews quietly shifted the alleged sites of the mass gassings from the no longer believable German camps such as Dachau and Belsen to the sites in Communist Poland such as Auschwitz and Treblinka. Now that the very idea of Zyklon-B extermination has been exposed as unscientific nonsense, they are once and again re-writing bogus history, playing down gas chambers and talking instead of ‘hundreds of hitherto unknown sites in the East where more than a million Jews were exterminated by shooting”. Griffin sees the Holocaust as a lie invented by Jews to make money: “As your Hollywood friend is fond of remarking, (provided he is safely in select company) ‘there’s no business like Shoah business”. When the former MP Alex Carlisle reported Griffin for inciting racial hatred and Holocaust denial, Griffin fumed: “This bloody Jew, our local MP who organised the raid whose only claim to fame is that two of his parents died in the Holocaust”. Star witness as Harrow Crown Court on Griffin’s behalf was Robert Faurisson, the famous French Holocaust denier; in he 1990s the BNP hosted a number of revisionism seminars that were addressed by some of the world’s most infamous Holocaust deniers. They included David Irving.
The BNP are all things to all people. They are populists whose politics change like the wind. If the public is concerned with asylum, the BNP will exploit the issue. When Islamic fundamentalists commit terrorist attacks, suddenly all Muslims are to blame for the world’s ills. No matter what problems exist in this country, someone else is always to blame. Now the BNP wants to take power in council elections. But they know their nazi image has to go. Britons fought for our freedom against Hitler’s Nazi Germany. No decent British citizens want homegrown extremists destroying the memory of those brave men and women who lost their lives to secure our future; this is why the BNP lie about who they are and what they stand for. The BNP are cynics. They pretend that they are not racists. But make no mistake about it, all minority groups would be under threat if faced with a BNP victory. The BNP promise the world but can deliver nothing. They say that they love this country, but they wish to destroy its harmony and diversity; they say that they stand for the ordinary worker, but the BNP would scrap Trade Unions given the chance. Extremism quite obviously still runs through the dark, sinister beating heart of the BNP.
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