Interesting article on the alleged increase of suppport for the BNP amongst traditional working class Labour voters. The piece also suggests how confused and redundant the old notions of Left and Right have become when both Respect and the BNP are claiming to be the traditional voices of socialism.
'The White Flight to the Right'
Michael Collins
25 comments:
In a letter in today's Telegraph Norman Tebbit points out that the BNP are more left-wing than Right-wing.
Here is the letter in full:
'Left-wing BNP
Sir - It is of some comfort that the Labour Party at least, even if not yet the Tories, has woken up to the threat posed by the BNP, because it has ceased to understand or listen to its own supporters when they express their concerns about multiculturalism, the levels of immigration and lack of integration that are affecting our great cities.
However, it remains of concern that even The Daily Telegraph (Comment, April 18) persists in so misunderstanding the BNP as to describe it as "an extreme Right-wing party". I have carefully re-read the BNP manifesto of 2005 and am unable to find evidence of Right-wing tendencies.
On the other hand, there is plenty of anti-capitalism, opposition to free trade, commitments to "use all non-destructive means to reduce income inequality", to institute worker ownership, to favour workers' co-operatives, to return parts of the railways to state ownership, to nationalise the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and to withdraw from Nato. That sounds pretty Left-wing to me.
Certainly the BNP poses as a patriotic party opposed to multiculturalism, and it has racist overtones, but there is no lack of patriotic Left-wing regimes; opposition to multiculturalism is now mainstream and racialism was not unknown even in the Soviet Union.
So what is "extreme Right-wing" about the BNP?
Lord Tebbit, London SW1'
Very good post. Agree with many of the points - the demonisation of asylum seekers and Muslims is very dangerous and worrying - but disagree strongly on other points. I'd like to pick up on a couple of those points in a latter post (annoyingly work is getting in the way) in the meantime I thought it was worth quoting Tebbit's own response to critisms of his letter.
"The nature of the BNP has been causing no little confusion of late. Writing here last week, Toby Roberts called me a "putz" (in English, a clod) for describing the BNP as a Left-, not Right-wing party, and for good measure implied that I am an apologist for it.
Mr Roberts claims that, despite the BNP's support for central direction of the economy, nationalisation, worker control of businesses, and opposition to capitalism and free trade, that party must be Right-wing because of its nationalism, opposition to foreign immigration and its denied, but obvious, racial policies.
However, there is no shortage of racist, nationalist, anti-immigrant parties on the Left. Stalin's Communist pogroms rivalled Hitler's National Socialist pogroms. They were both nationalists, like Chairman Mao and Pol Pot. The war criminals of the Balkans accused of genocide are all former members of the Communist Party, and I doubt if the Janjaweed militias of Darfur are diligent students of Hayek.
The fact, which even the most confused clods should be able to understand, is that nationalism, racism and anti-semitism are not uniquely of the Left or Right but can be found on either side of the spectrum. The misunderstanding of this goes back to 1939, when Hitler and Stalin were allies, and the Communist Party in Britain opposed the war with Hitler by fomenting strikes in the mines and the docks.
Our efficient propaganda machine labelled the Nazis "Right-wing", both to counter the far Left's efforts to assist Stalin's ally Hitler, and to help Attlee bring the Labour Party into Churchill's wartime coalition."
I wanted to come back to Wembley's comment. First of all, I agree that there is a danger that the debates around Islam and immigration demonise asylum seekers and Muslims. Personally, I have tried on this blog to include many voices from within the Muslim community so that this debate doesn't become an 'us' versus 'them'. Of course the balance isn't always going to be right, and the most valuable aspect of this blog (in my opinion) is the opportunity for contributors to challenge each other's assumptions (and I thank Wembley for challenging and changing mine as much as anyone). The fact remains that there are difficulties (as well as advantages) that arise from increased immigration and the threat of Islamic terrorism does exist. The best way to grapple with these issues is to be accurate and specific and avoid lazy generalisations.
Which brings me to our discussion on Left and Right. I think it is relevant that Fascism and Communism both historically arose out of socalism (Mussolini was a Communist who fell out with the rest of the Italian Communist Party and the Nazis were a Socialist Workers Party). In a Marxist Utopia the workers of the world would unite and the term 'National Socialism' would be an oxy-moron but in reality socialist countries seem very vunerable to Nationalism. However so convinced are the left in their own moral superiority they cannot and will never except that they might be the parent's of fascism.
Wembley, I disagree slightly with your defination of left and right. I think there is an assumption of commonality on the left and individualism on the right. The right's belief in individualism works on the assumption that people are better equiped to make decisions on their own behalf than the state. This also includes the belief that private property ownership rights are an important check on the arbitary powers of the state. The Right is broadly defined by it's small statist and liberal market values and the left by intervention and social provision.I also don't accept that the right inherently means a belief in the superiority of some races. There maybe a darwinist element to laissez-faire but it's the free-market not the state that judges who succeeds and who doesn't irrespective of race. This is why the BNP policies have to be left-wing, their rise in popularity is really an admission of defeat - their supporters just can't hack it in the free-market economy. By the way, I do think it is unfair to describe the Tories as a party of 'breeding' (and a blatant attempt to aid your arguement by insuating a racial right wing ideology). For a start, it's the party of Norman Tebbit, a working class ex Union Leader. Margaret Thatcher and the 'loadsamoney' eighties established once and for all that it was the party of the middle classes and aspiring working class.
Finally, as someone who voted Tory in the last local elections (boo! hiss!) I guess I'm one of the 'scoundrels of the right' you mentioned but I wouldn't claim Orwell as a right-wing writer either. I think it's silly to be propertorial about great writers anyway. Are you saying that teh writer of 'Nineteen Eightie Four' and 'Animal Farm' has nothing relevant to tell us about the dangers of Socialism and the state?
I think the left have to acknowledge that no matter how good their intentions they can't completely disassociate themselves from the historical connections and links between Communism, Facism and Socialism. The question is does Socialism beget Fascism?
Ok.
One. I didn't say that 1984 and Animal Farm were only warnings against socialism and the state, I suggested that it had relevant points to make on those subjects. But you seem to be implying that if you're right wing you can't take anything from Orwell as he was a socialist. The world of fiction would be pretty improverished if that was the case.
