This is not their victory. It is our failure.

An eyewitness report of today’s anti BNP demonstration in Manchester.

At 7pm, a small crowd of anti fascists began to assemble outside Manchester Town Hall. Unite Against Fascism erected a gazebo and played a soothing medley of reggae tunes while the latecomers began to appear. A few stray fascists were chased away, before a handful of speakers addressed the crowd. It began to rain, and I cannot recall the speakers’ names, or indeed much of what was said. From here on, braving bouts of rain and freezing cold (whatever happened to June?), Manchester’s anti fascists waited around, occasionally running here, there and everywhere as rumours of Nick Griffin’s presence reached us. The majority of protesters eventually assembled outside a side-entrance of the Town Hall. The entrance was guarded by large numbers of police and BNP security, most of whom openly admitted to supporting the fascists. At around nine, two large cars pulled up outside the entrance and the BNP security attempted to block the anti fascists from the vehicles. Some protesters hurled eggs, while others attempted to break the windows, or block the vehicles’ progress with their own bodies. They were hauled away by the BNP’s security thugs. One woman was injured.

Chasing the fascists’ cars round to another entrance, most of the anti fascists were forced into a police cordon. Myself and a few others avoided this, and were left free to hang around the Town Hall, waiting for the BNP to make their next appearance. At around this point, the only arrest of the night was made, when Chris S was handcuffed by plain clothes officers and arrested under Section 5 of the Public Order Act, ostensibly for saying the word “fuck”. The officers, who repeatedly refused to give their names and numbers, then dragged Chris away to a police van. He was removed to a police station miles away in North Manchester.

In the meantime, two anti fascists were left to confront three fascists sitting on a bench outside the Hall without aid from the majority of the crowd, who continued chanting “the BNP is a Nazi party” nearby. The fascists ran off, shouting “BNP!”. At the same time, police cleared a path outside the same entrance to the Town Hall where the cars had previously been attacked. As BNP security amassed here, the cars once again pulled up and were surrounded by growing hordes of angry anti fascists. As the police and the BNP’s own louts combined to crush the mobilisation against the vehicles, the first rumours that Griffin might already be inside began to circulate. It turned out to be true; the cars and security had been a decoy… Griffin had sneaked in through a back entrance.

The anti fascist protest continued for about two and a half hours. Chants of “black and white, unite and fight!” and “build a bonfire…” began to ring hollow, as more protesters drifted off. At its peak, the mobilisation was perhaps 200 strong. But by midnight, scarcely forty were left. Two brief interludes of fighting broke out in the meantime: the first when police assaulted a drunk woman who was not part of the protest and the second when one of the BNP’s team, wearing a BNP identity badge, was spotted attempting to make a quiet phone call scarcely a few yards from protesters. After news of the BNP’s victory in Yorkshire and Humberside, everything became subdued. Hearing stories of the BNP trailing behind the Greens at the count taking place within the Town Hall, the mood was one of anger and, in some cases, disbelief. The Greens appeared particularly shocked.

A Labour Councillor addressed the anti fascist mobilisation poorly, omitting the fact that the degeneration of her own party had driven many working class people into the hands of the fascists. UKIP candidates came to join the protesters, and were met with fierce accusations of racism from several anti fascists. A SWP member and UNISON steward intervened, arguing that it was not the time to be exposing UKIP. A while later, at around quarter past twelve, the protest disbanded.

In the European elections, the BNP gained two MEPs. They gained a platform in Europe, and large amounts of taxpayers’ money with which to propagate their fascist lies. They managed it not just because of wide mistrust in the Labour Party, or the expenses scandal, or even the economic recession. They succeeded because the Left is fractured and weak. Because the Left didn’t stand candidates (the soft nationalism of No2EU and its pathetic results notwithstanding). We have a political alternative to fascism, we have the answers, and we need to start putting them forward. If the Left doesn’t learn this, things are only going to get worse.

Finally, we can say with utter sincerity that the “vote anyone but the BNP” strategy of UAF, Hope Not Hate etc. has been a decisive failure.

Euro Election: An Opportunity Grabbed Then Wasted

If all the practicalities work out, there will be a list of trade union candidates on your ballot paper in June's European elections - but with the unfortunate title of 'No to EU - Yes to Democracy'. The first half of this statement should be great news, but it leads into a second half which is bad news.

With thousands of jobs being lost every week, workers facing pay cuts and public services being slashed and privatised - and Labour along with the parties that have always backed the bosses allowing this to happen - there is a crying need for an election campaign that stands for the interests and demands of workers. A socialist election campaign for jobs, services and democracy.

This need is even more pressing given the BNP's high chance of getting Euro seats and the big bucks that go with them. Mainstream anti-fascism's slogan of 'Vote for anyone but the BNP' is unconvincing and has limited effect when the 'anyone' is just a range of anti-working-class parties. To hope to mobilise working-class people to outvote the BNP, it seriously helps to have someone who deserves our vote.

So a national campaign fielding lists of trade-union candidates in every region is a great idea. And good on the RMT for looking to officially endorse such a thing.

