Naismith stoops to head home and complete a great move
3-2. Another game, another glorious failure for Scotland’s national football team. Losing bravely seems to be what we do best. Well, some of the time at least. The less said about the recent dismal defeat in Prague, the better.
Of course there is no shame in losing by such a narrow margin to the reigning European and World champions. Before the match, Scotland manager Craig Levein had described this Spanish side as “the toughest opponents we’ve ever faced” in Scotland’s history. It would be silly of me to mention the much tougher historical battles and wars fought against English invaders, because he was obviously just talking about football.
No-one apart from the most deluded of optimists could really have expected much more from the game. At kick-off, I had decided I was going to remain emotionally detached and just try to enjoy watching masters such as David Villa and Andrés Iniesta at work. You can compare and contrast my mood then compared with the moment when Gerard Piqué put through his own net to level the scores at 2-2. I was absolutely elated. It’s a real shame that we were unable to hold out for a draw, but the performance will be more important than the result, by restoring some belief and hopefully encouraging Levein to confine his 4-6-0 formation to the dustbin of history.
Prior to the match, I joined with several other members of the Basque Solidarity Campaign to help raise awareness of the dark side of the Spanish state. We also had the objective of building support for the Basque independence movement in general and the plight of political prisoners in particular. We were able to hand out hundreds of leaflets and engage with many members of the public. Hopefully this activity will be the launchpad for a continuous program of solidarity actions throughout the year.
This is really important because, at a time when sporting triumphs have brought Spain international attention, many people in Europe are seemingly unaware of the situation in Euskal Herria (the Basque-language name for their 7-province homeland). While there has been a concerted effort to promote the concept of a New Spain – where all the constituent regions and nations are able to celebrate their identity and enjoy equality under the rojigualda – the Francoist policies of internment, torture and extraordinary rendition remain in place.
Scottish-Basque solidarity
Despite ETA’s ceasefire announcement, which declared an end to armed struggle and commitment to peaceful methods (confirming in words what has been happening in practice for a good while now), the Spanish PSOE government continues to use a false terrorist threat as an excuse for arresting pro-independence activists, often detaining them in the south of Spain or even North Africa. Their ‘crime’ is to campaign for an independent socialist republic. The punishment is often long periods in jail, under conditions which have changed little since Spain’s transition from fascism to democracy.
Sporting events can sometimes be difficult places to raise awareness of international problems. A lot of fans don’t want to be distracted from simply supporting their team and enjoying the occasion with friends and family. Despite this, we received some really positive responses. Many people seemed supportive or interested. When I said “stop Spanish oppression against the Basques”, there was a lot of “quite right” and “aye mate, definitely”. One guy, sticking his thumb up, shouted back at me “…and the Catalans!” There was a crowd of young Celtic fans hanging around the ground (I suspect they were looking for a way to sneak in!) who all happily took leaflets from us and seemed to have some prior knowledge of the Basque liberation struggle.
However, to leave it there would not tell the full story. Apart from the standard number of people who aren’t interested in any politics, there seemed to be a significant amount of people who just did not know what we were referring to. I think some people deemed us misguided for printing pictures of Spanish police wielding huge coshes, masked up in balaclavas. After all, surely democratic EU-member states don’t do that kind of thing. But this one does. “The Basques?” some asked, apparently genuinely not knowing that these people even existed.
Freedom for the Basque people!
For this, I do not blame the fans. The Spanish state propaganda machine has been at pains to suppress information getting out about their repressive practices, and to stop people from knowing about the mass struggle for an independent Basque homeland. They have cynically taken advantage of the post-9/11 ‘War On Terror’ to ratchet up repression against the pro-independence Left. For such practices, they have even been critcised by Amnesty International, but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the media in Spain or allied states such as France (which currently controls 3 of the Basque provinces) and Britain. With our media collaborating in covering-up the crimes of the Spanish state, it becomes all the more important for those of us in Scotland who are for human rights, peace, independence and socialism to break the media embargo and let people know what’s going on.
Watch this space for further updates on what’s happening over there and what we’re doing over here. Meanwhile, I hope we can build on our recent success in establishing deeper links between the movements for self-determination and socialism in Euskal Herria and Scotland. Let’s not be divided just because it was a Basque striker who killed our hopes last night!
Yesterday police in Ecuador tried to seize control of the capital Quito as part of a failed attempt to overthrow the left wing President Rafael Correa.
Most of the mainstream media has reported the rebellion as being a protest at “austerity measures”, but there’s lots of evidence that something more sinister is going on. On Wednesday the government passed a law which restricted bonuses automatically given to cops on promotion. However, the government has actually doubled the real wages of the police over the last four years, meaning that they wouldn’t be losing money -- it was part of an effort to reduce bureaucracy. Many, including President Correa and his ministers, have been suggesting the protest was in fact a cover for an attempt to seize power by the right wing opposition, headed by former President Lucio Gutierrez, who was himself overthrown by a popular uprising of people angry at his neoliberal policies in 2005. Further evidence that this was a coup attempt is found in the co-ordinated planning of the plotters, with members of the airforce seizing control of the capital’s airport while cops attacked the parliament building.
After the coup plotters had shut down the airport and several important highways, President Correa went down to the main police barracks to attempt a dialogue with them. As he explained himself later:
“This morning, we were, as is our custom, going to have a dialogue to explain to them what we wanted to do, for no one has supported the police or improved their salaries as much as our government, but seeing the reaction I felt betrayed by them. There I realized who was behind it: some of them called me ‘a liar” and said that Lucio [Gutiérrez] had given them more support.”
Then, in a display of rampant badassery, he shouted at them “If you want to kill the President here I am. I will not take one step back, come and kill me if you have the guts.”
The cops responded by pelting him with tear gas and stones, forcing him to take refuge in a hospital where they put him under siege. However, by this point crowds of ordinary people were out on the streets to defend the government, and were trying to fight off the attackers. From a balcony, he tore off his tie and shouted “”If they want me, here I am. I leave here as president of a worthy country or they take me out as a corpse.” (See 1:50 into the video below. Somehow, you just can’t see David Cameron or Gordon Brown acting this awesome, can you?)
However, the rebellion was already starting to unravel, as the high command of the military made absolutely clear they remained loyal to the government. After sunset, troops started to move in on the besieged hospital, and, firing on the rebel police with automatic rifles and stun grenades, burst through their lines and rescued the President, taking him to the Presidential palace.
From there he addressed crowds of supporters, declaring:
“I give so much thanks to those heroes who accompanied me through this hard journey. Despite the danger, being surrounded, ministers and politicians came, to die if necessary. With that bravery, with that loyalty, nothing can defeat us.”
He said he hoped the events of the day would serve “as an example to those who want to bring a change and stop the citizens’ revolution without going through the polls”. He added that he “would not forgive nor forget what had happened”, and that there would have to be a “deep cleansing of the national police.”
