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news
 11th June 2006
The BNP can be stopped
by John Cambell, Chair, Yorkshire & the Humber UAF
The 2006 local elections saw
the BNP consolidate itself as a
national political force. Our region
more than mirrors that trend. Although
the BNP in Yorkshire only saw a net
gain of one councilor, 21 of the 71 seats
nationally which need a swing of 5%
or less for the BNP to win in 2007 are in
our region.
The BNP’s provocative attempt
to turn the local elections into a
Referendum on Islam also reminded
us that while fascism threatens many
communities, the cutting edge of their
politics is racism.
The breakthrough of the BNP
into the political mainstream is not
inevitable. Our main campaign
asset continues to be the
rejection of the BNP by the
overwhelming majority of the
population, who know that
it can only achieve its main
aim of an ‘all white’ Britain by
violence and the destruction of
democracy. Mobilising that anti
fascist majority to vote is still a
central feature of our strategy.
However, the campaign
to expose and isolate the
BNP as an illegitimate
fascist organisation was
undermined in the recent
local election campaign. The
mainstream media provided an
unprecedented degree of air
time and legitimacy to the BNP
in the run up to the elections.
The key to preventing the
BNP’s minority national support
from being translated into
local breakthroughs is exposing the
racist myths on which the BNP feeds
– particularly, those given credibility by
local politicians, media and institutions,
such as the false claim in Keighley that
exclusively Muslim men were grooming
young white girls for sex and more
recently the ridiculous myth that grants
of £50,000 were made available for
African families to move to Barking.
Over the coming months Unite
Against Fascism will be doing its utmost
to strengthen the alliance of the labour
movement and all those communities
under immediate threat from the
growth of the BNP. Faith communities
and students have also played a major
role in challenging the BNP’s attempt
to portray themselves as a ‘normal’
political party.
Where the BNP have councillors we
have to ensure that their position is not
normalised. Come October we may
have to revive the mass court lobbies
in Leeds which were such a success
earlier this year. We have to study and
publicise the significance of cases like
that of the sacking of Bradford BNP
Councillor Arthur Redfearn. We must
also continue to respond energetically
to urgent matters like the case of the
racist lecturer at Leeds University. Unite
Against Fascism will also play its part in
supporting anti-racist initiatives, such as
Love Music Hate Racism.
We still have much to do to create
an anti fascist movement capable of
stopping the BNP. We must continue
to remind people that the lesson of
Europe is that it is much easier to stop a
breakthrough by the fascists in the first
place than it is to reverse it.
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