Putting a case together
‘Give Up Anti-fascism’ offers up an interesting and valid addition to the debate on anti-fascism and should be viewed positively in that regard. Too easily radicals adopt and maintain familiar political criteria out of ideological loyalty, or just plain laziness, that stops them looking critically at what it is they are trying to achieve and the methods and tactics employed to achieve it. Although the article doesn’t mention anarchists’ relationship to anti-fascism, addressing itself as it does to the liberal left and radical left (we can only speculate as to why the author didn’t mention or even acknowledge Antifa in his assessment), anything that encourages us to look at and re­assess how we apply our ideas is always useful, especially at a time of the anarchist movement’s continued disorientation and lack of purpose, impact and confidence.

The article focuses on three distinct aspects: 1) where the BNP currently stand electorally; 2) the failure of the left to successfully combat the rise of the BNP; and 3) positive suggestions how the left could and should reformulate itself, laying out the problems with the on­going strategies for opposing the BNP. In a frank and considered way it centres itself around the question: is anti-fascism the answer to the BNP?

Conditions of participation
On the surface it commits a common sense approach to the problem of the BNP, and has a lot to commend it, but it also suffers flaws and contradictions. The first part of the article is expressed as “some brief facts and figures to situate the debate”. The problem with this is it doesn’t put those figures in any social or political context.

This is troubling for two reasons. Firstly it gives us nothing to anchor our understanding about just why people are voting for the BNP in the numbers they are; secondly we are given no frame of reference, no insight into just who the BNP are appealing to and under what circumstances. No political party is cut off from the social, cultural and economic conditions of the day and simply presenting statistics this way does just that. We have had 12 years of a Labour government most of which have been spent involved either directly or indirectly in wars in the Middle East bringing with it the rise of political Islam and the hardening of Muslim identities; we’ve seen the imposition of official multi-culturalism as government social policy; we’ve seen the opening and expansion of the internal European Union borders resulting in economic migration on an unprecedented scale; we’ve seen escalating military conflict across the globe creating mass population displacement; we no longer have in this country sustainable heavy industries or large scale manufacturing to bind communities together or build discernible class dynamics in the traditional way.

As reported previously in Freedom, we are living through a unique set of social conditions, and the BNP operate within these conditions. How and why the left have failed to address and capitalise on the same conditions in the same way is beyond the scope of this piece but one that will have to involve some fearless soul searching for all those concerned. The irony being in order for Labour to enjoy the longest uninterrupted term in office in its history it had to get rid of Clause 4, take away all elective and decision-making powers from the largely working class dominated area branches, effectively barren outposts of the Millbank Empire, and rope in endless middle-class consultants as policy makers to fill the gap. In abandoning the working class they have achieved their biggest victory.

(continued here:  http://www.freedompress.org.uk/news/2009/10/24/give-up-anti-fascism-an-anarchist-response/