Two. The left is statist - it's crowning achievements are all examples of State Control - NHS, Welfare State etc. The nationalisation of Industry by the Conservatives is a special case - a World War will inevitably lead to more centralisation. It doesn't mean that the Tories are consquently Statist. This is illustrated by the fact that post war Churchill and the Conservatives were defeated by the Labour government campaigning on the more Statist policies of teh NHS and teh welfare state. England liked the comradery of the War and chose the more Statist solution. Interestingly though you're right that during the 20th century there was a general consensus that intervention was needed it's just that the Tories were more moderate than the Socialists on this. It took Thatcher's adoption of Gladstonian Liberalism to make a decisive break from this. Re your point on the current adminstration, I would still argue that private capitol and not re-nationalising are right-wing policies (and are percieved as such by many on the Left) and an example of pragmatic acceptance that the economic policies of the Eighties cannot sensibly be turned back.
Three. Being equally cartoonish about the left is beside the point. It may just go to show how those old distinctions are pretty meaningless - not sure.
Four. You are absolutely right that Left has a strong history of Individualism. The terms left and right originate in France and were used to indicate which side of the house the parties sat - at that point the Left were Liberal Free Marketeers. The trouble is that isn't a relevant description any longer. I'm a Liberal at heart - less regulations, less government interference, clear limits on the coercive powers of the state, local government. The tragedy is that the Liberals themselves can't embrace Liberal economics so we're left with the Conservatives. Suffice it to say that I don't see much commitment to those principles in New Labour.
The Left do have a commitment to equal opportunity but if we judge them on their results there was far greater social mobility under the Tories in the 80s. And despite being a 'Conservative' leader, The Thatcher years were absolutely no respecter of the status quo that's what made them so unsettling.
Seven. Perhaps Socialism doesn't beget Fascism. One thing neither are particularly keen on is Free Market capitalism.
Eight. Granted. That Free Market philosphies are still hotly contested by all parties. Most evidence points to the Tories being emotionally and intellectually more commited to this than our friends in the Labour party. Obviously, withdrawing the rights to assembly, curtailing free speech and banning terrorist organisations are hardly exclusive to the Conservatives and so neither right or left wing.
Ten. People vote on policies and those policies have consquences. I could argue that free market policies, reduced welfare and a liberated private sector are policies that would benefit the poor and working class most of all - would that make me left wing? You see I don't agree with your defination of the right as you disagree with mine of the Left. So I disagree violently with your discription of BNP as right wing as you are opposed to mine as Left wing. Hence my point about the uselessness of the terms left and right.
Just posted a relevant article here:
Chavez and the foolishness of the Left
Weighing in briefly, Wembley does seem to be somewhat selective in what he will allow as being "Left". Comments like socialism is not statist suggest he is referring to an abstract, intellectual "socialism" rather than the form of government actually practised under that name.
Assuming he would allow that "communism" is of the left, here's a link to its 20th century legacy: Black Book of Communism
But anyhoo, there's a great debate going in this thread, one of the best we've had for a while, so don't mind the likes of me!
:-)
Following up on Wembley's point seven: that the Fascist leaders split from Communistic parties confirms that they are not left-wing. Leaving aside the fact of the Fascist leaders continued commitment to Collectivist methods their new ideologies can also be viewed as nationalistic mutations and distortions of Socialism - as Wembley points out 'If socialism is ‘all men are equal’, then National Socialism is ‘all Germans are equal’. It is oxymoronic and a tragic distortion of Socialist principles but that doesn't prove that Fascism doesn't have roots in Socialism. Moreover to say that Fascistic parties aren't Left-wing as 'they were tolerated or even supported by lots of capitalists, including newspaper proprietors, as the best bulwark AGAINST communism'. Following that arguement New Labour wouldn't be left-wing as they are undoubtedly supported by capitalists, including newspaper proprietors and it has been argued that they are the best bulwark against the extreme left.
This isn't to say that nationalism is inherently Left-wing merely to make the original point that racism can be found on both left and right. The best way to combat racism is to move towards cross party no-partisan alliances and let go of the lazy assumption that Racism is inherently right-wing.
You’re right to say it would be wrong to call Orwell an anti socialist writer. As I said, I don't want to reduce either novels to simply being warnings against socialism. I would add though that it’s worth making a distinction between Orwell the essayist and Orwell the novelist. It doesn’t automatically follow that since Orwell was a committed socialist that his fiction is a direct expression of his socialist beliefs. A writer’s imagination is often more disobedient than that (and his readers too). Aldous Huxley was actually in favour of many of the ideas that his novel A Brave New World warns against. You don’t have to be a Post-modernist to believe that sometimes the novel’s meaning escapes the strict intentions of the Author.
Animal Farm is a parable on Soviet Communism, but the story can’t just be reduced to this specific meaning. Personally, I don’t think it’s a stretch to also read it as a warning against any form of government committed to the ideal of equality, which justifies acquiring more power in the interest of the common good.
1984 is a bit different. It has been used to criticise every government since it was written (I remember the Thatcherite 80s being compared to it), you might say it’s simply New Labour’s turn. It’s no surprise that having erected more surveillance cameras than any other European nation the Labour Government is compared to Big Brother.
As you say whether Socialism is statist or not those policies have been the common modus operandi of socialist governments . My own explanation for this is that the pursuit of equality necessitates interventionist policies. The suggestion in our recent education debate of abolishing private schools to create true equality is an example of this I think.
I like your analogy of ‘Liberalism and Democracy’ as terms often used as if one and the same but which are in fact distinct concepts. Makes sense. In fact deregulation and free market policies have recently been embraced by some left wing leaders of the developing World as the best way to raise the poor out of poverty (for more on this read The Accidental President of Brazil by Fernando Henrique Cardoso).
I should add that as soon as Brazilian President Fernando Cardosa adopted Free Market policies and de-regulation he was considered less socialist and more right wing, ironically.
A quick recap: Andy's initial point (via N. Tebbit) was that so-called 'far right' parties shared many policies with the left / far left. Furthermore, evidence was offered that in the case of the BNP, they actively sought to associate themselves with the left. We were reminded that the Nazis themselves had the word 'socialist' in the name of the party.