The coup attempt was universally denounced by Latin American leaders, and, as Fidel Castro predicted earlier in the day, was so unsuccessful that even the Obama administration was forced to condemn it. However, that shouldn’t blind us to the possible role of the US in supporting the Ecuadorian right. Last year the US government initially came out against the right wing coup against democratically elected Honduran President Manual Zelaya, only to endorse the coup regime at the earliest opportunity when it tried to stage fake elections to give itself legitimacy. Research later found that US agencies such as the Millenium Challenge Corporation had been pouring money into Honduras in the months running up to the coup, and after it had been violating the ban on funding the coup regime. It’ll be interesting to see what real investigative reporters are able to dig up about Ecuador in coming weeks.
Rafael Correa was elected in 2007. In power, he followed the path mapped out by Venezuela and followed by radical governments in other Latin American countries such as Bolivia in convening a constituent assembly to write a new constitution and refound the country. He was relected under the new constitution last year. The Ecuadorian constitution is one of the most progressive in the world, since it had strong input from Ecuador’s social movements such as the powerful Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE). This means its particularly strong on ecological issues: nature is recognised as having rights as part of the constitution, as is the human right to water and the demand for food sovereignty. The constitution also recognises the indigenous concept of “sumak kawsay” or “living well.” The government has also embarked on significant programmes of wealth redistribution.
The Justice League of Latin America: Correa with Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales
However, there are real contradictions, along lines that are familiar to anyone who’s read about the struggles of social movements and indigenous people in Bolivia. There is a tension for the government between recognising the rights of indigenous people and the environment, and the need for Ecuador to develop economically in order to be able to stand independent of control by the US and the developed world. Many activists who were initially supportive of the government feel that they have got the balance wrong, favouring mining and oil extraction over people and the biosphere. This is reflected in the fact that yesterday CONAIE declared they were neither with the coup plotters or the government. As Al Giordano of Narco News puts it:
“The situation thus also shines a light on the growing rift in the hemisphere between the statist left and the indigenous left and related autonomy and labor movements. The CONAIE is basically saying to Correa, ‘you want our support, then enact the agenda you were elected on.’
. . .The CONAIE’s grievances happen to be very legitimate. Of course, they do not justify a coup d’etat, but the CONAIE is not participating in or supporting the coup d’etat. It is saying to Correa; we’ll have your back, when you have ours.”
That said however, there’s no doubt that the defeat of yesterday’s coup should be celebrated. The motives of the rampaging cops wasn’t protection of the biosphere or indigenous rights, but rather a return to the naked neoliberalism, racism and slavish obedience of US imperialism that characterised Ecuadorian governments in the past. Their victory would have been a victory for Latin American capitalists and oligarchs; for the fascist terrorists of the Cuban exile movement and their new pals the Venezuelan exiles; for organised crime and narcoterrorists like the Colombian far right; and for US imperialism and the CIA. While Rafael Correa may not be perfect, his government has changed things radically in Ecuador for the better, and that’s why thousands of people came out on the streets yesterday to successfully defend him.
Ecuadorian cops thought they were the shit, but they reckoned without being outclassed by THE PRESIDENT
Following the well documented events of last Saturday, when the BNP were smashed out of Glasgow by a flash mobilisation of anti-fascists, the reverberations on the wider party have not taken long to become clear.
With the national party in disarray over reported financial irregularities and widespread anti-Griffin sentiment, this has been played out in spectacular fashion in Glasgow over recent months, where only a year ago they looked to be on the cusp of a major breakthrough, finishing within a few votes of saving their deposit in the Glasgow North East by-election last November. Earlier this year, three leading Glasgow members, for reasons which never became very clear, then walked out on the party, throwing their general election plans into chaos.
Over the past week, it’s emerged that the BNP in Glasgow have suffered another damaging split, with Walter Hamilton – the party’s organiser in the city until about a month ago – publicly issuing a lengthy diatribe against his replacement as organiser, the one and only ‘Big Joe’ Finnie, a man who SSY have had more than one run-in with over the past year.
In the statement, reproduced in full here, Walter lists off a series of accusations against ‘Big Joe’. It’s unclear where this fits into the wider picture of the BNP civil war; Hamilton is a firm Griffinite, and as for where Finnie stands, the less said the better (if it wasn’t so funny, that is).
BIG JOE FINNIE: "will never be able to lead and will only cause trouble wherever he goes"
The accusations themselves amount to a hilarious tragi-comedic character assassination, involving various anecdotes and stories involving our man Joe. There’s the time he got pissed and ran around Dennistoun shouting about the BNP ‘being worse than the KKK’, or the occasion when he tried to show Nick Griffin his collection of Nazi DVDs (don’t worry, Hamilton helpfully informs us that Griffin, obviously, wasn’t the slightest bit interested, what with him categorically not being a Nazi and that.). Turns out Joe has also been continually trying to make links with the Scottish Defence League – to the extent of issuing press releases claiming that the two organisations are working together. As you might recall, the SDL is supposedly ‘proscribed’ for BNP members, but this new evidence suggests that Joe’s stall in Glasgow on the same day as the SDL’s demo last Saturday perhaps wasn’t as big a coincidence as we first thought.
It also brings to light what anti-fascists have known for ages: that the BNP in central Scotland are a disorganised mess, barely capable of mounting any sort of activity without it descending into farce. Hamilton reveals that since taking over, Joe hasn’t managed to organise any meetings, suggesting that the only thing he has actually arranged was last Saturday’s disastrous stall in the centre of Glasgow, which seems to have brought matters to a head.
Elsewhere, on more, ahem, murkier sections of the internet, Hamilton’s statement ‘exposing’ Finnie has opened the Nazi floodgates on him, with accusations flying about that he’s a “race mixer” with “cravings for some of the creatures of that continent”, meaning Africa where apparently he spent “his time as a young man”. Which is all pretty funny for a massive racist.
So far there’s been no official word from BNP Scotland on any of this. We can only speculate, but presumably all the resources at their disposal are currently preoccupied with pursuing their criminal proceedings against SSY to bother with minor matters like their own party falling to bits. Or they might just be too busy blogging about how they want to give me a good spanking and writing emails ‘to my parents and others’ to alert them of my criminal activities. Boo fucking hoo.
Meanwhile down south, senior party activist and all round idiot Richard Barnbrook was expelled on Monday, following his decision last month to resign the BNP whip on the London Assembly, where he was their sole representative and now sits as an independent. Barnbrook is a figure who’s provided much light relief over the years, from when it came out that he once directed a “gay porn” film, to his dancing skillz ( which I’m very sad to report appear to have been deleted from youtube since the last time I checked. Damn it!)
Where would we be without the BNP?
