We are appalled by the violent and brutal eviction of residents from Dale Farm, where Britain’s largest Traveller community is long established. Travellers have lived there since the 1970s.

Those evicted and now facing homelessness include children and vulnerable adults. The evictions have been carried out by taser-wielding riot police.

Over many years, Travellers in this country have faced a series of restrictive laws as well as discrimination and racist violence that have made it increasingly difficult for them to sustain their communities and way of life.

The eviction at Dale Farm comes amid a deeply worrying rise in racism against Travellers and Roma – both recognised ethnic minorities – across Europe. Last year the French government forcibly broke up Roma camps and deported hundreds of families.

The brutality of the Dale Farm eviction carries frightening echoes of the French government’s action, which was condemned even by MPs from the ruling party there.

Such actions by mainstream politicians and government authorities are encouraging a climate of scapegoating and racism against Traveller and Roma communities, who are already the target of fascist organisations in many parts of Europe.

We call on our supporters to show solidarity with Traveller and Roma communities who are under attack. Don’t let the racists divide us.

>> Dale Farm campaign website

Despite a ban on its march in Tower Hamlets, the English Defence League (EDL) is attempting to organise a static demonstration. At the time of writing it is not clear where this demonstration will be.

The EDL must not be allowed to demonstrate in Tower Hamlets.

Fascist

The EDL is a fascist street fighting movement. Attempting to demonstrate in Tower Hamlets is a highly provocative move by the EDL and consistent with previous attempts to bring their violent Islamaphobia into Britain’s Muslim communities.

EDL demonstrations have led to riots, with violent attacks upon police officers, Muslim, Asian and black communities, Mosques, Sikh and Hindu temples.

Its actions are aimed at inciting hatred against Muslims with placards saying “Allah is a paedophile” and chanting “Burn down a Mosque”. Members of the EDL have also been linked to Norway terrorist Anders Behring-Breivik.

Attacking

However recently the EDL has also turned its violence on the labour movement, attacking a trade union book shop in Liverpool and a meeting in Barking organised by local Labour Party members with Unite Against Fascism (UAF), resulting in injuries.

We welcome the public initiative led by Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman to ban the EDL’s march. A march through the heart of the East End, a multicultural borough with the biggest concentration of Muslim communities in the country, would have been damaging for community relations.

However banning EDL marches is not sufficient in itself in opposing the EDL. The EDL still intends to hold a static demonstration. The police say it cannot ban static demonstrations.

We believe the EDL’s previous violence indicates it is a clear threat to public order, and overtly incites religious and racial hatred. This supersedes any so-called right of the EDL to demonstrate in Tower Hamlets, and on these grounds it should be prevented from having static demonstrations in multicultural areas with large Muslim populations.

Mobilise

Crucially, the lesson of history is that fascist organisations must be mobilised against. The EDL represent a tiny minority in society. We must alert and mobilise the vast majority of people in our society who find its violent, racist and Islamophobic behaviour abhorrent.

We must unite all those in society that fascists target : Muslim, Jewish, other faiths, black, Asian, LGBT communities, trade unions, the labour movement, liberals, socialists, disabled people and all those for freedom and democracy, against fascism and racism. This is how similar movements in the past like the National Front and Mosley’s Black shirts were defeated.

Today Muslim, Asian and black communities walk freely through the streets of Poplar and the Isle of Dogs without fear. This right was hard won and thanks to those that actively campaigned against racism and fascism before us.

Actively

We cannot be complacent in the face of racism and fascism. We must actively oppose and unite against it the moment it rears its ugly head. Failing to do so would give the EDL the green light to continue its violent hate campaign without opposition.

That is why local community organisations in Tower Hamlets formed “United East End” to oppose this threat. Together with Unite Against Fascism, we will be hosting an event on Saturday 3rd September in Whitechapel to celebrate our diverse communities.

This year is the 75th anniversary of the Cable Street demonstration when Moseley’s fascists were stopped from running amock amongst the East End’s Jewish community. Today the Muslim community in the East End is facing a similar menace. It is vital that we stand together against this threat.

He explains the passionate antiracist and radical atmosphere _ and the pirate flags – that make the St Pauli gound a special place to be, in an article first published in Socialist Review magazine.

Pirates of the Bundesliga

If you hate football with every fibre in your body, then read on. If you love football with a passion, then you need to read on too.