Andy has been suggesting that 'far right' is a bit of a misnomer; that the appellation is a subtle slur on anyone 'right' of centre and specifically a way of suggesting that the Conservative Party and fascism lie on the same continuum.
Wembley has vigorously countered this view, the crux of his argument being belief in equality = left, belief in inequality (or non-belief in equality) = right.
But here's the thing. Left and Right are not transcendant categories - they are labels, words whose meaning depends on other words, accepted definitions, usage; and these definitions are themselves the subject of controversy.
I doubt the debate between Andy & Wemb will ever be settled - to do so they would have to agree on the same definition of left and right - they clearly do not. And neither is alone in their definition.
So why does it matter? It matters for two reasons. 1) The association with Conservatism. From a Conservative perdpective it matters quite a lot. It makes a difference if your party is seen as being on a line that leads to Naziism. There are of course reasons for that association (Wemb's ideological argument is one) - I would suggest Enoch Powell is an important figure in creating that association. The Christian Right in the US finds a point where it blends into the Aryan Nation. From there to neo-nazis is but a short hop. One remembers the links between anti-fascist groups and the left. (Good old Billy Bragg.) And one recalls that the Nazis rounded up communists. But from these latter examples I think people draw some incorrect conclusions. Namely, that racism is the defining characteristic of the of right wing thinking. And that any opposition must come from the thing opposed's polar opposite. This is manifestly not the case - Stalin's crushing of Trotsky is just one famopus example of how deep divisions can arise between people who share many fundamental beliefs. The actions of Russian communists in the Spanish Civil War is another.
It seems to me that a slightly circular argument is being invoked, whereby the presence of racists on the right turns into the identification of racism with the right. Then when the next racist shows up he is identified as belonging to the right (because he is racist) and thus further bolstering the association. We can find examples in Wembley's comments.
Slagging off asylum seekers and Muslims feeds into the culture of the far right, of ‘foreigners are different in lots of bad ways’.
[...]
But the point, and the problem, is that it feeds into a political culture of ‘difference’. Demonising foreigners gives succour to the far right.
In both the quotations above there is an implicit assumption that demonising foreigners is the unique province of the right. To demonise foreigners is to BE of the right. No matter that the Nazis called themselves socialists -so long as you use the correct definition of socialism you can simply claim they were mistaken in their nomenclature.
But I think there's a failure here - a failure to engage with fascism / racism / totalitarianism. Look - I don't like it either. Who wants to think that any of their political beliefs has something in common with Naziism? But if (as both Andy and Wemb have argued) the labels ultimately don't matter / aren't helpful, is it not at least worth looking at the possible links between the points both movements have in common? Wemb argued passionately ealier that there was a creeping tghreat of fascism fuelled by "a succession of newspaper headlines about soft-touch Britain and sponging bogus asylum-seekers leading to fascist councillors shaping policy in Barking, Blackburn and Bradford.
But it is worth nothing that the BNP's first gains were in traditionally Labour Tower Hamlets where the issue was very much to do with social provision and a sense that whites were being treated unfairly - that Bangladeshi immigrants were being treated as 'more equal' (if you will.) The book The New East End discusses (at length) the ways in which left wing politics created the conditions that allowed the BNP to flourish.
To continuously position the BNP (and others like it) as far away from the left as possible is to avoid engaging with the very politcs that allow the BNP to take root. It is not a question of repudiating all left wing thought - it is simply a question of looking at the similarities so one can be more vigilant when it is on the rise.
Need I remind you of the alliance between far left and Islamism? The latter surely do not pin their colours to the mast of equality. So what is the basis for the alliance with the left?
Bad ideas are often corruptions of good ideas. It is betrayal of the good idea to not examine the ways in which it might turn into a very bad one.
Not much to add to Dan's last post. It's a good summation of the debate, I think.
In fact, I don't have much more to say on this subject full stop. I did just want to come back to Wembley's comment that the statist policies practiced by Left Wing Governments were being confused with Socialist Ideology.
I've been wondering about this point. The confusion, I think, arises out of the differences in the way Left and Right define themselves.
1) The Left defines itself by its ideology BUT the Right (Conservatism) mostly defines itself as Non-ideological. Conservatism has been described as the ‘negation of Ideology’.
2) In the absence of overt ideology the Right (or Conservatism) has come to be defined by its policies as much as its principles. Neo-Liberal Free Market policies symbolised Thatcherism as strongly as the principle of Individual responsibility.
3) The Right traditionally view Ideologies with deep suspicion and scepticism. They consider an ideologist as anyone who tries to impose a system of preconceived ideas onto Culture and Society – ‘The New Soviet Man’ in Russia, ‘The Cultural Revolution’ in China or ‘The Master Race’ (or Superman) in Germany. Along with the historically documented connections discussed earlier in the thread, this is why Conservatives (like Tebbit) view Revolutionary Political Movements like Communism, National Socialism and Fascism as of the Left.
4) Finally, the Right believe in the law of unintended consequences while the Left (Conservatives argue) judge the merits of a policy on the goal or intention rather than the unintended effect. The Right’s non-ideological scepticism mean that they define Politics more in terms of policies. This might explain why the Left and Right sometimes talk at cross-purposes.
The Christian Right in the US finds a point where it blends into the Aryan Nation. From there to neo-nazis is but a short hop.
Couldn't find anything on this. The entry in wikipedia on the Christian Right doesn't mention it. It does refer to the Christian Right's on going support for Israel and the War on Terror though.
Depends whether or not you see any similarities between the Christian Right and the Christian Identity movement. I don't want to start an argument over the respective theologies of both groups - the important thing for my point was the way in which the perception of similarities helps shape an association between the right and racism (here is a typical example of how the link between Christian Right and Christian Identity is percieved) even though (as discussed at length) the reality is more complex and less one sided.
But yes, I probably should have avoided capitalizing CR. The sentence should be perhaps be reworded to read less controversially:
"The Christian Right in the US is perceived by many as blending into the Aryan Nation. From there to neo-nazis is but a short hop."
P.S. Here's an article from TNR on the Christian Right's support fro Israel. (It's from google cache so I'm not sure how long it will be there.)
