Fighting the BNP - Unity is the only option

Submitted by Anon on 24 June, 2006 - 1:10

The recent council election results should have sent a strong message to the Marxist movement of this country. While we have spent years in petty squabbling over who are the purest Marxists, splitting our movements into tiny factions, the BNP have organised and gained support culminating in the return of eleven councillors in Barking and a marked increase in other areas.

Barking was once a Militant stronghold. We should look hard at ourselves and ask who is to blame for the rise in the BNP.

I can hear it now. Socialist Workers will blame everyone except themselves, Workers’ Liberty will blame Socialist Worker, everyone will blame Socialist Appeal and they in turn will blame everyone else. And so the squabbling will go on until we are all being strung up by a fascist government.

That could never happen in this country I hear you cry. Remember how close it came recently in France, where socialists had to urge the electorate to vote conservative to keep the fascists out of power. Then look at the heroic fight of the French students and see how quickly situations can change.

We must put aside our petty differences and unite to fight this growing evil in our society. If we can only agree on the fact that the Nazi scum have to be stopped, we have a starting point. It is not about which group leads the initiative it is about stopping the rise of fascism and entrenching socialist ideas into the hearts and minds of working people.

We are great at talking big words at rallies and printing papers with lots of Marxist lingo that goes over the heads of most of the population so they are only read by the converted. What we need is a united effort to produce a plain speaking weekly that talks the language of the streets and the youth on those streets. We need to re-evaluate where we are in society and work to get back into the mainstream.

It should not matter which organisation we are affiliated to. The danger affects us all. We need to call a national anti-fascist rally, uniting all Marxists in one purpose. The rally to then be repeated across the country regionally with speakers from every workers’ organisation in the country.

We have a duty to the people and to ourselves to expose the BNP for what they really are. If we continue to fight amongst ourselves we are leaving the door open for the BNP. The discrediting of the Blair administration has left a partial vacuum that the BNP are taking advantage of. We must fill that gap and keep the BNP out. We will never do this while we have these constant internal criticisms of each other. We need to find what we have in common and work on that. If we could put our differences aside long enough to form a national Marxist forum, cadres could discuss those differences and get the wheat sorted from the chafe. No one has all the answers, if we pool our resources and ideas we can only be richer for it.

Rick Grogan, east London

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