How can I square this circle, I hear you ask. The answer to this conundrum lies in Hamburg, Germany. There, nestling between the Reeperbahn (Hamburg’s red-light district), the docks, and poor migrant and working class neighbourhoods is the Millerntor stadium, home to the football team St Pauli.

St Pauli is, by a long mile, Europe’s most left wing football club. The club has launched a new T-shirt which reads: Love St Pauli – Hate Racism, and, yes, it is inspired by Love Music Hate Racism’s message. I was invited by a group of supporters to talk about our struggle against the racist English Defence League, to promote their T-shirt and watch a game, last month.

One thing strikes you as you make your way to the ground. From every bar, shop and seemingly every block of flats, flies the pirate flag, the Jolly Roger (Totenkopf). My host for the day is Bruno, an ex-squatter and libertarian socialist. He explains that the flag symbolises the fight of the poor against the rich clubs.

Antifascist culture

The second thing that grabs your attention is that St Pauli supporters are not your average fans. They are a mixture of punks, tattooed rockers, anarchists, blue collar workers, and for good measure St Pauli has more women supporters than any other club in Europe.

These supporters are attracted to a club that wears its political heart on its sleeve and one that encourages an alternative culture to flourish on the terraces. They were the first European club to promote an antiracist and antifascist culture on the terraces. The team played a tournament in Cuba to show solidarity with the country and in the 1980s and their goalkeeper Volker Ippig took a year out to help the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Matches are like a festival. The team comes on to the strains of ACDC’s song “Hells Bells” and when they score, Blur’s “Song 2″ blares out around the stadium. After the game sound systems are set up outside the ground and mini street parties are held.

Bruno explained to me that the transformation into a radical club began in the 1980s. At that time St Pauli were playing in the lower divisions.

A group of squatters began to attend games. For a laugh some began to bring their Jolly Roger flags into the ground. Slowly the group grew and other football supporters, tired of the fascist elements and overt commercialism associated with other clubs, began to follow St Pauli. Today you see Che Guevara flags and anarcho-syndicalist banners held aloft all around the ground.

Rainbow flags

Until recently the club’s president was Corny Littmann, an openly gay man. A few years ago an opposing group of football supporters chanted homophobic taunts at Littmann. When that team made a return visit to St Pauli, the terraces were full of “rainbow flags” – the perfect response.

Last year St Pauli won promotion to the Bundesliga, Germany’s top division. The pressure to remain in the league has seen the club succumb to commercial pressures. Business seats have been introduced and, unbelievably, a VIP box was sponsored by a Hamburg strip club. Outraged fans fought back. Sozialromantiker (Social Romantics) began to cover the strip club adverts in the ground during the games. The “Jolly Rouge” (red pirate flag) was flown by fans at the ground in protests at the strip club adverts.

Fan power

Today the ads are no more and the club has terminated its advertising contract with the strip club owners. Fan power won the day and all over the ground the “Jolly Rouge” is still flown.

After the game I am taken by Bruno and some other fans to the Jolly Roger bar. It is heaving with punks and is festooned with every conceivable antiracist and antifascist sticker. I am introduced to four people sitting at a table outside the bar.

They look slightly out of place. They are not punks or rockers and neither are they covered from head to toe in St Pauli gear. Yet they appear to be having a great time. They tell me they are asylum seekers – guests of Bruno and his friends. Bruno adds:

At home games a group of us invite a small group of refugees to come to the match. After we eat and drink late into the night; we pay for everything.

We were once outsiders. Now we have found a home. We want these people to have a home at St Pauli.

For me, that sums up the ethos of St Pauli.

You see, you may hate football, but how can you not love St Pauli? And if like me you love football – can you think of a better place to spend a Saturday afternoon?

Pics by: chrisb86 and lena.otis

The news of Miriam Karlin’s death will have evoked feelings of real affection and loss among the many thousands of antifascists in the Anti Nazi League and far beyond.

An outstanding feature of her long life was her committed and active opposition to Nazis, fascists and racists.

In this respect she trod proudly in the footsteps of her father. Harry Samuels Karlin spoke out strongly in the 1930s against the rise of Hitler in Germany and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts in Britain.

In the 1970s Miriam threw herself into building the newly formed Anti Nazi League. She campaigned tirelessly to win support for active opposition to the Nazis within the Jewish community.

