The good fight

Should always be well fought. Remember Peter Hain? Remember when he was a lefty? Me neither, but then it was a fair old while ago. Peter does, though, and he's having a bit of a flashback in the Graun:

Thirty years ago rising unemployment and economic decline under Labour saw the BNP's predecessor, the National Front, also do worryingly well in elections. I helped to found the Anti-Nazi League in 1977 to target the National Front, and a mass campaign helped to put it out of business a few years later. Anti-Nazi League supporters developed their own initiatives, from Miners Against the Nazis to Skinheads Against the Nazis. There was even a Skateboarders Against the Nazis. With its sister group Rock Against Racism, the ANL organised huge national carnivals and local gigs, as rock music culture reaching millions was successfully fused with radical politics that traditionally had reached only thousands.

The lesson of the Anti-Nazi League's success is that the BNP needs to be confronted wherever its supporters march or appear in public; and they must also be denied platforms to spread their hate. This was the lesson of the 1930s when Blackshirts led by Oswald Mosley targeting Jewish communities in London's East End were physically stopped in Cable Street in October 1936.

What of fighting today's fascists?

Unless the rest of us get our act together...

Argh!

... the British National party could easily win three seats - and quite possibly six or more - in June's European elections.

Cheesy cliche but, again, true. We are all aware of the intensely difficult bind we are in. Peter Hain is part of that bind. The best antidote to fascism is working class radicalism.

Since the setback to the labour movement in the 80s the Labour Party has dragged hundreds of thousands of activists off to the right and sent hundreds of thousands more into the wilderness. There used to be a time when Labour stood for a Socialist Commonwealth, a time when it had 1 million members and 13 million supporters. Leaving aside the weaknesses in politics, that is touching hegemony.

But the Labour Party is locked into the system. The system has locked up the unions. Labour holds the key. TINA has stymied all attempts at a breakout.

The Labour base slowly corroded and denatured. There have been various attempts to capture this support. There have also been various moments where another politics seemed possible, February 15th being an outstanding example. None have succeeded so far as the structure of mainstream politics still stands.

With both the tories and the nazis closing in there will be tremendous pressure to get behind the old party. If this hasn't worked in the past there's no reason to suspect it will now.

The Labour Party has played a game where it has simultaneously fostered fascism (Hazel Blears, Jack Straw, Phil Woolas etc) and anti-fascism (Ken Livingstone, Peter Hain and so on). Between these two cultures there has risen a self-enforcing apathy. If we strictly follow the old model of fighting fascism we will be working with people who work with the enemy. There is still a gap to the left of labour, we must fill it if we can.