But don’t speak too soon. A world without the ‘BNP’ as we know it may be about to become reality much sooner than first thought. Following the elections in May, which were disastrous for the BNP with them being wiped out on Barking council among other upsets, and six months fraught by internal strife since then, Nick Griffin has announced that the BNP need to ‘rebrand’ their image. And he wants help from YOU in coming up with a new branding for the party! Because if there’s one thing wrong with the BNP, it’s definitely not the fact that they’re a bunch of fascists, or the endemic corruption, or the party being full of misfits and losers arguing among themselves. The main thing holding the BNP back is their logo, and you can help sort this out! Please email your suggestions and new designs to logo@bnp.org.uk. The closing date for submissions is 28 October, so get moving quickly…. there might not be much of a party left to rebrand if you don’t act quick…
It’s now a week ago since Sweden’s general election (which I caught a glimpse of when in Stockholm at the time) and the left there have been faced with the task of reviewing what went wrong, why the Social Democrats have fallen to their lowest level since 1914, why the Left Party lost further support, and why a party with its roots in fascism has been able to enter parliament for the first time (by crossing the 4% threshold). In case anyone’s interested here’s the results in full:
Sweden Democrats (far right): 5.7% (+2.8), 20 seats (+20)
Christian Democrats: 5.6% (-1.0), 19 seats (-5)
Left Party: 5.6% (-0.3), 19 seats (-3)
This gives a total of 43.6% for the red-green bloc (of Social Democrats, Greens and Left Party) and 49.4% for the four-party governing right-wing alliance. Neither side has a majority but the right-wing alliance are only 2 seats short. The fascist Sweden Democrats therefore hold the balance of power although the right-wing Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt (who has governed since 2006) says he will have nothing to do with them, instead seeking the support of the Green Party or possibly the Social Democrats on some issues.
There are two main issues here I think to be discussed, the first is the failure of the left and the second is the frightening growth of the far-right.
The left’s failure
Right-wing Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt
If the right stays in power until 2014 (ie. if there doesn’t have to be a new election) then it will be the longest time that the left has been out of government since 1920. The most successful time for the right before now had been between 1976 and 1982 although the Prime Minister back then (Thorbjörn Fälldin) was not nearly as right-wing as Fredrik Reinfeldt is today.
Over the last 4 years Reinfeldt has pushed through tax cuts of 100 billion kronor, allowed schools and hospitals to be sold off to private companies, and massive profits to be taken out of publicy funded schools and other essential services. In addition Reinfeldt has made it far more expensive for many workers to be part of the trade-union run unemployment insurance schemes – because of the way the system now works it costs the most in those industries where the risk of unemployment in considered to be greatest (which means that those in low paid service sector jobs often end up paying far more than doctors or teachers). A consequence of this is that many have fallen out of the insurance scheme and have left their unions, resulting in a record collapse in trade union membership.
Perhaps the most outrageous policy Reinfeldt has pushed through has been an assault on sjukförsäkring (sick pay). Under an attempt to reduce what they had claimed was Europe’s highest number of people on sick pay the government have imposed a limit on how long people can claim sick pay for before they are forced to enter the labour market and seek work (which even if you are perfectly healthy is not easy in a country with one of Europe’s highest unemployment rates – as many as 30% of young Swedes are out of work). There have been cases of people with terminal cancer receiving letters saying their benefits are stopping and that they need to start looking for work. As a result of public anger the government claims to have relaxed the rules for those with certain particularly severe illnesses but cases of extremely sick people having their benefits cut continue to emerge in the Swedish media.
Why has there not been more public outrage about this you might wonder. One strategy which the right have adopted is to claim to be a party for those who work as opposed to those who don’t. They have pitched those who are healthy and who have a job against those who are ill or who are unemployed. ”We want to stand up for those who work while the opposition want to give money to those who don’t” is the sort of statement you commonly hear from Fredrik Reinfeldt. Ironically Reinfeldt and his Moderate Party have claimed to be the only ones capable of creating jobs – this is the same Reinfeldt who has presided over a record increase in Sweden’s unemployment rate, over a growing section of young people who feel permanently locked out of the labour market.
"Only one workers' party can create jobs" - Moderate Party election poster
At first things seemed to be going well for the left and for years they had been well ahead in the polls – sometimes by as much as 20 points. This lead though, for a variety of reasons, dwindled away and in the run up to the election the right-wing was again in the lead by 5-10 points. Despite a final surge in the last few days with the left strongly highlighting the issue of sick pay they were unable to regain their support and the Social Democrat’s share of the vote fell to a record low – the lowest since 1914.
So what went wrong? Many have blamed the unfavourable media coverage with 3 out of the 4 national newspapers (Expressen, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet) clearly supporting the right-wing government and consistently portraying the Social Democratic leader Mona Sahlin as an uncharismatic loser. This is undoubtedly the case and almost certainly contributed to the left’s defeat. Yet a number of years ago the Social Democrats and trade unions themselves chose to sell off many of the newspapers they once owned, so they too can be held at least partly responsible for the right-wing bias of the Swedish press.
Red-green party leaders
Another thing that was obvious when following the Norwegian reaction to the election is that the Swedish trade unions, as opposed to their counterparts in Norway, have not been particularly active in mobilising support for the left. Whether or not this is due to a general displeasure with the red-green alliance and its policies or has some other cause I’m not quite sure.
But perhaps most important is the tactics adopted by the red-greens themselves and their failure to fundamentally challenge the social and political narrative being put forward by the right-wing government. On far too many issues the red-greens have basically appeared to accept or take for granted the changes which Reinfeldt has been trying to impose on Swedish society. Take for example the so-called ‘jobbskatteavdrag’ (job tax reduction) which has involved income earned through work being taxed at a lower level than income earned through other sources ie. pensions or benefits. This is part of Reinfeldt’s tax cuts which have seen 100 billion kronor of state revenues slashed and are, according to him, fundamental to the government’s attempt to create jobs. Instead of reversing the jobbskatteavdrag the red-greens had decided, in their alternative budget, to keep 90% of the right’s tax cuts and instead cut pensioner’s taxes down to the reduced level currently paid by a worker.
Although Mona Sahlin and the red-greens repeatedly said that they would put welfare before tax cuts, by talking about reducing tax for pensioners as opposed to reversing the jobbskatteavdrag they clearly played into the hands of the government’s tax cutting agenda. Equally the red-greens refused to offer any bold alternative of large-scale investment or to fundamentally challenge the role of profit and private enterprise within the public sector. Only the Left Party’s leader Lars Ohly talked about banning companies from skimming profits away from schools and hospitals while the Greens and many within the Social Democrats didn’t seem to have a problem with it whatsoever.
Yet despite the failure of the red-green’s watered down programme some Social Democrats seem to believe the poor election results are in fact a result of them moving too far to the left, of forming an alliance with the Left Party (who, if you believe many on the right, are still a bunch of unreformed communists who want to overthrow the democratic system). The Social Democratic party’s secretary or leader of the Stockholm region (I’m not quite sure which) came on to the radio the day after the election to say that marginally increasing property taxes and taxes on the rich was a ”very strange way to get the middle class on board” and that next time they will have do more to appeal to the better off. Interestingly Sweden has among the most class-divided voting in Europe -- it’s estimated that among those earning above £50,000 a year around 90% vote for the right whereas immigrants, the poor, sick and unemployed overwhelmingly vote for the left (but unfortunately are much less likely to turn out to vote).