Miriam spoke at countless ANL meetings and frequently wrote on its behalf to the Jewish Chronicle and the Times to defend the organisation’s tactics and inclusive approach.

When the ANL was relaunched in the 1990s Miriam once more stepped forward. She took a prominent role in protests against Holocaust denier David Irving. She also campaigned to expose the Nazi sympathies of Austrian politician Jörg Haider.

Miriam was a fine actor. Many will remember her iconic portrayal of the acerbic shop steward Paddy in the hugely popular 1960s TV series The Rag Trade. The show encapsulated the shopfloor confidence of the time.

But Miriam was a campaigning trade unionist off-screen too. For many years she attended the TUC congress as a delegate from her union Equity.

Miriam’s commitment to the rights of human beings never faltered. She will be remembered with fond appreciation by all who knew her.

His analysis of the EDL comes as part of a wider review of where their 2011 election drubbing has left the fascist British National Party and what prime minister David Cameron’s attacks on multiculturalism mean for antiracists and antifascists. The article was published in the Socialist Worker newspaper

Nobody should make the mistake of writing off the threat of fascism after the elections, Martin argues.

The economic crisis and the legitimisation of racism by mainstream politicians and the media means that there is fertile ground for fascist and right wing populist parties.

And over the last two years we have seen the EDL develop as a relatively new and growing racist threat. It has organised a number of large and provocative racist demonstrations whose main targets are Muslims.

Its core support comes from violent football “firms” who are united by a deep-seated Islamophobia—anti-Muslim racism. There are a large number of fascists and other assorted right wing thugs leading it.

When it was first launched, I argued that the EDL was a proto-fascist group. This is no longer the case. It now acts like a classic fascist organisation.

It looks and behaves like a paramilitary group. Its members parade around the streets wearing black hoodies and divisional insignia.

They have rampaged through black and Asian areas, attacking mosques and homes.

What started out as a movement against Muslims has morphed into an organisation that attacks trade union demonstrations, anti-racist meetings and socialist gatherings. Threats were even issued against last year’s student demonstrations.

Fascist groups aim to destroy every aspect of democracy, especially working class organisation.

The rise of the EDL presents the anti-fascist movement with new and difficult challenges. First of all, it is vital that we defend multiculturalism from Cameron’s attacks and make a principled stand against Islamophobia.

Secondly, every fight against the cuts should be encouraged and supported. The wreckage of the economic crisis creates the perfect conditions for fascist and racist parties to grow.

We also have to continue with our work in local communities, trade unions, colleges and on the football terraces against the BNP and EDL.

The EDL is trying to create a street movement designed to terrorise minority communities and attack socialist and trade union organisations. We cannot ignore it.

When the racists take to the streets we must organise the biggest possible counter-protest.

The recent elections were a big blow to the fascists but many more blows will be needed.

You can read the full article here.

Pic by Kelvin Williams

UAF has also condemned Cameron’s comments, warning that they would only encourage racists and fascists.

Now the campaigners, who are fighting against cuts to classes in English for speakers of other languages (Esol), have challenged Cameron’s claim that migrants don’t want to integrate. Here is the Action for Esol campaign statement.

David Cameron announced [in April] that people who are unable to speak English have created ‘a kind of discomfort and disjointedness’ in communities across Britain. He also intimated that some migrants are ‘unwilling to integrate’.

For ESOL teachers and members of migrant communities these comments do not come as a surprise. From Jewish workers arriving in London’s East End in the late nineteenth century to the diverse groups of people migrating to the UK today, the ability of migrants to speak English has long been a preoccupation of politicians and the right-wing press.

Blaming migrants for social and economic problems is nothing new and is always more heightened at times of economic depression.

[Cameron's] comments, though, are particularly hypocritical – indeed ridiculous, coming at a time when the Government is attacking English Language provision harder than ever before. ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) is the publicly funded English language provision for migrants in the UK.

It has seen a massive cut of 32% in funding in the last two years, and if the Coalition government’s proposed cuts to funding go ahead 100,000 students, three-quarters of whom are women, will be hit with fees of £400-£1,200 for ESOL classes – charges that they simply cannot afford.

If people can’t speak English how can they find work, help their children at school, take part in their local communities or assert their rights?