But there is a problem, and a big one at that. In fact, there are three problems: the politics of the slogan, the narrowness of the platform and the way in which it has been put together.

As the recent oil refinery walkouts showed the need for the working class to fight back but to avoid nationalism, the slogan 'No to EU' encourages that nationalism just when it is important to challenge it. Our priority now has to be to promote and organise Europe-wide (and broader) workers' unity. We should offer an alternative vision of a workers' Europe rather than suggest that isolated British capitalism is somehow better than a European capitalists' club. We should indict capitalism - rather than simply 'the EU' - for the havoc its crisis is wreaking on working-class lives.

Having said that, 'No to EU' is RMT's policy, and I am very much in favour of unions fighting for their policies in the electoral arena. It would be wrong to say that unions should assert only those of their policies that I agree with!

But even if you agree with RMT's policy (as probably the majority of activists and members do), 'No to EU - Yes to democracy' is far too narrow a focus. Although there is some logic to a candidacy in the European Union's elections to focus on the politics of the European Union, there is no reason at all why it should do so exclusively. This is a reckless missing of a good opportunity to fight for a broad programme of working-class demands.

A socialist electoral challenge should not just be a bare political statement. It should be something through which current workers' struggles can express themselves in the electoral field. Current fights such as those against Post Office privatisation or the thousands of job losses in the railway industry will not find an expression in 'No to EU - Yes to Democracy'. On the other hand, workers involved in those struggles could well have used a broader jobs/services/democracy platform to express our grievances and give impetus to our fightback.

It is as though the union has picked up a powerful weapon then pointed it in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, most other unions either continue to wield a weapon that for several years has been pointing at themselves (the Labour Party), or refuse to wield a weapon at all.

RMT's support for 'No to EU - Yes to Democracy' has been agreed by the union's Executive, but not until after a letter from 'No to EU - Yes to Democracy' had circulated implying RMT's support! It was then presented to the union as a done deal, with no opportunity to debate the name or the platform. It came upon us with very little warning: it was not mentioned at the RMT-sponsored conference on working-class political representation in January, and when Bob Crow spoke at our Regional Council meeting at the end of January, he suggested that there might be 'People's Charter' candidates in the Euro elections (a much better, if imperfect, prospect). Many RMT activists are unhappy at having this imposed without debate, and even if there is no outcry, neither will there be a great deal of enthusiasm or active involvement in the election campaign.

The source of both the poor politics and the undemocratic practice is the same: the CPB / Morning Star. Fresh from helping Derek Simpson limp to re-election, the Star has now reverted to the obsession that has gripped it for decades: that All Bad Things Come From The EU. It is a dead-end that leads away from the internationalist socialism we need and which succours the nationalism that divides our movement.

Stalinism casts a long shadow.


By the way, there is already a blog called 'No2EU'. It links to the UK Independence Party and is written by someone called 'Bulldog'.

European Far Right Implodes

The far-right block in the European Parliament has collapsed - amusingly enough, because one lot were racist about the nationality of another lot.

It seems that Mussolini's grand-daughter (pictured) - who shares Il Duce's loathsome politics as well as his gene pool - had a pop at Romanians, suggesting that they are inveterate criminals. Which pissed off the Romanian nationalists somewhat.

Which all goes to show that nationalists co-operating internationally is, er, problematic. I suspect that there might be a lesson for the left in there somewhere.

Bill Gates having to cough up some serious dough......

Heh! Heh! Ha! Ha! Microsoft has thrown in the towel and admitted defeat to the European Commission. This landmark anti-trust ruling has been rumbling on for 3 years and started as a rearguard action against a decision to pay £347million fine (small change for old charity loving Bill G.).

This will open up the global IT market to greater consumer choice. Anti-trust laws are better operated in Europe and ironically, the USA. It means a company isn’t allowed to have monopolies. Unlike in the UK where a New Labour and/or Tory politician would prefer to stick pins in their eyes than reign in the capitalists. It is better to kow-tow to the demands of capitalism…

The reason Microsoft got the lion share of the market was mainly due to sharp practice. They understood that in order for PCs to communicate they would need an operating system. As long as your ‘puter is Windows compatible then it is all systems go. Microsoft inevitably made it difficult for other opening systems like Linux as everything is predicated towards Windows. Barriers are put up and other companies are pushed out of the market.

Microsoft gambled big and lost financially (they may still incur further fines). They breached the “abuse of a dominant position” rule in European law (yeah, I know, it sounds kinky…so no snickering). There isn’t a problem legally having a dominant position in the market but using it to keep out competitors is…

Microsoft probably caved in ‘cos the European Commission could have argued that they would push Linux and Windows would have been screwed. And they also hit Microsoft with a massive fine. One of the reasons why Rupert Murdoch is hostile to the European markets is that his dominance would be curtailed unlike his free reign in Britain.

This is a victory as to a certain extent capitalism has reigned in the worse excesses. Classical neo-liberalism wouldn’t have had any problem with the conduct of Microsoft but there is that contradiction inherent in neo-liberal economics that large dominant companies start to act like…the state…

More power to Linux……………