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news
1st April 2006
Stopping the BNP’s advance on 4 May
By John Campbell, Chair, Yorkshire & the Humber Unite Against Fascism
In the upcoming local elections in Yorkshire and the Humber region, there will be an unprecedented number of BNP candidates. Our campaign to stop the BNP is underpinned by our determination to challenge every aspect of the BNP’s racist agenda and to unite with all those communities it seeks to target.
There is no room for complacency in our region. In the 2005 general election the biggest increase in the BNP vote was in Yorkshire and Humberside, where their vote went from 3,245 votes in 2001 to 60,990 votes in 2005. Yorkshire alone accounted for nearly a third of the entire vote for the BNP in Britain and for 14 of the 34 constituencies where they saved their deposits.
In our region, the BNP vote is weakest in South Yorkshire and Humberside, which are the poorest parts of the region and where the size of the ethnic minority population is smaller compared to West Yorkshire, where the BNP vote is strongest. It is clear that racism, not simply social deprivation, is the cutting edge of the BNP’s advance.
In the wake of the London bombings, Yorkshire and the Humber Unite Against Fascism (UAF) had a particular responsibility. We challenged the view that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Our close relationship with the regional TUC has enabled us to help strengthen the links between the trade union movement and the Muslim community. The joint meeting we organised last year with the regional TUC, which saw TUC general secretary Brendan Barber meet Muslim leaders from across Yorkshire, was a key example of that commitment.
Our strategy is also guided by the need to prevent the BNP from spreading their electoral base across the region in time for the 2008 Euro elections. In 2004 they only needed just over 76,000 votes to win a Euro seat. In the short term we are also determined to prevent the BNP building on their positions in Bradford and Calderdale to the point where they can influence local policy making and use their breakthroughs in West Yorkshire as launch pads to win further seats in other towns.
Recently, progress was made in Yorkshire following the defeat of the BNP in the Keighley West by-election when the victorious Labour candidate, Angela Sin-field, pointed out that the perpetrators of a local case of abuse were both white and Asian men, and was not an exclusively Asian phenomenon.
The building of a united anti-fascist movement that brings together all those threatened by the BNP has been a cornerstone of our work. The two joint protests called by UAF and the regional TUC in response to the trial of BNP leaders in Leeds were a great success with thousands of people attending from across the north. The protests displayed the strength of unity we need to defeat the BNP.
Yorkshire and the Humber UAF has emphasised that although leafleting and protests are indispensable, it is vital that our campaign is guided by an anti-racist agenda that makes no concessions to the politics of the BNP. In Leeds, UAF is currently playing its part in the campaign to expose the threat to black students’ interests posed by a racist lecturer.
May’s local elections are only one phase in the campaign to stop the BNP making a breakthrough into the political mainstream like their counterparts in the rest of Europe. In the coming years, the BNP can be decisively defeated if we create a united anti-fascist movement that centrally challenges racism and understands the lessons of its defeats and successes.
From Socialist Campaign Group News, April 2006
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