In Britain and across Europe, a variety of fascist and far right racist organisations are casting admiring eyes at Le Pen’s record 17.9% of the poll – and they gain confidence from it.

Le Pen’s 17.9% vote was higher than the FN’s previous best score of 16.9% in the 2002 elections, when Jean-Marie Le Pen – Marine’s father – was the candidate.

This means nearly one in five French voters cast their ballot for a fascist party.

Stark

The real numbers of people voting show the scale of the fascists’ rise even more starkly. In 2002, the FN won 4.8 million votes. This year, Marine Le Pen has pushed that figure up by a third, to 6.4 million.

In the département (administrative district) of Gard, in the south of France, the FN came first with 25.5%. It polled slightly higher in a handful of other areas without coming first.

Marine Le Pen has endeavoured to present a slicker public image than her father, the previous leader and founder of the FN, who notoriously described the Holocaust as a ‘mere detail’ of history.

Same organisation

But behind the smoother veneer and attempts to play down its more overtly fascist past, Marine’s FN remains the same fascist organisation.

The FN aims to stir up racism against Muslims and immigrants, and has quietly kept up links with violent street fighting groups.

Antifascists in France report that FN activists chased and attacked people who were putting up posters for a left wing candidate, just days before the first round of the election.

Le Pen senior hasn’t gone away either – he is now the FN’s honorary president and spoke at a 1 May rally with his daughter.

The FN’s electoral surge has come against a backdrop of austerity. The party has sought to turn bitterness against increasing poverty and cuts into racist scapegoating of Muslims, Roma people and immigrants, blaming them for the crisis.

Sarkozy

But the fascist party has also been hugely helped by the racist climate encouraged by mainstream politicians such as Nicolas Sarkozy, the outgoing right wing president who remains in contention for the second round of the elections.

Sarkozy’s anti-Muslim racism – expressed in measures such as the law banning the face veil, his attacks on multiculturalism and, most brutally, the forcible smashing up Roma camps by police – has given Le Pen’s fascists legitimacy and encouragement.

Le Pen has snubbed Sarkozy’s overtures and declared she will abstain in the second round of the elections, when Sarkozy and Socialist party candidate Francois Hollande will go head to head – she is focusing now on the French parliamentary elections in June, where the FN hopes to take seats.

Vote on 3 May

The FN fascists’ surge makes it all the more important to make sure that antifascists in Britain use their votes and encourage others to vote to ensure fascist candidates standing in the local elections – for the British National Party, the English Democrats and the National Front – get nowhere on Thursday 3 May.

Although the remnants of the British National Party have nothing like the strength of the French FN, the opportunity to drive them out of their clutch of remaining council seats must not be missed.

It is especially important to get the antifascist vote out in London, where the BNP could still take a seat on the Greater London Assembly if they get 5% of the vote. Every ballot cast for another party helps push the fascists’ percentage down below the danger line.

But other fascists are also looking to Le Pen for inspiration. The racist street thugs of the English Defence League are set to give a public launch to their electoral allies, the British Freedom Party, at the EDL demo in Luton on Saturday 5 May.

BFP, EDL and Luton

The BFP was set up by former leading BNP members and wants to use Luton to set itself up as the electoral successor to the failing BNP. Its tie up with the EDL gives the combined outfit the traditional two-pronged attack of Hitler and Mussolini’s fascists: a street fighting wing, and an electoral wing.

UAF is urging all antiracists and antifascists to join the national demo against the EDL in Luton on Saturday – we need to push the fascists back both at the ballot box and on the streets.

It was clear before the broadcast that the EDL saw this high-profile TV coverage as an opportunity to recruit and raise funds for its organisation of racist and fascist street thugs.

Unfortunately, the programme gave the EDL just the boost it was hoping for. A surge of interest was reflected during and after the programme as EDL and Tommy Robinson became trending topics on Twitter.

Platform

EDL leader Stepehn Yaxley Lennon – AKA ‘Tommy Robinson’ – was given an extensive platform to make unchallenged racist comments about Muslims, and to issue self-justifying claims that he is ‘not racist’.

The one revealing moment – when a drunken ‘Tommy Robinson’ taunted a Muslim man and pretended he was Anders Behring Breivik, the fascist who massacred 76 people in Norway – was given little prominence in the hour-long programme.

The documentary rightly pointed out that Unite Against Fascism has challenged the EDL everywhere it has gone, and noted that antifascists and local people had outnumbered the EDL when the racist thugs attempted to demonstrate in Tower Hamlets (an attempt that failed – the EDL was forced to demonstrate beyond the borough boundary in the City of London).

Failed

But the programme makers failed to give a voice to those who have consistently opposed the EDL. The programme did not feature antifascist campaigners, who could have exposed the reality of the EDL.

Nor did the documentary reflect the views of the thousands of people around the country – Muslim and non-Muslim – who have stood up against the EDL’s attempts to whip up racism and divide our communities.

The programme makers failed to properly expose the EDL’s racist violence or the many fascists in its midst. There was no mention of how EDL demonstrations in towns including Stoke-on-Trent and Dudley, have turned into rampaging mobs attacking people and smashing the windows of houses, shops and religious buildings.

The documentary did not paint a true picture of an organisation whose members have marched through towns chanting ‘Burn a mosque down’.

Violence

‘Tommy Robinson’ was not challenged over the many EDL members convicted for acts of racism and violence.

These include EDL supporters who smashed their way into a mosque in Redbridge, east London, an arson attack on a mosque in Stoke-on-Trent and an attempt by EDL thugs to storm a socialist meeting due to be held at an Irish centre in Newcastle.

The EDL’s racist and fascist thugs began by targeting Muslims, but have widened their activities, attacking other traditional targets of fascism, including trade union offices, socialist and antiracist meetings, a community bookshop in Liverpool, anti-cuts protestors and the Occupy movement – something that the programme makers chose to ignore.

Easy ride

UAF believes that Channel 4 and the programme makers acted irresponsibly, giving Robinson and the EDL a high-profile platform, an easy ride and a huge publicity coup, which the racists and fascists have been quick to exploit.

For more on the EDL, see our factsheet and our dossier uncovering the reality of the EDL.

Journalists can contact UAF by email for comment.

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.