Since the new cuts to ESOL were announced Action for ESOL has been set up to defend and fight for better ESOL provision. So far 20,000 people have signed a petition to stop the ESOL cuts. Large numbers of ESOL students have been writing letters to their MPs, organizing in their colleges and communities and demonstrating alongside their teachers.

On 24 March there was a national day of action for ESOL, with a mass teach-in at Old Palace Yard in Westminster and rallies and marches across the country. Students spoke about the tremendous importance of English language provision and the positive effects it had on their lives.

Does this sound like people who are unwilling to learn English?

David Cameron, like many politicians before him, should stop scapegoating migrants and stop blaming them for the hardship that his government is inflicting on all working-class people in the UK. Stop the scapegoating and hypocrisy, and stop the cuts to ESOL.

Picture, from Action for Esol, shows demonstrators protesting in Hackney, east London, against cuts to Esol classes.

UAF joint secretary Weyman Bennett said:

Cameron claims his latest remarks on immigration will stop ‘extremist parties’ like the BNP from flourishing and help ‘extinguish them once and for all’.

In truth they will have precisely the opposite effect. Both the tone of his language and the content of his arguments feed the myth that Britain is somehow being flooded by immigrants.

Cameron is effectively scapegoating immigrants for his government’s cuts programme. The effect of this rhetoric is more hatred, more hysteria and more strife and division in society.

And the British National Party, the English Defence League and other racist and fascist organisations will thrive in such a climate.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy has already tried this trick in France: attempting to undercut fascist parties by aping their language and conceding their demands. It didn’t work. Now we see Marine Le Pen’s Front National – a fascist party with close links to the BNP – riding high in the polls.

History shows that giving in to racist arguments does not make the racists go away. It endorses them and encourages them to demand more.

Cameron should be ashamed of himself – and we should be proud to live in a multicultural society where people from all backgrounds work and struggle together.

Wrong way

The strongly-worded article argues that the Fear and Hope report points the wrong way to tackle racist and fascist organisations such as the English Defence League and British National Party.

The Fear and Hope report was based on a controversial opinion survey that divided people into so-called “tribes”, including “latent hostiles”, “identity ambivalents” and “confident multiculturals”, based on attitudes to national identity and race. It argued that this should guide strategy for opposing “extremism”.

Hard-hitting

In his hard-hitting response, Sivanandan warns that such polls are “in themselves flakey”. He also warns:

To classify society in terms of culture and nation when a whole third of the country is crying out poverty and inequality, and Con-Dem policies are threatening to structure such poverty into society through privatisation, is to privilege the fight for identity (the symptom) over the fight against poverty (the cause)

EDL

Sivanandan forcefully opposes the Searchlight report’s suggestion that we should “contest the EDL (or the more ‘sanitised, non-violent, non-racist’ version that might take its place) on nationalist grounds”, calling this “a betrayal of the antifascist movement”.

In a companion piece, IRR researcher Jon Burnett examines the methodology of the Searchlight report in more detail and criticises its analysis, arguing that “it shifts the fight against racism into a fight to change the outcomes of attitude surveys”.

UAF joint secretary Sabby Dhalu has also produced a response to the Searchlight report – read it here.

Brons made his stark admission of the extent of the BNP’s crisis on his EU website – going public on a non-party site – in a significant signal of the desperate straights the party is in.

Internal war

The BNP has been wracked by an internal war between the fascist party’s leader Nick Griffin and would-be challenger Eddy Butler – as well as becoming mired in financial trouble in recent months.

Yorksire and Humber MEP Brons, who is one of the party’s best known figures, warned the fascists that the infighting had ‘moved on from attack websites to what each side sees as a final confrontation’.

He describes how Butler has organised a series of anti-Griffin meetings, which are filmed by BNP ‘security’ before the Buttler supporters are expelled by the BNP. Brons admitted:

If there is no truce, the Party will come to an ignominious end before the end of this year.

Longstanding Nazi

Brons is a longstanding Nazi. He began his political career in the National Socialist Movement, a fascist organisation founded in the 1960s on Hitler’s birthday. He was later chair of the National Front, before his reincarnation as a BNP politician in a suit. His handwringing over the fate of the BNP is aimed at bolstering the fascists and marks no departure from their politics.

