Fascinating as it is endlessly to debate whether a certain Trot outfit leader did or did not excuse an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran, causing a Boy Wonder activist to flounce out and form a three-person micro-microsect, or to ponder the deeper significance of the decision to reassign the political responsibilities of two SWP central committee members, the real world should be allowed the occasional look in.
Despite at least six or seven projects designed to build a new united socialist party over the last 13 years, the British left is now smaller, more socially isolated, more middle class in composition, more devoid of influence in the unions and the Labour Party, and generally more ideologically dazed and confused then at any previous point in my adult lifetime.
Meanwhile, the far right has combined its forces into a single principle organisation which claims to be several thousand strong. There is no reason to think it is lying, either; unlike some socialist groups, there is no evidence that it routinely inflates membership figures.
It has a cohesive project, centred on the need to secure legitimacy through electoral success, without compromising an avowed fascist purpose. This has secured it hundreds of thousands of votes, dozens of councillors and now a member of the Greater London Assembly.
The British National Party now has a real base in a number of communities, predominantly among the very social class the left regards as the main agent of social change.
Nigel Copsey’s timely book tells us how they have done it. Read it and weep. Then think about what might happen if we do not get our act together.
It should be said from the outset that this work is aimed at academics rather than activists, but don’t let that put you off. It is fairly accessible. I sometimes dread having to read academic books - especially those published by Palgrave Macmillan - because of their tedious prose. While Copsey isn’t a literary stylist manqué, he at least writes well enough to keep you awake.
I had previously read Richard Thurlow’s Fascism in Britain, which covers 1918-1985; Copsey’s book is the ideal follow up, offering a quick crash course on the Thurlow material, before taking up the story from the early 1980s launch of the BNP. That makes it the most up-to-date book on the market. This second edition came out earlier this year and takes in events up to last year.
I do have some problems with Copsey’s conceptual framework, which sees fascism as the revolutionary ideology of the right. I don’t think that this is true; the historical experience shows that fascism classically comes to power through constitutional means, when the ruling class needs street level forces capable of crushing working class militancy.
This is an important point; it extents to questions such as whether or not certain brands of reactionary Islamism can properly be dubbed Islamofascist, for instance.
Copsey also puts too much stress on the role of the media, especially the local press. That is a mistake, too. In my experience, local newspaper hacks pretty much report what is going on, as they see it.
If it is the case that Asian-on-white violence is an issue in some former mill towns, that debate has to be had out and the problem addressed. Suppressing discussion by diktat will only play into the far right’s hands.
Likewise, Copsey sometimes seems horrified to record that even condemnation by local clergy, the distribution of 20,000 antifascist broadsheets or ghost-written pleas by Tony Blair do not always put people off the BNP. Surely he must see how anything the establishment does can sometime plays into the hands of an outfit marketing itself as the premier anti-establishment vote.
The author’s basic thesis is indicated by the subtitle, ‘the British National Party and the quest for legitimacy’. The far right’s prospects, he believes, hinge on legitimacy at either local or national level. The worry has to be that the BNP is increasingly finding it.
He accepts – or at least he seems to; the formulations aren’t always as precise as they might be – that some European far right parties have genuinely evolved from fascist or neofascist roots towards non-fascist nationalist populism.
But his contention is that, for all Nick Griffin’s claims to be taking party down this very road, the BNP leader’s personal political formation is very much in the ‘political soldier’ tradition of the old National Front, as mediated through third positionism and Strasserism. Copsey is quite clear that the BNP are a threat to democracy.
Yet whatever criticisms I offer in this short review, Contemporary British Fascism is more than worth picking up for anyone with an interest in the subject. If it helps sections of the left to smell the coffee, so much the better.
Posted at 13:22, 24 September 2008
Comments (19)
I gather your opening sentence is a reference to this David Broder character many of your commenters having been getting excited about, one even urging you to devote a post to him and whatever it is of significance that he has done.
I think their eyes must have rushed past the repeated posts on the credit crunch, one of them pointedly entitled "Financial crisis: has the left got any answers". It was an implicit rebuke to those who would rather chatter about passing leftist gossip than discuss the burning issues of the day. I must say I very much agree with your judgement on this.
I think it's the sign of a mature political blog when it can sift valuable wheat from irrelevant chaff.
'I think it's the sign of a mature political blog when it can sift valuable wheat from irrelevant chaff.'
exeraxtly, who cares about tiny irrelevant sects and their intercine disputes.
meanwhile, the far right marches on
oh and the bonehead wing is far from dormant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7632507.stm
800 people at that gig, Frenetic. More than the turnout at the Convention of the Left this week. Just saying, like.