You're right that it's about perception of similarities again. As you said it is another matter of association: The tag Christian Right is used to refer to a rather random collection of individuals and institutions - as a term it covers both Republicans who are Christians and ultra Religious extremists.
TNR article is interesting. It's worth noting that on domestic politics the magazine is not un-partisan - they are very pro Democrat and anti-Bush. The article's main arguement is mostly supported by two ill-considered statements (one made and later retracted by Dick Varmey), which the writer then suggests is representative of christian conservatism as a whole - I'm not convinced. Nobody, besides the writer, appears to believe that these two badly thought through statements, made on live TV, are representative of a generally agreed christian conservative position.
This probably isn’t necessary, but I wanted to clarify a couple of things arising out of the last few posts and to place my comments in a wider context.
1) My initial point was that despite the association (in people's minds) between racism and the right, you had made a convincing argument that there were strong similarities between socialism, communism and Nazism (exemplified by the Nazi's own description of themselves as Socialists.) As part of my argument, I tried to account for some of the reasons why the association between racism and the right had such a hold on the public imagination. (Today's Times furnished another example of how that perception is created.)
I placed the Christian right and the Aryan Nation on a continuum to show one example of how that association might be formed. (Although as discussed the idea of a ‘continuum’ is deeply problematic. Also, happy to drop my initial use of the word “blend”.) The reasons for putting those groups on a continuum do not seem that controversial: belief in authority of the Bible (though of course, there will be disagreements over its interpretation), distrust of 'big government', hostility to 'progressive' views on abortion, gays, affirmative action. However, I am no more suggesting that every Christian conservative is a member of the Aryan nation than you are suggesting that every socialist is a closet Nazi. The point was to account for why many (rational) people saw racist groups as right wing, despite your convincing argument to the contrary. My intention in my original post was not to enter the left / right definitional argument between you and Wemb - rather it was to convince Wemb, that the definitional argument could be a distraction from the vigilance required to stop the rise of such racist groups, a rise that was as (more?) likely to be fuelled by 'left wing' policies than those of the right.
2) My purpose in posting the TNR article was primarily to show that right wing Christian support for Israel was not uncontroversial. The view expressed in the article (and perhaps I was remiss in not quoting the relevant part) was that Christian support for Israel had a biblical basis as much (if not more) than a moral / political one.
Here is the passage that had initially caught my eye:
Whether or not most evangelicals truly believe Israel's wars will usher in the Messianic Age, they are theologically conditioned to see its struggle as Manichaean. That's why Parshall believes Israel should annex the West Bank--an idea most Israeli hawks consider self-defeating: It would remove any ambiguity from Israel's claim to the land. As Oklahoma's James Inhofe, one of the Christian Right's closest allies in the Senate, put it last December in a speech entitled "An Absolute Victory": "God appeared to Abram and said, 'I am giving you this land'--the West Bank. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true."
Christian conservatives dress up their support for Israel in the language of anti-terrorism and democracy. But they pay scant attention to the fight against terrorism in biblically insignificant countries like Sri Lanka, India, and the Philippines. And on Israel's behalf, they propose the most anti-democratic measures imaginable. In truth, there is no secular moral rationale for the Christian Right's support for Israel because, for the Christian Right, Israel's claims are moral only insofar as they are biblical. That runs counter to the mainstream Zionist tradition, one of the great achievements of which has been to establish moral claims to Jewish statehood--claims Israel incarnates as a liberal democratic state--that do not rely on scripture.
It must be said that this is not the only interpretation of CR support for Israel - it can be (and has been) argued that there is a natural affinity between the US and Israel because " they share fundamental values."
Americans are just solid, rock-solid with the people of Israel," says Congressman Wexler. "It is a democratic nation and a freedom-loving people and a very decent people and they deserve to have a free and secure state.
[source: bbc news]
However, the idea that there is (at least also) a biblical basis for the support is not an unusual or even unreasonable view. Some further reading on the subject, here, here and here (the latter being quite pro-Christian Evangelical support for Israel and discusses biblical and secular reasons for that support.)
I take the point about TNR's partisanship (though it's also a v. pro-Israel publication), but I think all our sources will show some degree of bias. The point (and again, I admit, by not quoting anything I didn't make it clear) was the (possible) biblical basis for CR support for Israel. Biblical authority and self identification as Christians was something that I saw as CR having in common with Christian Identity - not to say that they are the same, simply that there were reasons why they were seen by some as being on the same side of this imaginary political line drawn between left and right, despite the anti-semitism that is rampant in groups such as the Aryan Nation. (Anti-semitism in turn leads some neo-nazi groups to in turn reject the AN because of its adherence to “the Hebrew Bible”. In other words, they rather hilariously find the Aryan Nation to not be anti-semitic enough.)
So in conclusion, I'm not arguing about whether we should be classifying various groups as left or right; I'm merely trying to investigate how perceptions are shaped and how certain schools of thought can splinter off into (apparently) antithetical positions.
Apologies for the long post – and as I said, it may be entirely redundant. But I’ve written it now, so up it goes!
Very interesting points. I think we're both in agreement really.
1) I agree that the notion of a horse-shoe or continuum is deeply problematic (For instance, it is difficult to understand how the christian right, a group that supports Israel, is perceived to be on a continuum that leads to secular neo-Nazis). As you said, it’s about people perceiving similarities and ignoring the contradictions. Rather than a continuum, perhaps a web or matrix would be a better analogy – that way there would be different connecting points between various groups and ideologies across a political spectrum.
2) Just to clarify, I mentioned TNR's partisanship (a) as I wasn't sure it was common knowledge and (b) because I thought it might be relevant - but as you said all the sources will show some bias and life is too short to check and clarify every post!
Incidentally, this discussion shows how in the US religion seems to have far more of an influence on politics (despite their strict separation of church and state) than in the UK. Here in the UK, thanks partly to Blair’s strong Christian beliefs and Ruth Kelly’s Catholicism and links to Opus Dei, religious faith characterises the Left as much as the Right. This hasn’t been without controversy with many people uncomfortable about the influence of the Prime Minister’s faith on policy and Ruth Kelly’s religious beliefs on abortion and homosexuality (NB Ruth Kelly has maintained a separation between her religious beliefs and government policy - allegedly turning down a health minister position because it was incompatible with her opposition to cell stem research and abortion.)
