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news
 21st December 2005
BNP Keighley myths exposed
In response to false BNP claims of so called racist targeting by members of the Muslim population of young white girls for sex and prostitution in Yorkshire, West Yorkshire police have said that after thorough investigation they have found “no evidence of systematic abuse of young women.”
Furthermore, West Yorkshire police “do not accept that there is a major problem of this nature in this county and have not seen any evidence to sway” them from this view.
In Bradford the BNP have sought to wage a racist and anti-muslim campaign - particularly with the suggestion that there was a large-scale phenomenon of exclusively Asian men grooming white school girls for sex.
The reality is, however, that the so-called phenomenon is a myth.
The lesson of the breakthrough by the BNP in Bradford in 2004 is that failing to tackle and defeat racist mythology weakens any chance of blocking the rise of the BNP.
The BNP gains ground where racism is legitimised by more mainstream institutions.
In Millwall in east London more than ten years ago, it was the racist `sons and daughters' housing policy, which discriminated against Bangladeshis that provided the background to the election of BNP’s Derek Beackon in 1993.
In Oldham, the false claim, backed by the police and the local newspaper initially, that there were no-go zones for white people provided the context of the BNP’s best result in the 2001 general election.
Whilst Fascism threatens many communities, the cutting edge of their politics is racism; currently particularly against asylum seekers and the Muslim community, or in Essex against Africans - not so long ago against those from the Caribbean, and historically against Jews.
In Millwall and Oldham, TUC led campaigns confronted the racist myths upon which the BNP were feeding. The result was that the BNP was driven back.
Our contention is very simple - where the anti-fascist campaign, in which the trade unions must play a central role, takes on racism and allies with those targeted by the fascists - very often Black, Asian and Muslim communities - it has pushed back the BNP.
Where it has failed to fight racism, or made concessions to it, and failed to centrally involve the communities targeted by the fascists, it has been far less effective or failed.
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