J’accuse
Several years ago I wrote an essay explaining the symbiotic nature of the relationship between the far right and the industry which has grown up to oppose it.
I argued that the far right’s elite used the existence of such “anti-fascist” organisations to excuse their failure to their supporters and to create an air of suspicion and panic which allowed them to behave in a way which otherwise would have been unacceptable. For their part the “anti fascist” organisations, which employed a considerable number of people, obviously required the existence of a credible “fascist” threat in order to justify their existence.
Today a situation has arisen which strongly suggests more than mere informal symbiosis but rather active complicity by the “anti fascist” industry in the maintenance of a credible “fascist” threat.
Over the last couple of years the BNP, the primary identified threat by the “anti-fascist” industry, has been in crisis. By this point it has become so degraded and dysfunctional it can no longer be seriously regarded as any sort of credible electoral force. Anymore than the remnant of the National Front could be.
However the “anti fascist” industry has remained resolutely focused on the BNP, Hope not Hate for example only identifying one other credible threat, the English Defence League. In doing so they have ignored, deliberately, the rising threat of the English Democrats in order that this party might establish itself to fill the niche required by the “anti fascist” industry for it’s continued existence.
The main focus of the “anti fascist” industry’s attacks on the far right has traditionally been not on policy or political debate but on personality. The case against the BNP put by the industry both at street level and in the media revolves almost exclusively around the beliefs and backgrounds of members of the BNP. Any past criminal convictions or associations with open fascism or racism have been constantly repeated. Any personal link, no matter how tenuous, between extremist groups, terrorists or criminals has been exposed relentlessly.
Frequently prominent “anti fascists” have suggested that as innocuous a party as UKIP were fascist because of an overlap in membership held by certain people at different points in their life (1). A charge that UKIP were so desperate to avoid that they actually used an anti-fascist group to “vet” membership applications in order to avoid any possibility of this happening. Even this is not enough to stop “anti-fascists” from mentioning the two parties in the same breath (2).
This is verging on an extortion technique of a type usually associated with corrupt police forces in the most oppressive states in the world.
And yet none of the mainstream “anti fascist” groups, largely funded by Unions and in the case of Searchlight in part by the State, have seen fit to mention that an estimated 6 of the approximately 160 English Democrat candidates (approximately 5%) are former BNP members. Including at least one who is currently sitting as one of approximately 25 BNP councillors nationally. Nor have they identified the defection of Chris Beverly, a man whose connections with German neo-Nazi groups were used prominently in the campaign against the BNP, to the English Democrats as indicating a substantial “fascist” element in that party.
This is even more inexplicable when it is considered that no less a figure than Eddy Butler, a man routinely quoted by all major “anti-fascist” groups as a senior representative of the “fascist” BNP, had openly advocated disaffected BNP members join the English Democrats. They certainly know about this and they have certainly made a note of it for future use against the English Democrats after they have established themselves as a threat.
The English Democrats have stood 160 candidates to the BNP’s 250 and are widely tipped to win elections in May, after which you can bet your bottom dollar the “anti fascist” industry will be running to their sponsors begging for funds to fight this “suddenly arising new threat”.
The anti fascist industry has collectively deliberately ignored the clear and present danger of a new vehicle for the people they have opposed for 25 years being established. Moreover they have failed to run any sort of public information campaign on this issue either through their media outlets or on the streets through their activist base. They have effectively allowed the English Democrats to gain a foothold by giving them a clear run when they could have delivered a fatal blow to the “fascist” right in the UK by preventing any English Democrat breakthrough.
There can be only two explanations for this oversight. One is that the “anti fascist” groups are grotesquely incompetent; the other is that they have effectively manufactured a threat for them to campaign against in order to secure the future of their business.
If the latter is correct then this is a serious matter for the consideration of the Unions and other organisations funding the “anti fascist” industry because it effectively means that their money is being extorted by people who have no intention of ever finishing the job. Given the grave threat posed by fascism to our society and the adverse impacts its presence in it is understood by those sponsors, otherwise they wouldn’t be sponsoring”anti-fascists”, this matter must be taken very seriously indeed. They have been the victims of what amounts to a protection racket.
Brummie 76
(1) (1) “The other interesting thing about Andrew Spence, and the one which I think is significant rather than just an amusing coincidence, is that he stood at the last election for UKIP. Yet another example that the membership of those two parties is interchangeable, despite UKIP’s protestations. Is someone producing special coins for racists to help them decide who to stand for? Ones with BNP and UKIP on instead of heads and tails?"
Lancaster UAF Blog, Feb 6th 2007
(2) (2)"The BNP polled 4.9% across London in the Assembly elections in 2004, but in Barking & Dagenham it took 14.8%. Adding the UKIP’s 18% pushes the right-wing vote to above 33%."
Searchlight, June 2006
“Last year Lake thought the political solution was in the UKIP, the mainly anti-EU party which however, under the leadership of Lord Pearson, was taking a more anti-Islamic stance. Pearson regularly spoke out against Islam and attempted to forge links with the Dutch Islamophobic politician Geert Wilders.”
Searchlight, March 2011
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