That’s it from me, I think. Thanks to Wembley, Dan and JP it’s been an education – although I might not know what left and right mean anymore!
At the risk of appearing obsessive, below are the highlights of an off-blog email exchange between me and Andy. It has some interesting links in it.
DAN wrote:
Three more things that have occurred to me:
1) I wrote earlier in the thread about how 'left wing' policies can fuel nationalism. Given that nationalism thrives when there is competition for scarce resources,I should have added that free market policies can likewise fuel nationalism. The former leads to 'bloody immigrants get all our benefits', the latter leads to 'bloody immigrants (or outsourcing) take all our jobs.' I think Andy was right when he described the BNP has people who can't hack it in the free market system. Nationalism seems to thrive when the indiginous group feels that it is disadvantaged in the queue for scarce resources. Again, left and right are largely immaterial.
2) Following the above, it is very much worth noting how anti capitalist extreme Nationalist groups are. The Ministry of Truth have documented the web postings of a BNP councillor - admittedly this is just one individual, but it gives an indication of some pretty serious diversion between traditional Conservatives and White Nationalists (and a surprising convergence between WNs and anti-globalisation protesters - despite the fact that the two groups violently disagree over other issues (Race being the big one.) The link is worth following just for his positive comments about George Galloway.
3) I happened to be watching Question Time on with the Conservative MP (and shadow Housing Minister) Michael Gove appeared to be calling for mandatory minimum sentences for knife crimes. Later he bemoaned the decrease in social housing under Labour. Both these points reminded me how ideologically impure the business of politics is. The independence of the judiciary takes second place to populist notions of 'we must do something about these knife wielding maniacs'. (Surprisingly it was Diane Abbott who argued against governments just legislating in order to generate headlines). The invisible hand of the (housing) market) is overlooked when there is an opportunity to attack the government. So again, left and right do not particularly help - there is so much pragmatism involved in the business of government. The matrix may however, at least help us identify certain underlying principles. (Wemb might argue that left and right point the way to those principles just as well, but I
think this thread has successfully argued that those labels are simply too blunt (and often inaccurate) as instruments.)
ANDY replied:
On your point 1)"Given that nationalism thrives when there is competition for scarce resources,I should have added that free market policies can likewise fuel nationalism." I agree up to a point, although free marketeers would argue that as Free Market policies facilitate trade across national borders and promote the exchange of ideas they are the best route to true internationalism.
2) is an excellent point and definitely worth posting.
3) Another good point. The mandatory minimum sentences for carrying a knife (5 years!!!) was 1st proposed by John Reid, Labour home sec. Diane Abbot is a New Lab reb so can be relied on to take a counter party position (she has also consistently critised new lab's tendency to over legislate). Michael Gove is obviously keen not to be seen as week on law and order against the Government (personally, I think he's wrong and that the idea is heavy handed and unworkable). Re the invisible hand of the market, there is a very strong arguement that building restrictions and regulations on new buildings have added to the problem of housing scarcity and pushed house prices through the roof (sorry bad pun). Michael Gove obviously isn't reading his Adam Smith!
That may well be the end of this thread. I'd like to start a new discussion (arising out of this one) on nationalism. (May turn into a new thread.) I'm interested in examining some of our attitudes to nationalism. For example white nationalism is generally seen as bad, Scottish nationalism as benign (whether or not one agrees with the aim) while jewish nationalism is actively supported on this blog. When we think about nationalism or nationality we tend to think in terms of either genetics or culture (or perhaps both.) Is there a connection between the basis of our thinking about nationality and whether we perceive it as a moral good or ill? Are we being inconsistent when we support some nationalist movements and not others, or is nationalism morally ambivalent and needing to be judged on a case by case basis?
No agenda here - genuine questions. Answers on a postcard please.
Interesting.
Wikipedia - Left-Right Politics
"New legislation may have to be introduced after the leader of the far-Right British National Party was cleared of stirring up racial hatred, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, said last night.
The two BNP members had faced a week-long re-trial over speeches at private meetings in West Yorkshire covertly filmed by a reporter for a BBC documentary entitled The Secret Agent.
Mr Griffin, a Cambridge graduate, was recorded discussing at length his beliefs about multi-cultural Britain, describing Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and saying Muslims were turning Britain into a "multi-racial hell hole"."
I loathe the BNP and all they stand for. Just reading a selection of quotes from their Leader Nick Griffin and his side kick made me very, very angry.
I view them as a threat to my family which is racially and ethnically mixed: My Dad's sister is Black and so is one of my uncles and two of my cousins. His sister in law, my other Aunt on my Father's side, is Brazilian; While on my Mother's side of the family, one of my aunts is an Iranian from a Muslim family (left Tehran in 1979).
The BNP are hostile to all that my family represent. However, despite my anger towards them I think the retrial jury (and the original Jury) have made the right decision in this case.
I don't think it should be against the law to say you think a religion is 'evil'. For example, a gay friend of mine is hostile to Catholicism based on his own experiences of attending a Catholic school as a child. I think he should have the right to say he thinks the religion is evil if he wanted too.
What worries me most about this news story is the response from Lord Falconer, The Lord Chancellor, and Gordon Brown, the Prime-Minister in waiting.
Lord Falconer said: "there should be "consequences" for saying Islam is "wicked and evil"." and that we should look at changing the law because "what is being said to young Muslim people of this country is that we as a country are anti-Islam and we have got to demonstrate without compromising freedom that we are not'"
While Gordon Brown said: "Any preaching of religious or racial hatred will offend mainstream opinion in this country. [...] "We have got to do whatever we can to root it out from whatever quarter it comes." [...]"And if that means we have got to look at the laws again, we will have to do so."
Well, Richard Dawkins thinks religious education is 'child abuse' and Ian Paisley thinks the Pope is the 'anti-christ'. Both could be seen as examples of religious hatred. And if we made it a crime would Melanie Phillips, Harry's Place, and the Pope all be guilty of inciting Religious hatred towards Islam?