Antifascists campaigning aginst the BNP in the May elections in areas such as Stoke-on-Trent will be heartened by the disarray and demoralisation laid bare by Brons. There is a real chance of kicking the divided BNP Nazis out of key seats.

EDL threat

There is no room for complacency, however. Brons notes that some disaffected BNP members have left to form splinter groups, while others ‘plan to seek membership of establishment safety valve parties’.

But it is clear that BNP members drifting out of the party are also increasingly moving into and around the English Defence League, the racist street thug movement whose leader “Tommy Robinson” is himself a former BNP member. The BNP’s collapse is likely to add to the drain of former members into the EDL.

Fascist elements in the EDL have already been increasing their influence inside the organisation, with growing signs that they are seeking to “harden up” its members and direct them against other traditional fascist targets, such as trade unionists and socialists as well as ethnic minorities.

Step up

Antifascists will be pleased to see the demise of the BNP. But the growth and direction of the EDL are cause for grave concern.

We need to drive home the BNP’s waekness in the election campaign. But we must also step up campaigning against the EDL.

Pic: by Kelvin Williams

By Sabby Dhalu, joint secretary, Unite Against Fascism

A report, ‘Fear and Hope’, on attitudes in Britain to race and immigration, was launched by the Searchlight Educational Trust in early March. The report interprets the results of a survey conducted by Populus for the educational charity. However, while the results of the survey are very interesting, and deserve close study, the conclusions drawn by the report are contentious to say the least.

The headline from the report, picked up widely in the media, is the contention that the survey results suggest that 48 per cent of those surveyed would support an extreme right-wing party if it were clearly ‘non-violent’. This conclusion is based on the percentage of respondents who would ‘definitely support’ or ‘consider supporting’ a political party that ‘defends the English’, wants an English Parliament, would control immigration and challenge Islamic extremism as long as they were ‘non-violent’.

The first and obvious point to make is that this is hardly the definition of a far right party – all major parties entered the last election on a platform of controlling immigration and challenging Islamic extremism, and the issue of defending the English and wanting an English Parliament does not describe modern-day fascism.

Moreover, even if the British National Party (BNP) puts off some voters because of its known neo-fascist background, the electoral performance of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), shows that even a ‘mainstream’ hard right party cannot pick up 48 per cent of the vote. Even its remarkable showing at the Barnsley by-election this week only put it on 12 per cent – in a seat which had previously recorded above trend votes for the far right. It would be nonsensical to suggest that UKIP could generally storm ahead of the Tories on the basis of support for an English parliament. The disaster for the Tories and the Lib Dems in the Barnsley by-election is not due to the attraction of racist parties but the impact of the economic situation in squeezing living standards, falling real wages and unemployment.

Evidence

The evidence from a much wider ‘survey’ – the last General Election – is that when the population had the option of a mainstream, hard right party, it didn’t vote for it. So the survey results on this issue clearly call for a much more detailed examination than that offered by the report.

As countless other surveys over decades have shown, the issues that appear to motivate voters when raised in isolation, sink down their priorities when faced with all the issues confronting them and the real choices in a General Election. Fundamental issues of jobs, living standards, welfare provision and other bread and butter issues are far more important to voters than the defence of Englishness or the fierceness of promised immigration controls.

Overall, the report interprets the survey results as indicating a crisis of ‘English identity’, which it insists has to be addressed if this is not to attach itself to extreme right-wing solutions. However, the report’s conclusions as to how to respond to this alleged crisis suggest a series of concessions to the anti-multicultural, anti-Islam, anti-immigration agenda of the right.

Indeed, Searchlight’s own response is to shift their agenda from a focus on campaigning against fascism and neo-Nazism and to set up a new campaign – A Plague on Both Your Houses – that will equally prioritise Islamic ‘extremism’. Searchlight’s case for this appears to be that it is a failure to address ‘Islamic extremism’ which is driving those seeking an ‘English identity’ into the arms of the far right. This, the report claims, is the lesson of the survey results. However this is only possible through a skewed interpretation and less than forensic examination of its results.

Leading questions

First, the report makes no acknowledgement of the fact that leading questions always introduce a bias in the results. It is an ABC of polling on attitudes that the opinions expressed are highly dependent on the way and the context in which the question is asked. In other words, if you ask people if something is a problem they will generally agree.