Left Party election stall
Not everyone agrees with this view of course. Some Social Democrats understand that their future lies in mobilising the working class, immigrants, the poor, those who live in the more deprived surburbs, those who are disillusioned with politics. And they understand that in doing so they will need to work closely with the unions. As for the radical left the only party currently with any national significance is the Left Party who have worked closely with the Social Democrats. Some in the party’s newspaper Flamman have begun to debate their future and what went wrong (the Left Party fell slightly from 5.9% to 5.6% and lost 3 seats). It has been argued that they should do more to distance themselves from their communist legacy or that they could have been a more energising force in Swedish politics if they had joint male and female leaders. Many also feel that the red-greens were too ‘nice’ to the right-wing government during the campaign. Whether or not the Left Party should remain as a slightly more radical version of the Social Democrats, tied down as part of the three party red-green alliance, is something which hasn’t received so much attention.
When I was in Stockholm at the time of the election I attended some protests, saw some speeches and talked to some socialists there. One of those I saw speaking was Left Party leader Lars Ohly. His speech wasn’t bad and he mounted a strong attack on the policies of the right-wing government. Inevitably though his party’s reputation for radicalism has been tarnished by joining the red-green alliance and failing to move the Social Democrats sufficiently to the left. Sweden does still, from the impression I get, have quite a vibrant radical left compared to Scotland. As well as the Left Party there are of course other minor far left parties and Sweden also has one of the strongest anarchist movements in Europe which includes the syndicalist union the SAC. In addition there is a feminist party called the Feminist Initative, led by former Left Party leader Gudrun Schyman. I saw a lot of their posters up around Södermalm in southern Stockholm although FI ended up with a national share of under 1%, down slightly on last time.
Rise of the far-right
Fascist leader Jimmie Åkesson
The rise of the far-right is another extremely worrying trend we can observe from the election. The Sweden Democrats, a party with its roots in the Swedish neo-nazi movement, took 5.7% of the vote which is a doubling of the share they received last time and over the 4% threshold meaning they now have 20 seats in the Riksdag (Swedish parliament). The party’s share varies a lot from one part of Sweden to another: in their base of Skåne in the far south they averaged around 10% and in one neighbourhood near Malmö they took 35%. In Stockholm the party’s support is much lower at around 3%.
Despite the SD’s success there is definitely a lot of opposition to them from throughout Swedish society and many Swedes are determined to prevent their country moving in the same way as Denmark. There the nationalist, anti-immigrant Danish People’s Party have been given enormous influence by the more established right-wing parties who rely on their votes in parliament. As a result Denmark now has one of the strictest immigration policies in the whole of the EU and in recent years we have seen a hysteria in Denmark around Muslims and the role of Islam. Politicians on both the right and left in Sweden have said they won’t touch the SD with a poker and that neither will they alter Sweden’s immigration policy (which is currently among Europe’s most liberal) just because of pressure from the far right. Whether or not this position holds up in the long-tern we’ll need to wait and see. Already before the election the government had started deporting large numbers of Iraqi refugees from Sweden as they argue it’s now safe for them to return.
There has been a dispute on the left in Sweden among what tactics are best if the far-right is to be defeated. In the run up to the election a number of SD rallies were broken up or disrupted by anarchists and others on the radical left. A protest I was at briefly in Stockholm involved hundreds of people surrounding a rally by SD leader Jimmie Åkesson and blowing vuzuzelas in a successful attempt to drown out his speech (check out the video below). Some though, such as Left Party leader Lars Ohly, have criticised such tactics, saying they are anti-democratic and risk allowing Åkesson to portray himself as a victim.
The acclaimed Swedish left-wing author Henning Mankell (in an article for The Guardian about why the SD should have been ”argued into oblivion”) also writes that:
“The only way to deal with people with racist, xenophobic and generally populist views – like the German National Socialism of the 1920s – is through a determined dialogue that we never abandon … I believe that it was precisely the refusal of the other parties, from left and right, to debate with the SD that allowed them to grow from nothing to 6% of the vote. If we had had the debate, the SD might have got into parliament, but with far fewer seats. In fact, they could have been kept out of parliament altogether”.
I’m not sure if I agree with him fully here. While it is certainly essential that we expose the far-right’s prejudice and lies there is always the danger that when you bring a party like the SD into the debate you further legitimise them and give their message a degree of respectability. Although their message shouldn’t be hard to disprove through rational argument it is unfortunately the case that facts don’t always win over prejudice. Where I think Mankell is absolutely right is when he talks about how the SD’s success is a symptom of large number of Swedes feeling left out by the mainstream parties:
“People vote against something rather than for it. In this case, people are looking for a scapegoat for their own miseries. It is the unemployed, the ill, those who feel themselves marginalised and cast out, who turn in their powerlessness against the established parties and vote for those who reach out to them. The SD becomes the only decency they find in a political landscape where everything else is hypocritical and forsworn. The SD listens to them. In the SD’s programme they find their own thoughts, their own anger, their own fears.”
Over 10,000 protested against the SD's entry into parliament in Stockholm
It is precisely the policies of Fredrik Reinfeldt and his right-wing coalition, with mass unemployment, privatisation and a further weakening of the welfare state, which have made it easier for the SD to get their message across. The far right’s success almost always comes at times of social hardship and uncertainty, when people are fearful and don’t know who to blame. If the SD’s success is not to be repeated in 2014 then either the government need to radically alter their policies or the left needs to take back control of the debate on jobs and welfare.
It’s been a busy week here at SSY towers. Many strange inhabitants of the murkier corners of the internet were so disgusted by our bin raking ways, they were moved to try and track us down and give us death threats, letters to our (commie) parents about how we’re mad commies, and even complaints to our unis about how they are harbouring terrorists!
A quick recap: last weekend SSY were among the many different protesters (various different socialists, anarchists, trade unionists and random members of the public) who were disgusted to see the fascist BNP attempting their first street activity in over a year in Glasgow city centre. The 7 hate-mongers were quickly outnumbered by hundreds of normal, sensible individuals who don’t blame immigrants for everything wrong with their own lives. Embarrassed, the racists were quickly forced to retreat under the protection of the police. In their rush to run away, they abandoned their banner on the street, which was then put in a bin.
Going by the motto of ‘waste not, want not’, some SSY members decided to rescue this fine piece of fascist art from the bin, and take it away for our own amusement. We’d like all our fascist friends reading this to please note that THERE IS NO SUCH CRIME AS BIN RAKING. That is why, despite what you have been claiming over the past few days, none of us have been contacted by the police, because we didn’t in fact steal your banner, unless a bin is capable of ownership.
Many hours of laughing at idiots later, this led to this picture being taken. The far right were completely humiliated by their own inability to mobilise on anything like the scale the (still relatively weak) left can, and the fact that ordinary people in Glasgow will take time out of their busy Saturday to tell them in no uncertain terms what utter twats they think they are. Now it was even worse: the banner that they left behind was in the hands of the very people who had earlier forced them to run away.