'Offending "mainstream opinion", as Brown puts it, is no reason to make something a crime. In fact it is probably impossible to have freedom of speech if you cannot say things that offend mainstream opinion.
Commenting on this news story, the excellent blogger Chris Dillow writes that as well as demonstrating New labour's instinctive illiberalism this also reveals their preference for management over politics:
'It [New Labour] thinks problems should be managed away, not debated. So it thinks it can combat the BNP with the law, not politics.
In a better world, it would fight the BNP by showing that it is a vicious gutter party, which no respectable person could support. Instead, New Labour panders to its nasty illiberal racism, by denouncing the veil and by pretending that the Stupid Party isn't tough enough on immigration.
What's more, a decent governing party would not have tolerated the vast chasm between the ruling class and the indigenous working class. The BNP is exploiting an alienation that New Labour's centralist managerialism encouraged.'
For more on this story read Rod Liddle in the Times, and blogger's Harry's Place, Tim Worstall, Bishop Hill and Shuggy.
Nothing to add really, but I didn't want to leave such an excellent post uncommented on. (When one has put the effort in, I find it's nice to know someone else has actually read it.)
I felt Rod Liddle was particularly spot on. And this 'mainstream opinion' thing is breathtakingly asinine. I imagine Voltaire* is revolving at about 3000 rpm right now. As Sean Gabb said at my beloved rally (I know, I know - one demo in 20 years and suddenly I'm Michael Foot), if you only support freedom of speech for opinions you agree with, then you don't really believe in freedom of speech. This letter from the Times is typical of such equivocation:
Although I am of the strong opinion that freedom of speech is the way forward in these troubling times, I believe that both gentlemen took this right too far, and perverted it as a consequence.
* The wonderful wikiquote claims V's famous 'defend to the death' line is a summary - not something he actually said.
Spiked on the BNP trial:
'The state stages a transparent politically-motivated trial of weak opponents, in order to lay down the law on the limits of official tolerance. Unfortunately the authorities fail to persuade the jury, which finds the dissident politicians not guilty. In response to this embarrassing failure to get their way, government ministers declare that the law must be changed, in order to ensure that their enemies are found guilty of crimes against society next time.
To some, this might sound like the stuff of a police state in a ‘banana republic’, or perhaps of the sort of dystopian futuristic drama beloved of the BBC. But in fact it is what happened in the UK last week, when the leader of the British National Party was cleared of stirring up racial hatred by attacking Islam, and New Labour ministers had an authoritarian tantrum in response.'
Outstanding article, as are these follow-ups:
The age of intolerant tolerance
'Free Speech' is more than a slogan (q. long)
A rather long, but thought-provoking (and chilling) post from Peter Hitchens on the rise of the National Socialist BNP:
'Please listen to me, or you'll get something much worse
I do actually talk to members of the liberal elite, when I get the chance. Usually this is in broadcasting studios, as we wait to take part in discussion programmes, or university debates. Sometimes it is at 'literary festivals', those strange artificial gatherings to which I am occasionally invited.
These encounters (and of course I include Cameroon Tories in the liberal elite category) are difficult, and especially awkward for them, because I can sense their discomfort at the way my knuckles brush the ground. How, you can almost see them asking themselves, have I ended up in the same room as someone like this? I truly empathise.
Normally they would be insulated from people like me. I don't live near them, or take my holidays where they take theirs, or even eat or drink where they do. My tastes in almost everything from music to sandwiches are different from theirs. So I value these chances to remind them of the parallel world which exists, separate from theirs but there all the same.
And one of the points I try to make to them is this.
"You may regard me, and everything I say, as contemptible. But you should at least attempt to listen, if only because I am nothing like as bad as what you will get if you don't. I believe in pluralism, liberty of speech, freedom of the press, tolerance, the rule of law, an adversarial parliament, an independent civil service. I believe it is possible to persuade and to be persuaded, to make and to admit mistakes. I am opposed to violence in politics. I am even more opposed to racial bigotry."
This, by the way, sums up quite clearly why I shall always loathe the BNP, why I am not a secret supporter of it suppressing my views to save my job (as some of its members madly believe) and why I would never have anything to do with it, will always oppose it and would probably have to fly the country if it ever came to power. I differ fundamentally from it and draw my ideas from another tradition. I am, in a way, flattered by the way such people have adopted issues which I have been warning about for many years. They realise that these are important and that many people are concerned about them. But I think they have adopted them for propaganda purposes, not because they really care about them or have serious remedies for them.
To the liberal elite, I would add: "If you scorn my warnings about the effects of mass immigration, unchecked crime and disorder, penal taxation to finance needless empires of client workers, undisciplined education, state-sponsored immorality and the rest, then you will in the end deliver a large part of the electorate, so frustrated that they won't care any more about words like 'Nazi' and 'Fascist', into the hands of unscrupulous demagogues, who will employ these causes to seek power and may eventually destroy you - and me - completely."
I used to say: "It is all very well, during this period of artificial prosperity, to rely on people not caring enough. But if that prosperity ever ends, it will be much, much more dangerous".
Now I think I can leave off the last bit. That is why I was so alarmed by the outbreak of 'British Jobs for British Workers' protests. For a growing number of people, prosperity is a thing of the past. I am by no means sure it will ever come back. I fear that what is happening to us now is a permanent descent into the league of poorer, less stable countries.
I have also (though some of my critics on this site never seem to notice it) more than once opposed attempts to suppress and persecute the BNP, because freedom of speech only exists when you give it to people you despise. I also think of Hitler's sneering riposte to the Social Democrat MP Otto Wels, who bravely risked violence and arrest when he went to the last more-or-less free session of the Reichstag to oppose the Nazi takeover. Wels (I have written about this before) movingly opposed the suppression of opposition parties.
The trouble was that Wels's own party had in the past voted for legal restrictions on the Nazis (these restrictions had, as such things tend to do in free societies, failed). Hitler jeered at Wels's delayed conversion to tolerance in words which are hard to translate but could be summed up as: "Well done, pity you didn't think of that earlier when you were trying to ban us.” I do not want to hear such words spoken in our Parliament by the triumphant leader of a national socialist party.