When added to the constant media scare campaigns against Muslims and Islam – Sharia law, Halal meat, the Burqa debate and many others being just the most recent – it is not so surprising that “52% white Britons agree with the proposition that ‘Muslims create problems in the UK’”. Certainly groups like the English Defence League try to whip up an unfounded fear that Islam is threatening the ‘British way of life’. And the recent revelations that the Daily Star deliberately made up anti-Muslim stories to whip up these fears – like non-existent bans on Christmas, piggy-banks and the like – demonstrate just how extensive this is.

Secondly, some of the results produced by the survey present a more positive picture than the report would have us to believe. For example, the survey reveals that 63% of white Britons agree with the proposition that ‘On the whole, immigration into Britain has been a bad thing for the country’. This is evidently a strongly ‘anti-immigration’ result. But this is not contrasted with the result on different but related questions. So, asked what is their preferred policy on immigration 58%, 62% and 69% of Asian, white and black people respectively, think skilled and unskilled immigrants ‘who will help the economy’ should be allowed into the country, against 39%, 34% and 21% respectively who thought all immigration should be stopped.

Also the when asked whether “there are some things that people should not be allowed to say about race and if necessary they should be prosecuted if they do”, over 55% of all social class groupings (including 62% of C2s) agreed with the proposition. Whereas in response to “people should be allowed to say what they believe about race, however critical or offensive it might be”, less than 45% of respondents agreed.

Flimsy

Rather than thorough questioning analysis of the survey results, the report adopts wholesale the flimsily argued case that Britain is now divided into a series of ‘tribes’, with descriptions like ‘latent hostiles’, ‘identity ambivalents’ and ‘confident multiculturals’, which, it is claimed, define our broad attitudes to our identity and issues of race and immigration. The report argues that it is appealing to the concerns of these ‘tribes’ that should be the focus. And therefore the major political parties – and Searchlight itself – should respond by prioritizing a campaign that equally focuses on Muslim extremism as well as the far right.

Apart from the fact that this approach, if adopted generally, would simply feed into and deepen anti-Muslim prejudice, it will not reap electoral gain – as the report appears to suggest to both Ed Miliband and David Cameron.

There is much previous work – which this report does not reference – which demonstrates that immigration, race and related issues often poll very high in attitudinal surveys but this does not translate into the way votes are cast in elections. When it comes to the ballot box itself, these issues tends to drop well down most people’s priorities in choosing a particular party – except in some local situations where the election has been preceded by a particularly race-driven issue.

Nonetheless, the Searchlight report both argues that this raises a real spectre of mass support for the extreme right, and that the major political parties should adjust to these concerns.

Ed Miliband is warned that his policy of appealing to the ‘progressive majority’ and ‘squeezed middle’ has failed to address the issues of English identity politics. Whereas the approach embodied in Cameron’s Munich speech attacking multiculturalism is praised for addressing ‘…concerns over immigration and a changing world, as well as their belief that newcomers should accept the British way of life’.

Reject this approach

But the truth is there are very few votes in playing the race card – at least for Labour – and the evidence shows that strong assertion of the benefits of diversity, multiculturalism and the contribution of immigrant communities can impact positively on perceptions of these issues.

Contrary to Searchlight’s urgings, Ed Miliband should firmly reject this approach. There are no votes for Labour in shifting to the right on race and immigration. For example, research conducted by Greenberg into the 2010 election, showed that Labour did not lose the election because it was ‘too soft’ on immigration. The Greenberg research revealed that there were only 8% of voters who had seriously considered voting Labour but then didn’t. But this group was the least hostile of all groups to immigration, while also being the most hostile to cuts and in favour of tax increases. Labour lost 5 million votes between 1997 and 2010, overwhelmingly on the failure to deliver improvement in living standards and in reaction to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea that Labour can recover from this electorally by attacking the interests of Muslims, immigrants and other components of its core support is a dangerous fiction.

The same research showed that the Lib Dems outpolled Labour only on one issue – their policy of an amnesty for long-term resident illegal immigrants. Tory voters on the other hand were the most hostile to immigration. As austerity undermines the Tories electoral support, we can expect more appeals to the Tory backwoods on immigration and race. It was no coincidence that Cameron’s speech in Munich threatening the funding for even moderate Muslim groups and attacking multiculturalism came at the point that polls put the Tories behind Labour for the first time since the General Election.