The crazy bullies, well used to blaming their own failures on others, were quick to lash out. Across the far right internet, different factions of fascists tried desperately to blame each other for who’s fault it was they’d been collectively humiliated (and which of them weren’t proper racists because they were “race mixers” willing to shag non-whites). As you can see here, some of them can’t quite decide if they hate us or fancy us. Here we reproduce a selection of the highlights of their various imaginative insults (all spelling mistakes were in the originals!):
THE MARXIST EDUCATIONAL CIRCUS
“Agitated commie tit”
“products of the Marxist educational circus”
“i expect they are buying supplys of nappies and plastic bedsheets incase they have a accident during a nightmare.”
“insecure fairies just dying to conform to the status quo.”
“These people are a cancer in our society”
“Sqeal like a piggy boy.”
“Those two guys look like the under-the-thumb sort that do the big hero act to try and impress the girls, and hopefully get into their pants. They probably do all the housework as well! (Instead of a 50/50 split, which is what I have.)”
“you can bet your bottom dollar that the males involved, which will be most of them, if they aren’t gay, are self hating apologists for their own gender, who consider themselves to be male feminists, or manginas.”
“I mean for someone who will never have a girlfreind and likes singing gay disco and has the features of a rat with lepracy, he should really should be locked in a cellar for the rest of his life or stuck on a sex offeneders wing with the rest of his marxist bum chums..”
“What i find funny is the girls, they hardly look like the typical Marx Theoreticians. So pathetic how they go along with what their androgynous girlfriend does.”
“I quite fancy the girl on the left. Nice legs.”
“a rather cute kiss curl hairstyle”
“Oh dear, I wonder if he is very scared tonight, and nights to come? I bet his teddy is being hugged like it has never been hugged before.” [Antifascist commie scum responds: "They're way off the mark about me squeezing my teddy extra tight. Teddy is getting the normal amount of snuggles."]
WHAT DID YOU DO TO PROTEST THIS OUTRAGE?!?!?!111?!
“The scum bag leftys in this video make me feel sick, I dont see them protesting against the black police association or the black nurses association , where were they at the MOBO awards or when Islam4UK wanted to march through wootton bassett ? why is it that the words ‘white’, ‘British’ and ‘English’ are treated with total disrespect when everyone else can have representatives.”
For the past week there’s been a fairly unrelenting torrent of insults and death threats of which this is just a selection. Gutted at their own patheticness, they’ve been desperate to make us feel terrified at their hateful violence filled internet vitriol. They’ve been really keen to prove to us that they KNOW ALL ABOUT US, WHO WE ARE, WHERE WE LIVE ETC. ETC.
Except. They don’t. Their intelligence gathering is more inept than the Chuckle Brothers at any one of their many jobs. Although they’ve managed to gather a few basic details about some SSY members that are freely available online (such as the shocking revelation that, like 21 million other people in the UK, some of them HAVE FACEBOOKS?!?!), they’ve been far outweighed by the stuff they got so spectacularly wrong.
Let’s start with the most obvious clunker. The Nicola poster on the wall. Have a think guys. How many people you know have a MASSIVE FUCKING POSTER OF THEIR NAME ON THEIR BEDROOM WALL? Maybe that’s the kind of thing egostical Nazis are into, but normal people just don’t do it. We’re giving you a headstart here. It’s Nicola from Girls Aloud. None of us are called Nicola.
Then there’s all the fantasy “zoom in and enhance” action. One far right CSI fan commented that he’d “heard it’s possible to get software to remove the black bars.” No, it’s really really not. They also claimed they were going to zoom and enhance the badge hanging off the cupboard, the one that reveals our ID that we’d stupidly left in the picture. We’ll save you the bother. This, of course, reveals the identity of a notable SSY member who goes by the name of “The Worker’s Beer Company is a Fundraising Arm of the TUC” (we just call her WorkBeer for short.)
And let’s not forget about all their bullshit claims, such as they’d heard someone had turned police informant (bullshit), people had deleted their Facebooks (also bullshit), that loads of our “so-called friends have been grassing us in” (total fantasy), and that we were getting chucked out of uni (there’s absolutely nothing in the course requirements of any of my modules about not taking BNP banners out of bins.)
The BNP table is under his fist
To help you out, we’ve put together some handy biographies of our key members:
Liam Turnip, AKA, Liam ‘Iron Man’ Turdbit, AKA Captain Radical, AKA the long streak of piss, AKA the rat with leprosy, AKA Liam Touch My Willy Wallace, AKA Longshanks.
He may go by many names but there’s no mistaking the long man. You can tell wherever he goes by the trail of watches he leaves behind him as they slip off his slender wrists. Fascists everywhere just can’t resist his androgynous cute kiss curls.
Liam grew up on the multicultural hell of Arran, where he ran the island’s second most successful dancehall and bhangra night. However, this was only to appeal to the local crowd as his true musical love is, of course, gay disco. Since moving to the mainland his attempts to get a degree have been hampered by his non stop terrorism.
Nicola Roberts grew up in Runcorn, Cheshire. She has one sister, Frankie, and two brothers, Harrison and Clayton. She holds family values close to her heart, which was revealed in a documentary following the members of Girls Aloud SSY for six months.
Roberts stated: “For years I felt like the ugly one in Girls Aloud SSY. I was tall, skinny, with red hair and the whitest skin you’ve ever seen -- standing next to four of the most gorgeous terrorists in Britain.” She added that she felt much better about her appearance once she realised that SSY is a refuge for ginger fantasists.
Nicola sometimes forgets what her own name is, so has this handy reminder poster on her wall
Apart from her hectic schedule of anti fascism, Nicola has managed to perform on some of the greatest socialist hits of recent years, such as ‘Sound of the Untermensch,’ ‘Something Kind of Jew,’ and ‘You Can’t Mistake My Ideology’.
And of course, let’s not forget Donna, who TOTALLY EXISTS AND IS NOT A PSEUDONYM. We all realise that, just as you’ve claimed in banned comments, you know Donna’s real name, where she lives and the fact the she is very much real. Unfortunately, she can’t remember who she is since Dr Who had to wipe her memory.
Of course, all joking aside, death threats, even if they do emanate from pathetic internet warrior losers, have to be taken seriously. On the private SDL section of the EDL forums (which we, being slightly better at internet spying than you, can read no bother) there’d been folk talking about coming to the Glasgow SSY AGM last Thursday to “put the boot into these faggots.”
Given that the night before 20-30 EDL thugs tried to attack a socialist meeting on Tyneside, we had to take this at least a bit seriously as an attack on our right to meet and organise. So we responded appropriately, and with less than a day’s notice we put out the call to socialists and anti-fascists to come down to the venue to show solidarity and help defend us. The resulting mobilisation was inspirational. Over 60 people from all kinds of political backgrounds came down. Many would disagree on a lot of our politics, but we were united in our desire to defend each other in the face of mindlessly violent knobheads.