It is an old ploy, I suppose, the threat of something worse in the background to make yourself look more acceptable. But I have always meant every word. I am genuinely alarmed that this country might eventually incubate some sort of national socialist populist force, trashing liberty in the name of order and patriotism, thanks to the appalling combination of ill-educated ignorance and increasingly justified discontent created by the policies of the liberal elite.
I thought it would be interesting to reproduce here (and afterwards make some wise-after-the-event comments upon) an article I wrote for the Mail on Sunday six years ago, on 9th February 2003, largely based upon an interview with Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. I had also been spending some time in the Pennine towns, where the BNP was becoming active and the problem of large, unintegrated Muslim communities had recently become rather obvious. Now the BNP bandwagon has moved south, and last week scored an alarming and possibly significant victory in formerly Labour-held council seat in Swanley, roughly where Kent and Greater London meet.
The results (which bear no relation to recent national opinion polls) were:
Paul Golding, British National Party: 408 votes.
Michael James Hogg, Labour: 332 votes.
Tony Harry Searles, Conservative: 247 votes.
Turnout for the election was 31.3 per cent.
The local MP, Tory Michael Fallon, one of the more intelligent Conservatives, commented: "It's a more general frustration at the failure of government to address quality of life issues - petty crime, vandalism, housing, jobs. All the main parties have got to address these more vigorously.”
Peter Hain, a former Labour cabinet minister, said: "It is areas when Labour has traditionally been strong - like Swanley - where the BNP has been making a great deal of headway and exploiting fears and spreading their racist and fascist beliefs."
Well spotted, those two. But as things stand, both your parties have nothing to say to the disenchanted. My article on Mr Griffin below was written, remember, six years ago.
It appeared under the headline: "This sinister sect of creeps, misfits and racists will soon be a bigger threat to Labour than the Tories"
And it said...
"A tiny sect of seriously strange people, odder than the Mormons, creepier than the Moonies and far smaller than either of them, is on the brink of transforming British politics.
In the past few weeks, the midget British National Party has succeeded in altering the policy of the Labour movement, scaring it into a position it would once have condemned as racist. Only the BNP's growing electoral success can explain last week's sudden denunciation of black-on-white violence by the Oldham East and Saddleworth Labour MP Phil Woolas.
It came just after the BNP astonished itself and everyone else by winning yet another council seat - this time in Halifax -annihilating the Tories and shouldering its way past Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
These victories can no longer be dismissed as localised freaks. In the Pennine towns where race riots are a recent memory and tension is still high, Labour now sees the BNP as a bigger adversary than the Conservatives. A recent document circulated to Labour activists in Burnley warned that the BNP is 'replacing the Tories as the enemy'.
These worries are real. In Burnley where the BNP now has three council members, cunning tactics and clever populism may well bring it still more seats in the May elections, and almost certainly more votes. By saying little and working assiduously on local issues of crime, housing and clean streets, its councillors have won a reputation as serious and sober, though all three of them have CCTV cameras installed at their homes to deter harassment by their foes.
The three councillors themselves were too nervous to meet me. Party policy seems to be that as soon as they are elected they are advised to stay away from national media in case they say something embarrassing.
Instead they copy the Liberal Democrats' successful methods, and concentrate on non-political pavement-level issues. Their scruffy organiser and spokesman, Simon Bennett, proudly shows me leaflets on abandoned properties, noisy neighbours and bad planning decisions.
And he believes the BNP's critics have failed partly because they are so alarmist: 'Our opponents said that the town would be a pariah if it elected BNP councillors, and that the local economy would suffer because businessmen would not want to invest here. They said racial tension would get worse. None of these things happened.' He also thinks - and he may well be right - that the constant denunciations of the BNP as Nazis and fascists no longer have any effect. 'People have heard it so many times they just switch off when they hear it again.' When Channel 4 recently filmed Young BNP leader Mark Collett praising Hitler, it had no effect in Halifax, though Collett was swiftly sacked from his post.
Mr Bennett gloats over Labour's new stance on the street violence issue, which his party has been complaining about for years. He is sure it is the result of BNP success. 'Phil Woolas is suddenly taking in the language of Mick Treacy', he says, a reference to the BNP's raucous and rough-edged council candidate in Oldham, much denounced by Labour during the last elections. 'They are playing catch-up, trying to preserve their power.' When the BNP holds its members' meetings in Burnley, more than 100 people turn up, ranging from footstomping skinhead youths to alarmingly passionate old ladies, but also including quiet, middle-aged, soberly dressed people who have bought their council houses and feel overtaxed, neglected and threatened in Tony Blair's multicultural Britain.
But the movement's success does not depend on membership and organisation. The votes seem to be waiting to be harvested.
In fact the BNP may well actually do better where it has no real presence, and no machine to speak of. In last year's mayoral elections in Stoke-on-Trent, where the BNP had hardly any organisation at all, it did alarmingly well. If their luck holds, the BNP leaders hope to make much greater gains in 2004 when millions of people will have three votes in local elections, and may be tempted to give one of them to this new force, just to rock the boat.
By doing so, they may start an avalanche, sweeping away the familiar political landscape. Labour leaders have known for decades that many of their voters are far from liberal on immigration issues, but have been able to ignore the problem because there was no other working class party that could outflank them.
Now there is, and the BNP is careful to be very Old Labour on issues like the NHS, which it supports vigorously.
AY14209676BNP leader Nick G The BNP leader, Nick Griffin, says he now thinks his party may be within sight of winning a seat in Parliament. Yet the very idea ought to be ridiculous. The BNP is a pitifully small grouplet of fanatics with unhinged policies on the economy and alarming, even barking members. Even as he told me of his organisation's string of electoral successes, Mr Griffin admitted to me that its total membership was 3,724 at the last count, and has perhaps now risen to 4,000. This is seriously small and I was amazed that he was willing to reveal such a dismal total.
And who are these people, the members rather than the voters? Many, probably most of them are consumed by depressing racial prejudice, which is actually written into their rules. Mr Griffin, affable and frank on most topics, goes very stiff and strange when asked about the party regulation which declares that membership is open only to those of British or 'closely kindred European descent'.