But these facts do not prevent the Fear and Hope report using their survey results as the political justification for launching a new campaign that equally prioritises opposition to far-right racist extremism and ‘Islamic extremism’, under the slogan ‘A plague on both their houses’.

Concern

It is of great concern that an organisation that presents itself as a key campaign against racism and the extreme right should go down this road, as it is likely to only strengthen the prejudice and unfounded fears about Muslim extremism that their own survey revealed.

Firstly, there is strong evidence to suggest that the best way to drive back racism is to positively campaign to highlight the benefits of diversity. Where the BNP has made above-trend progress has often been linked to local sensationalist racist campaigns, usually conducted by the local media with scant regard for the facts. This was the case in Keighley where the BNP progressed after a media furore about alleged ‘Asian grooming’, in Oldham following a similar campaign against ‘anti-white racist attacks’, or Barking where the local media legitimised the myth that African migrants were being given priority for public housing.

On the other hand, where local authorities and the media have promoted the benefits of diversity, community integration is stronger, and support for multicultural life deeper. For example, in Leicester – Labour’s only gain in the 2007 local elections – the council went on to run its successful ‘One Leicester’ campaign. When the EDL tried to hold an event there it met the strongest cross-community response from any city where it has tried to go. Or in London under Ken Livingstone where, in the aftermath of the 7/7 bombings, the 2006 Annual London survey conducted by Ipsos Mori found that London’s cultural diversity was viewed positively by 85 percent of people in the capital and 71 percent believed there were good relations between different racial, ethnic and religious communities.

Exaggerated

Secondly, linking opposition to the far right to a campaign against ‘Islamic extremism’ is more likely to whip up exaggerated concerns that feed into the far right, rather than appease those who see this as a vital issue. The slogan ‘A plague on both your houses’ clearly implies that the problems are similar in approach and scale. But this is ridiculous. The BNP won around 5 per cent of the vote in the last General Election, and got much higher votes in some specific areas. No ‘Muslim’ parties – ‘extremist’ or otherwise – stood for election, for the very simple reason that they would get statistically zero support, including from the Muslim community. Moreover, given that the entire Muslim population (around 2.5 million in Britain) is less than 5 per cent of the electorate, every single Muslim of voting age would have to support extremist Islam for it to approach the degree of support for the BNP!

In fact, of course, polling on attitudes has repeatedly shown that Britain’s Muslims are more loyal, more law-abiding and feel more patriotic as a group that the white population and not at all ‘extremist’, however ‘extremist’ is defined.

In this context, it is of particular concern that it entirely unclear how Searchlight does defines the ‘Muslim extremists’ that it proposes to campaign against. One of the many features of the Islamophobia that is sweeping through this country is that many mainstream Muslim organisations have found themselves labelled as ‘extremist’, and feel that the suggestion is that Islam is by its nature extremist.

Vilified

Muslims seeking to ensure that their communities are represented fully in the political process have frequently faced accusations of ‘extremism’ – as for example was claimed against Lutfur Rahman in Tower Hamlets. Mosques, which in fact play a key role in integrating young people from their communities and combating the sense of exclusion that in some cases has led individuals to link up with groups proposing violence, have found themselves vilified as whipping up extremism. The Muslim Council of Britain which is the largest umbrella body of the Muslim community in Britain and is extremely ‘moderate’ and non-party political, has found itself labeled as ‘extremist’ because someone associated with it expressed a view that armed resistance to the occupying troops in Iraq was justified.

Quite apart from making a whole organisation responsible for the views of an individual not speaking on their behalf, this raises the issue of what constitutes ‘extremism’. Is this view on the Iraqi opposition ‘extremist’ or a legitimate although minority point of view? How will Searchlight define Muslim ‘extremism’? How does it propose to draw the line between the protection of minority points of view and the rule of the majority, which is the essence of the liberal consensus?
Cameron’s ‘muscular liberalism’ of his Munich speech in February clearly proposes drawing the line against all those who do not subscribe to some ill-defined ‘British values’ – in other words, breaking from the essence of liberalism itself, the core of which is the right to hold and express minority views, cultures and values.