Of course, we got no trouble. Nobody we saw did look like the SDL or their other fascist chums. But if they did send anyone along for a look, they’ll have got the message. Anti fascists in Glasgow are organised and militant and prepared to stand up for each other. And there are many many more of us than you.
Anti fascists stand united against the SDL's internet bullshit
BNP members Mark McGarry (centre with camera) & Joseph Finnie (far-right)
Saturday 18 September saw a hugely successful day of anti-fascist direct action against the racist thugs of the BNP and the Scottish Defence League – both of whom attempted to carry out public activity in Glasgow on the day.
September 18 was originally the day the SDL were planning to hold a march from Blytheswood Square to the Cenotaph in George Square. With this route being denied by the council – who offered them a static protest instead – the SDL announced that the march was cancelled and re-applied for one in the east end of the city in November.
In light of the events of last weekend, however, when the EDL descended on Oldham in a secret ‘flash mob’ protest, local anti-fascists began to suspect that something similar could be afoot in Glasgow. This was compounded when both the main SDL forum was taken offline, and their facebook page announced that they would be holding a ’social gathering’ in a city centre pub on the day. Acting on these fears, activists from the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance decided to keep an eye on the city centre over the course of the day, posting scouts at different locations where it was believed the SDL might show up.
However, it soon turned out that the SDL were not the only group of far-right thugs in town that day. At 1pm, a number of BNP activists were spotted in George Square, setting up a stall and posing for photos with their ‘Support our Troops’ banner. They left soon after, but quickly set up again on Buchanan Street. Anti-fascists from across the city quickly mobilised, and by 1.30 there was a small gathering around the stall, preventing the BNP from engaging with the public. Ten minutes later, a larger group of anti-fascist arrived. Within seconds, the stall was smashed up and the BNP material was scattered and destroyed. The 5-6 BNP members were forced to stand beside the ruins of their stall waiting for the police to show up, which they did – about 15 minutes later. After a humiliating half hour of being chanted at by a now large group of passers-by and anti-fascists, the BNP were driven away in a police van for their own safety. A total victory for anti-fascists and, judging from the response from the public, a reaffirmation that Glasgow will not stand for the bigotry and racism of the BNP. This was the first BNP activity in the city centre for almost a year, and apparently the ‘launch of their new campaign’. We don’t think they’ll be back any time soon.
But believe it or not, this was just the beginning of a day of successful direct action against fascism. At 3pm, members of the Scottish Defence League began gathering in The Goose pub on Union Street, next to Central Station. Upon being approached by anti-fascists, they informed them that they’d be going to George Square at 5.30pm, apparently with the intention of assembling at the Cenotaph. Clearly, they were after a confrontation – regardless, though, this doesn’t change the issue at hand: fascist gatherings need to be opposed.
By 5.30pm, small groups of anti-fascists and local youth were assembled around the square. When the 15 or so SDL supporters showed up, a brief confrontation ensued. The crowd of around 100 anti-racists ensured that the SDL did not reach the Cenotaph, while a few fists were thrown in both directions, although it’s understood that no anti-fascists suffered injuries. A large number of police then stepped in and pushed the SDL to one corner of the square, where they were held for a period then removed. The BBC are reporting that a 14 year old was arrested – as far as we know this was for punching an SDL member in the face. One SDL supporter was also lifted for a ‘racist breach of the peace’.
Overall, a massive victory for anti-fascists: two groups of racists thrown off the streets. We didn’t rely on the police, and we didn’t rely on the council or Home Secretary to ban them either. The numbers of anti-fascists weren’t massive, but were swelled by passers by and young people who didn’t want the SDL or the BNP on our streets either. A reassuring confirmation that Glasgow is not a safe space for fascists to engage in public activity.
Anti-democracy COMMUNIST FASCIST REDS set about the BNP
The captured spoils of war!
Comments on this article are now closed because all fascists are boring.
Police lines coming between fascists and anti-fascists
We’ve previously covered the run-up to last weekend’s English Defence League march in Bradford. Despite a successful campaign to have the government ban the march, it was always clear that the EDL would come anyway. The “official” anti-fascist movement made no plans to take direct action to try and stop the EDL from being able to take the streets, while a smaller number took action like we’ve done up here with the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance.
Daniel Randall is a member of Workers’ Liberty and a supporter of the Stop Racism & Fascism Network who has participated in mobilisations against the EDL in Bradford, Nottingham and London. The following is a guest post giving his impressions of what went on last Saturday in Bradford.
August 28 in Bradford will rightly be remembered by many of the activists involved as the day we defied the police, the local establishment, and, significantly, both poles of mainstream anti-fascism (and their supporters in the left and labour movement) to physically confront the EDL (which, as I’m sure SSYers will be pleased to know, resulted in the EDL getting a good kicking).
The background and build-up to the day is complex and is fundamentally a reflection of the political divisions within the anti-fascist movement in Britain (I understand the situation in Scotland is largely similar to ours in England).
The Hope Not Hate/Searchlight campaign, the anti-fascist formation of choice for large sections of the trade union bureaucracy, focused on collecting signatures for a petition calling on the (Tory) Home Secretary to ban the EDL’s march.
When such a ban was secured, HnH began organising “Be Bradford – Peaceful Together”, a “multicultural festival” (music, face-painting, bouncy castles… precisely the sort of stuff that were key weapons for the anti-fascist militias in Spain in 1936/7) at a location a couple of miles away from where the EDL (now reduced to a static protest) would be gathering. Their event secured the backing of various local religious institutions, the local trade union bureaucracy and indeed local government.
The SWP-run Unite Against Fascism, frequently politically indistinguishable from HnH (same “unite with anyone – and we mean anyone – against fascism” approach, same celebrity fetish, same slavish deference to trade union bureaucrats and religious leaders, same faith in the state to sort things out by banning fascist parties or organisations), called their own “We Are Bradford” event in the city centre, close to where the EDL would be amassed. The list of initial supporters for the event was a chemically-pure mini-popular front, including everyone from trade union leaders to Lib Dem MPs to religious zealots.
However, they were at great pains to ensure everyone that the event WASN’T a counter protest. Oh no. Nothing as radical or confrontational as that; just a “peaceful multicultural celebration of Bradford”. Undoubtedly the EDL were quaking in their boots.
Local supporters of the Stop Racism & Fascism Network called for a genuine counter-mobilisation to confront the EDL from the start.. SRFN doesn’t have a fraction of the resources that either HnH or UAF have so we were sanguine about our prospects. Nevertheless, SRFN supporters spent the build-up to the event leafleting local working-class estates, particularly in Asian areas, calling on people to mobilise on the day to confront the EDL rather than spending the day at HnH’s limp “festival” or at UAF’s non-protest. SRFN called on people to meet at separate location, Centenary Square, near to the EDL’s rally point.
The other key element in the picture, which would ultimately prove decisive, was local Muslim youth. Unfortunately the left has no real implantation amongst those communities and before the event it was unclear to us whether they would mobilise independently in any significant numbers or follow the advice of community “leaders” to either stay at home or attend the HnH or UAF events.