Some BNP members believe it says 'Northern European descent', which is rather close to 'Nordic', but Mr Griffin, himself no blond Aryan, denies this.
His hands tremble slightly as he refuses to say what he thinks about this creepy stipulation. It means that it doesn't matter what you think or even who you are. If you're the wrong colour they won't have you. A black Briton who accepted all the BNP's other policies would be shown the door because of his skin.
He explains that the definition of 'closely kindred' is a 'grey area', which is one way of putting it. Greeks can join but Turks can't. Bosnian Serbs can but Bosnian Muslims can't.
In fact, Muslims in general can't, because, says the BNP, their first loyalty is to Islam rather than Britain.
'Some members think it should be changed. I don't comment on it because it is a divisive issue,' intones Mr Griffin, quite unaware of how ludicrous this statement is, coming from the leader of a movement which is not known for avoiding divisive issues.
It is also strangely coy coming from a man who recently expelled an old friend from the BNP for the sin of having a girlfriend who was, hilariously, a South American asylum seeker. Party rules give the leader almost absolute power over the members. He is, it seems, quite prepared to use this power to take tough decisions of one kind, but not of another.
It gets more ludicrous still. As we discuss Mr Griffin's unconventional views on Jews and the Holocaust (he says he can't spell them out in case he is hauled off and tried on the Continent under the provisions of the new Europe-wide arrest warrant, which gives you a pretty good idea what those views might be), he reveals a jaw-dropping fact.
One of Griffin's party colleagues, who resents his power, suspects that Griffin himself may be Jewish and hiding the fact. This elderly maniac saw Griffin's father on television and thought his nose looked rather Jewish. It will be poetic justice if this Third Reich-style investigation finds that the BNP leader is, in fact, Jewish.
One can only hope.
Most of the time Griffin sounds quite reasonable. A Cambridge graduate with pleasant manners, who did his A-levels as one of two boys in an all-girls school, he is plainly intelligent and has a strong sense of humour.
He has run a business and gone bankrupt and done real hard-graft jobs, including stacking supermarket shelves. He is married to a nurse and has four children. He is perceptive about politics. For instance, he has spotted a major problem for Labour that nobody else seems to have noticed - that its eagerness to start a new Gulf war is devastating its previously solid Muslim Asian vote and handing it to the Liberal Democrats.
He has grasped, as many Tories have yet to do, that the Conservative Party is dying from the roots upwards and that the widespread contempt for Toryism cannot be cured by changing the image or aping New Labour.
He suspects that many Labour voters find it easier to switch to the BNP than to vote for the party of Margaret Thatcher, especially in the industrial areas where she is still blamed for the decline of manufacturing.
He wonders if Labour began by secretly hoping for BNP gains so that it could permanently split the Rightwing vote - and is now alarmed that the plan may have worked all too well.
He is elated by his impact, boasting: 'Voter turnout goes up everywhere we stand.' And he knows that he cannot get anywhere with the votes of louts and no-hopers, since most of them don't vote anyway and many of them are not even on the electoral register.
'The best response we get as we go round, in terms of thumbs-up, is on the rough estates, but the actual turnout is pitiful.
'We are not the party whose vote comes from the sink estates. We thought it did but it doesn't. It comes primarily from owner-occupied places, terraces or council estates where people have bought their homes, pay taxes and resent the way those taxes are spent.' Nobody should underestimate this man's acumen or his knowledge and understanding of the British political system.
Yet it is hard to match one half of this picture with the other. On the one hand is a cunning and skilful vote machine, on the other ingrained and discredited racial theories, Holocaust-deniers, nose measurers and violent oafs.
It is a measure of the profoundly dismal state of British politics that such a party exists or that any decent person should feel able to vote for it."
All these years later, I still remember that odd lunchtime in a nearly empty Shrewsbury pub, both of us warily circling the other. Mr Griffin had come up from his Welsh fastness and, as I recall, didn't drink alcohol. I didn't think then, and I don't think now, that he has it in him to make a national breakthrough. But I do think he has the wit to go quite a long way in that direction.
I don't at all discount suggestions that the BNP might win a seat or two in the European 'Parliament' elections, and I think they could appear quite prominently in a lot of local council polls. As to whether they can break into the Westminster Parliament, ask me in six months or so when we have begun to grasp just how bad the economic crisis is, and just how little the conventional parties can do about it. I'm not saying, by the way, that the BNP can do anything about it either. People will vote for it because it's not one of the old parties, in much the same way that the chronically ill, disappointed by conventional medicine, will turn to fringe quacks at the end, on the grounds that they can't be any worse.
I think the BNP's progress has been slower and less incremental than I thought back then. But there's no doubt of two things. One is that for many people the 'Nazi' jibe now just bounces off. The other is that intelligent Labour politicians, such as the thoughtful and original Jon Cruddas, are genuinely worried about votes sliding off in this direction.
Cruddas knows from his own Dagenham constituency just how quickly Labour voters can switch to the BNP. I think he also knows that his party's political correctness is at the heart of the problem, and I suspect he realises that he cannot defeat that. By the way, Mr Cruddas is one of the few remaining Labour MPs who hasn't sold his soul to Brussels. Labour resistance to the EU is an important political tradition going back to Hugh Gaitskell through Peter Shore and Tony Benn, and often forgotten these days.
I don't think such voters would ever have gone to the Tories. The tribal loathing of the Tories is endemic in Labour, and will not go away. It's one of the reasons why I am convinced that David Cameron cannot get an overall majority in a United Kingdom election. Even if Labour loses, he will not necessarily win. Labour unpopularity just won't convert into Tory popularity, or even grudging Tory votes.
What's needed, as I say over and over again, is a party that isn't the Tories but is genuinely conservative, neither bigoted nor politically correct. Such a party could not only give the country a chance of revival. It would be the only guaranteed democratic way to stop the BNP.'
Here's Mel making exactly the same well-worn but important point. Like P.Hitchens she's the type of person who unthinking people, unaware that there can be a multitude of political positions from which to criticise the left, mistakenly lump with the BNP as "The Right". For more thinking people it's hardly surprising a jew would oppose jew-haters.
Political alienation and the rise of the BNP
Melanie Phillips
Daily Mail
February 23, 2009
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