In Unison outside Norwich Station on Union Friday

Hope not Hate. Today is “Union Friday” and up and down the country trade union activists will have been campaigning about the threat to our democracy from the BNP and other fascist parties.

I had to represent a union member in Norwich today so in the evening I was able to take part in an UNISON led anti-Nazi leafleting session outside Norwich Railway station. This was with fellow Unison activists and regional officers (Jon, Sasha and Sarah) as well as some very young but enthusiastic anti-fascists.

One thing that did surprise me is that by talking to trade union members I find that many are genuinely unaware of the true nature of the BNP. Now, this is obviously weird to us politicos but I am sure that many people don’t know and will be tempted to vote BNP unless we get the message out.

Voting BNP is Evil – so says God

Despite being a convinced atheist it is always nice to know that God is on your side. Even if it is the Church of England (CofE) version which (apologies for the cheap dig) may have many divisions but none of which would have impressed Stalin!

This afternoon I went to a well attended national meeting in Central London organised by Searchlight, the anti-fascist organisation. This meeting was on how to meet the growing threat of the BNP, examine what we (anti-fascists) do well and also where we need to improve.

To the left of main Picture is the Rev Paul Butler, a CofE vicar in Deptford, south east London, who gave a marvellous presentation. He is in danger of giving the Established Church a good name in the wider Labour movement. Rev Paul talked to the meeting about how the Church of England is officially not only opposed to the Far Right, but in every diocese in the country there should be a working group meeting on a regular basis on how to tackle fascists. He talked about the Christian concept of “evil” and how the BNP is a modern day example of biblical “evil”. It’s an organisation that’s nasty with a divisive approach which not only encourages hatred between communities and faiths but also hatred against individuals such as gays. He pointed out that when Christians are baptised or confirmed they have to renounce “evil”. To me he seemed to confirm that voting for the BNP is incompatible with Christianity and is in fact an “evil” act. Yep, that makes sense (apologies to Rev Paul for any theological misunderstandings on my behalf).

The first speaker was Searchlight editor Nick Lowles. Nick gave a sober analysis of where we are now and what we are facing in the future. He clearly felt that we cannot defeat the fascists unless we truly understand the reasons why people vote BNP. Simply dismissing these people as Nazi is not going to be at all productive. We need to organise, be self critical and honest. I was pleased to hear that it is now accepted that the crude election leaflets and posters on “Smash the Nazi” etc are now recognised as being counterproductive. They turn off voters (even though I personally love ‘em!).

Nick thinks that there is a danger from the “collapse” of a section of the traditional working class vote for the Labour Party, who will now simply not vote at all for any mainstream party. Even worse, some of them will also then go on to vote BNP. I am not totally sure about this. Yes, the traditional working class is changing radically. The regional secretary of the T&G, Steve Hart, pointed out that in 1979 there was 12.5 million trade unionists, the majority of which were manual workers. Nowadays, there are 6.5 million, 50% of which are professionals! The Labour Party and many trade unions have not on a whole handled this change very well. Are the traditional working class Tory voters now voting BNP? In May 2008 in poor London inner city wards, even in white working class areas the BNP did not poll very well at all. They seem to get a lot of their support from outer London supposedly from more prosperous boroughs?

There were also presentations on case studies by Gerry Gable on organising in Redbridge and Epping as well as Lorraine Fitzsimons from the Yorkshire “Hope not hate” campaign. Searchlight international officer, Graeme Atkinson and then Paul Meszaros spoke about the 2009 European Election (we need to get our act together on this). I enjoyed Graeme’s story about how the Far Right/Fascist group in the European Union Parliament fell apart because they were all so suspicious about working with “foreigners” who they all hate of course. For example, the granddaughter of Mussolini, Alessandra a fascist MEP from Italy, called all Romanians “habitual criminals”. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Romanian Far Right members of this group kicked up a fuss and it folded shortly afterwards.

The very sober message at the end of these presentations was that due to the collapse of UKIP, the BNP will have a chance of winning a seat in Europe next year unless we organise. Under Proportional Representation (PR) in the North West they will only need 8.5% of the vote to win a seat. In many local council seats they regularly win 20-30% of the vote.

(I had to leave early and missed the rest of the meeting – picture left to right of Rev Paul Butler, Southwark Diocese; Linda Perks, UNISON London Regional Secretary; Gloria Hanson, UNISON London Regional Convenor; Nick Lowles, Searchlight; and London Assembly member (Labour) Murad Qureshi.