The experience of previous anti-EDL mobilisations told us that policing would be pretty tight, and we weren’t disappointed. On the day, the cops were out in force. SRFN supporters who attempted to remain outside of police cordons and leaflet members of the public were told to move on and disperse, under threat of arrest. However, in spite of almost every organised element in the equation militating against it, a crowd of several hundred of us managed to gather across the street from the EDL’s rally point, almost literally within spitting distance of the enormous pen the police had constructed to contain the racists. The crowd was made up of SRFN supporters and other independent anti-fascists along with hundreds of Muslim youth, and police soon mobilised to make sure we didn’t get any closer to the EDL.
I think a lot of us were preparing to dig in for a day of fairly typical anti-fascist activism; shouting at a group of nearby racists plus a bit of low-level scuffling with the cops as they try and push us back and we try and get a bit closer. Even if that had been the end-result, it would have represented a significant improvement on UAF or HnH’s strategy; at least the EDL would’ve encountered some visible, vocal opposition (even if it was from the other side of a fenced-off pen and a few lines of cops) rather than having every anti-fascist in town neatly swept off into either the UAF or HnH distractions where they were visible only to other anti-fascists and maybe a few passers-by who took the time to find out what was going on.
As it turned out, we were able to do rather more than just shout at the EDL. They were obviously just as agitated as we were about being held in one place and made several attempts to break out of their pen. At one point, a small group made it onto the pavement and lobbed a few bottles and rocks in our direction. Then, a few hours later, around a 100 EDLers managed to escape and headed off; we could only assume their intention was to cause a bit of (probably-violent) havoc in town. We figured that trying to head off and confront that group was a more useful thing for us to do than spending the rest of the day shouting ourselves hoarse and shoving the cops, so a group of maybe three hundred of us turned back up the street we were on and ran to find them.
We tracked the EDLers down to a roundabout by a retail park and managed to bloody a few noses before police stepped in to break us up and quickly herded the EDLers into Forster Square train station and out of town.
We shouldn’t overstate what we achieved; the EDLers we confronted represented maybe 1/8th of their entire forces on the day. We should also take care not to fall into a crude idealisation of physical-confrontation anti-fascism; it’s a form of activism that excludes those less-able to take part in it and is only one aspect of the anti-fascist strategy we need to develop.
But we did prove that with a bit of tactical dexterity, the EDL can be confronted. We challenged their right to bring their racist bile onto the streets of our cities without encountering any visible opposition. We challenged the pro-state, popular-frontist perspective of mainstream anti-fascism that asserts that calls for state bans or polite rallies are sufficient responses. A lot of us didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when we received reports that leading SWPers had led chants of “whose streets? Our streets!” from the platform of the UAF rally while we were actually doing the work of defending the streets from the EDL hundreds of yards away.
Darth Vader and pals move in
Beneath the practical unity built on the day between Muslim youth and independent anti-fascists, there are some politics that need unpicking; during the lulls between scraps with the cops, we chanted “unemployment and inflation are not caused by immigration; bullshit, come off the enemy is profit” while many of them chanted “Allahu akhbar!” Some of them also chanted “the EDL are faggots!” and hurled sexist abuse at women police officers.
The point is that practical unity in confronting fascist organisation is the best framework from within which to challenge the religious, homophobic and sexist politics that some Muslim youth hold. The left must break from the essentially racist assumption that working-class Muslims can only be related to on the basis of religious communalism and can only be engaged with through the religious establishment and community “leadership”. At one point the self-same community “leaders” who had backed the HnH and UAF events turned up on the frontlines of our confrontation with the police to plead with local kids to go home. Fortunately, their pleas were ignored.
The English Defence League promised us a summer of mass mobilisations intended to cause havoc in some of England’s key centres of Asian, and specifically Muslim, population. They crowed about mobilising up to 5,000 to come to Bradford. Those claims have come to nothing; they were not strong enough to meaningfully impose themselves on the streets of Bradford on August 28, and when a few of them did manage to defy the police they were sent packing by our hastily-convened anti-fascist rapid response unit.
Hopefully, the dismal and disgraceful role of HnH and UAF on the day will help break the stranglehold that these groups hold on anti-fascist politics in the organised workers’ movement. One battering isn’t going to make the EDL go away and the social problems leading many white working-class people into the arms of the EDL and, beyond them, the BNP haven’t gone away either.
We still need to build a national anti-fascist movement that combines a direct-action approach with ongoing campaigning on issues like jobs, homes and services so we can provide anti-capitalist, anti-racist answers to the legitimate grievances which the far-right attempts to exploit. Young working-class people from every community will be at the centre of that; the ruling-class figures and popular-frontist ideas that existing mainstream anti-fascism looks to will be no part of it at all.
Following the relative success of their wee day out to Kilmarnock -- where the shameful actions of Strathclyde Police ensured that their ‘march’ could go ahead -- the SDL are intending to have another go at parading through Glasgow next month, on Saturday 18th September.
As you might recall, when the SDL last tried to march in the city, the first far-right demo in Scotland for decades, they were met by thousands of anti-fascists who opposed them directly on the streets and ensured that the police soon bussed them out of the city centre. It was a resounding victory, and a repeat of this situation when they tried to hold a demo in Edinburgh in February was enough for many to see the organisation as finished. Not so -- they came back for a jaunt to Killie, had a nice day, and since then have been intent on making their trip to the big city as much of a success.
Responding to an official complaint from the Scottish Anti-Fascist Alliance, the police have sought to defend their actions in Kilmarnock on the grounds that they cannot discriminate against ‘legal protest’ and that their heavy-handed treatment of anti-fascists was both ‘justified and proportionate’ in keeping order on the day.
This all sets a worrying precedent for September 18th. The SDL have learnt from their previous mistakes, and now know that by meeting inside pubs, they’ll invariably just end up getting kettled within by the police, and in turn, hundreds of anti-fascists. On the other hand, meeting on the street offers them both police protection, and guarantees that they’ll get some kind of street protest/shouting match. So this time, the SDL have applied for a demo which will, they claim, gather in Blytheswood Square towards the west of the city and march to George Square, where they intend to lay a wreathe at the cenotaph. It will be doubly ironic if the SDL are allowed to assemble at their desired location, given that Blytheswood Square is now off limits to everyone else.
What Kilmarnock demonstrated though was that the state cannot be relied on at any level to stop the threat of organised fascism. Ultimately, the police will attempt to keep public order -- and if this means allowing the SDL/EDL/NF to march, then so be it. It’s a game of numbers, one which worked to our advantage in Glasgow and Edinburgh, less so in Kilmarnock and countless EDL demos down south. Mobilising against fascism doesn’t have to be difficult -- in fact it’s been one of the best, most gratifying and worthwhile things that SSY has been involved with over the past 12 months. In Glasgow and Edinburgh hundreds, even thousands, of ordinary people have been angry enough to take to the streets in direct action against fascism.