As Cameron put it in his speech: ‘Islam is a religion, observed peacefully and devoutly by over a billion people. Islamist extremism is a political ideology, supported by a minority. At the furthest end are those who back terrorism to promote their ultimate goal: an entire Islamist realm, governed by an interpretation of Sharia. Move along the spectrum, and you find people who may reject violence, but who accept various parts of the extremist world-view including real hostility towards western democracy and liberal values.’ It is this whole spectrum Cameron proposes to target.

Socialists and communists are not unfamiliar with this terminology. They have frequently been accused of ‘extremism’ on exactly the same basis. Equally the same could be argued for rather a large number of those on the right-wing of the Tory party. Or indeed within the ranks of fundamentalist Christian currents.

Different?

Is Searchlight’s proposed campaign against ‘Islamic extremism any different from Cameron’s? ‘Muslim extremism’ in the sense of those who advocate terrorist attacks on Western populations as a political response to the perceived culpability of the West for the oppression of Muslims globally is a minuscule current in Britain, composed of handfuls of people. The elevation of this to a perceived level of threat coming from entire Muslim communities, evidently creates a sense of isolation, siege and exclusion in the Muslim communities. This perversely can feed extremism.

The report on this survey does not delve into the real reasons for the misplaced concerns and misconceptions on Islam or immigration in Britain today. Many previous surveys have uncovered more information than this one – for example, the huge overestimate of the level of immigration or of the number of Muslims in the country by most respondents – which both explain the level of concern and indicate the misconceptions that need to be addressed.

For example, the idea that Britain attracts a uniquely high level of immigration is one that should be vocally rebutted. In fact, Britain’s foreign-born population at less than 5 million (or around 9.7 per cent of the whole population) puts Britain 15th out of 27 economies surveyed by the OECD (2005 figures). This compares to 33.4 per cent in Luxembourg or 23.8% in Australia and Switzerland and 33.4% in Luxembourg.

Much of the concern about immigration stems from the belief that it creates unemployment. In fact, in 2009 for example, those born overseas accounted for just under 4 million of those in employment in Britain, while British citizens working overseas are currently just under 5 million. The free movement of labour works both ways, and to the benefit of British workers.

Above all, immigration brings a significant benefit to the British economy, estimated at £2.5bn net benefit to the public finances in 2000, and will be substantially higher by now due to increases in the total number of immigrants and the proportion that are of working age. In 2006 the government estimated that immigration’s net contribution to GDP was to add £6bn in annual growth. This creates more jobs, it does not take them away. Similarly government research has found that a 1% increase in the ratio of immigrants leads to an increase of up to 0.4 per cent in average earnings.

Misconceptions

The assault on multiculturalism launched by Cameron, and praised by this report for addressing real concerns, in fact feeds these misconceptions and undermines the understanding of the reality of England and Britain today. There is a real danger of rising racism in Britain today, but not because of a crisis of English identity or a failure to confront ‘Islamic extremism’.

The real danger comes from attempts by mainstream politicians to deflect public anger about the impact of the economic crisis, falling living standards and cuts in services, on to innocent scapegoats – immigrants, Muslims, multiculturalism.

Many sections of the population most definitely do feel under attack. This is not because they are ‘English’ or suffering a national identity crisis, but because their living standards really are suffering as a result of austerity, inflation and cuts. It is all too easy to direct people towards a soft target on the basis of racism and an alleged discrimination against the English, when economic and political alternatives seem unavailable.

The launch of this report now, and the participation of key figures on the right of the Labour Party, clearly indicates that one aim is to apply pressure to the Labour Party to adopt this approach.

Much of the discussion around why Labour lost the last election has drifted on to this ground. But this is simply avoiding a more fundamental discussion on how the impact of the previous Labour government’s economic policies and military interventions undermined its support. It is to be hoped that the present Labour leadership rejects this pressure and continues to make the case for diversity and multiculturalism.

Sad shift

It is very sad that Searchlight should choose this moment to shift their focus from fighting the fascists to ‘Islamic extremism’. At a time when austerity and cuts are creating fertile ground for scapegoating and racism, providing a breeding ground for the extreme right, the real priority should be to explain the enormous economic and social contribution that generations of immigrants have made to this country, and defending Muslim communities from those who would blame them for their feelings of malaise

Rather than getting lost in their own terminology of ‘latent hostiles’, ‘identity ambivalents’ and ‘active hostiles’, Searchlight should work with all those seeking to break down racist myths, assert the benefits of diversity and expose the violent nature of the extreme right.