Which makes it all the more bizarre that there’s a growing school of thought which says that the EDL “shouldn’t be opposed”, because this is “playing into their hands” and “harming community relations”. It doesn’t come as any great surprise to hear that this is being spearheaded by the ‘anti-fascist’ magazine Searchlight, and their establishment-backed front organisation Hope Not Hate. The entire strategy of Searchlight and HNH rests on making appeals to the state to ‘ban’ nasty people -- bans which then all too easily backfire against the left. Their major success in this so far was Luton last year, where they managed to get ALL political gatherings banned for several months in a bid to stop one EDL march -- great job guys!
Bradford is a special case in many respects, given the race riots which happened there in 2001. But simply calling for the EDL to be banned does not get around this -- the main catalyst for the disorder in 2001 was a march by the National Front. A march that, as it happens, was banned by the authorities from taking place. But this ban didn’t stop some of the Nazis showing up anyway -- and similarly, a ban on the EDL’s march isn’t going to stop a large amount of their support showing up either. They’ve been building up this demo for months, constistently referring to it as ‘the Big One’ and one that ‘one wont be for families’. It doesn’t take long to figure out what they want: a ruck with the local Asian youth (with one third of Bradford’s population being Muslim).
It’s particularly shameful that the local trade union council has come out against any planned counter-demo, alongside “most political parties, faith groups and community groups”, according to Hope Not Hate. In effect, all they’re doing is alienating those that will come out to oppose the EDL -- abandoning any local youth who come out to defend their community from attack by the thugs of the EDL. The local labour movement should be at the forefront of direct action to stop the EDL, not cowering at the back cause they’re scared they might get hit. A broad, united anti-fascist demo would send a clear message to the EDL, and people watching from all over the UK, that Bradford stands against them. Sitting at home and abandoning the local Asian youth to defend their city is exactly what will lead the media to portray the whole thing as a ‘race riot’. And that’s what we all want to avoid.
Who would have thought this man's party would ever have money problems?
UKIP, the acceptable face of far right politics in the UK, are possibly facing a financial disaster next month.
July is likely to see the judgement of the Supreme Court over the party’s refusal to forfeit over £350,000 of illegal donations. The Electoral Commission says it knows about at least 67 instances of the UKIP breaking the law on donations. Under electoral law, if a party is given over £200 it has to check if the donor is on the electoral register. UKIP failed to do this, despite loads of warnings from the commission.
The party got £367, 697 from these incidents. Most of the money came from a retired bookie and owner of a bathrobe company, Alan Brown, who was not on the register when he gave them several separate donations. In magistrates court, UKIP was ordered to pay back only part of the amount, but the electoral commission has escalated things to the Supreme Court in an attempt to get the full amount forfeited, in which case it would go to the treasury.
As well as this money itself, if UKIP loses the case then they would face millions in legal bills. It could effectively bankrupt the party.
Should we be happy about this? Absolutely we should, because UKIP are the hidden threat we face from the organised far right. Leftfield has reported before on UKIP as a potential seed from which an important party of the radical right could become a major force in British politics. The model for this would be far right racist, anti-Muslim Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who has just gained a big result in the Dutch general election.
Alan Brown hands over an illegal donation
Wilders is the darling of the English and Scottish Defence Leagues, who admire him for his stances such as banning the hijab from all public institutions, calling for the Koran to be banned whilst comparing it to ‘Mein Kampf’, and for the construction of prison camps for Muslims in the Netherlands.
Alan Lake, the shady businessman who bankrolled the rise of the EDL, has said publicly that he’s backing away from his street army of football casuals to focus on finding them a voice in the mainstream political process. He’s doing that by working with UKIP.
The last time we saw the Scottish Defence League – a few dozen thugs, football hooligans and out and out racists – all the way back in February, they were being bussed away by Lothian & Borders Polis, en route to being dumped in a field somewhere near Linlithgow. As the cavalcade of 500 cops and 40 SDL aboard a couple of doubledeckers swept by us, the hundreds of anti-fascists who’d been keeping them penned inside a pub all day said their farewells with chants of ‘The SDL are finished, the SDL are finished, na na na naaa’.
And for all intents and purposes, they were. Edinburgh was their second attempt at a demo, and an even bigger failure than their first ‘protest’ in Glasgow last November. After that, all they could scrape together in terms of a public assembly was a minuscule photo-op in Lockerbie, a ‘vigil’ that most of their own supporters were not even made aware of. More recently, however, they’ve threatened to arrive in Kilmarnock, penned in for Saturday 19 June.
However, over the past two days, the SDL have been plunged into yet another crisis. Their main organiser in Scotland, ‘Gusty’, has walked out on the “wank-stains” , “wankers” and “mouthy c*nts” that apparently make up a large element of the SDL’s support – a shocking new revelation of the far-right’s composition in itself! Clearly, there’s a huge amount of frustration within the SDL, particularly among their inner core, at their failure to replicate the EDL’s successes down south. There’s a number of reasons for this – the still relatively prevalent sectarianism within Scottish football that overrides any of the ‘casuals united against a common enemy’ pish that’s the backbone of the EDL. The SDL knows this, and, for all their rhetoric about just being against ‘militant Islam’, have consistently tried to sidle up to organised loyalism. This too has failed, and the SDL have yet to make any signficant inroads into the Orange movement. However, perhaps most importantly, the SDL have been given no room in which to grow by anti-fascists. From day one, mass anti-fascist street mobilisations have effectively put a stop to any SDL aspirations of becoming a movement with any kind of momentum. Few, if any, EDL members will be making the trip up to Kilmarnock this weekend, given that those that did were less than happy with their SDL experience in Edinburgh.
This Saturday has the potential to be decisive in seeing off the SDL for good. The organisation is now leaderless, without direction, and lacking any solid base of support beyond a few keyboard warriors, has-been casuals and NF-wannabes. However, there is no room to be complacent in this. The SDL have effectively been handed over the town centre of Kilmarnock by East Ayrshire Council and the police – who’re denying the trade union led ‘Kilmarnock & Loudoun United‘ demo the right to assemble there. Meanwhile, the SDL are being allowed to hold what they claim is a 45 minute, peaceful static demonstration. If this works for them, they’ll keep doing it – in small and medium sized towns across Scotland. While their Glasgow demo in September has been thrown into disarray by their organiser leaving, others have mooted the possibility of demos in places including Perth, Alloa and Stirling.
The type of non-violent direct action that was so successfully used against the SDL in Edinburgh can now be used to finish them off forever. This is why we need anti-fascists from across Scotland to come to Kilmarnock this Saturday and stop the SDL for good. No Pasaran!
ASSEMBLE 9.30AM AT KILMARNOCK CROSS, SAT 19 JUNE
Kilmarnock is 40 mins by train from Glasgow Central – trains at 0807, 0837 and 0912
Yesterday police in Ecuador tried to seize control of the capital Quito as part of a failed attempt to overthrow the left wing President Rafael Correa.
Following the 
Following the relative success of their wee day out to 
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