Dave -
Good post and I shall try and get a copy
However the concept of a 'revolutionary ideology of the right' is not the oxymoron that it initially sounds. Fascists depict their revolution as being an anthropological one, recreating a gemeinschaft of 'new men' or 'Political Soldiers', it is a revolution of the mind. They are arch-anti-materialists, seeing the materialism of Liberals and Socialists as part of a plot to mire society within anomie. Just because we on the left see this as as fallacious rationale does not mean it is not implicitly revolutionary. Indeed, the revolutions of the left are depicted in far-right narratives as descents into anarchic ammorality or merely another form of Jewish conspiracy and control.
Revolution is a piece of terminology that implies rapid change and disruption with the (immediate) past. The revoltuion of 1979 in Iran might not have massively altered economic ownership, but it was a massive change in political and cultural terms.
As for attempting rebellion, the Iron Guard (against the Carlist dictatorship and that of Antoneascu) and the Scythe Cross in Hungary were to try unsuccessfully but with a great deal of violence to overthrow right wing authoritarian regimes. The collaboration that the PNF and the NSDAP had with traditional elites in taking power might be interpreted better if compared to Radical and Liberal support of the Spanish and French Popular Fronts or the Kadet support of leftist prisoners and causes in the last years of Tsarist Russia.
There is a wider analysis of the European fascist movements and their new bid for legitimacy (via the Sorelian myth of Eurabia) in 'Eurofascism' by Øyvind Strømmen (ISBN 978-1-4303-1356-4) including a good deal about Griffin and the attempt by the BNP to become 'respectable'
'There is no reason to think it is lying, either; unlike some socialist groups, there is no evidence that it routinely inflates membership figures.'
Er, given fascists lie about everything else, one might have thought one should also take their membership figures with a pinch of salt. Remember Hitler's Nazis bagan printing membership cards at no. 500 to make it seem like they were bigger than they were. Its one thing for an academic to take the BNP at their word on stuff - the left should not however give up their critical faculties quite so easily.
Dave: this link to the book would be better (33 quid better, in fact): http://www.amazon.co.uk/Contemporary-British-Fascism-National-Legitimacy/dp/0230574378/
The British fascists are in power right now, you bunch of hippies! Gordon Brown is, quite frankly, a Bakhunin's trial away from becoming the next Stalin!
Hold on a minute, there's lots of internal strife within the BNP and within the far-right, so let's not get ahead of things. Already the BNP has had councillors go independent - wanting to be ethno-nationalists sans fascist baggage.
It might be worth asking how involved the membership of the BNP is in the activities of the party. Even if numbers are correct, does this mean active members or just people who have signed up, buy the paper, etc?
What's striking about the fascists today is that they are doing the other half of the propaganda for the wars in the Middle East and the increase in the big brother powers of the state with their Islamophobic rhetoric. And to think 20 years ago Griffin was bigging up Gadaffi and Louis Farrakhan...
Give it a rest Osler. Your tedious slagging off of Leftist organisations doesn't excuse or hide the fact that you voluntarily chose to join the Party overwhelmingly responsible for the votes the BNP re now getting. Where's your criticism of them? Where's your self criticism? What have you done in the last decade to stop the BNP or don't you consider yourself a Leftist now? Either say something constructive, stop your pathetic point scoring against socialists or shut the up. the fact that you get fulsome praise from AWL'ers says it all really - they don't belong to the Left any more either.
Excellent rant Dougie.
Are you a Daily Mail leader writer?
Yes Dougie. I abhor sectarianisn almost as much as I loathe the SWP, the AWL, the SPGB, the SP, the WRP, the CPB, Red Pepper, the Morning Star, Respect Rewenal, the ISG, the CPB (M-L), CPGB (M-L), CPGB, the New Communist Party, anarchists, Greens, the Labour Party, Solidarity, The SLP, the SSP and the Cornish nationalist hegemonists.
Here is a Web Blog that tells it like it is:
http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/
"as much as I loathe the SWP, the AWL, the SPGB, the SP, the WRP, the CPB, Red Pepper, the Morning Star, Respect Rewenal, the ISG, the CPB (M-L), CPGB (M-L), CPGB, the New Communist Party, anarchists, Greens, the Labour Party, Solidarity, The SLP, the SSP and the Cornish nationalist hegemonists. "
What's the punchline to that old IWW cartoon . . . "And he hates himself." ;-)
Good luck with the blog.
"I loathe the SWP, the AWL, the SPGB, the SP, the WRP, the CPB, Red Pepper, the Morning Star, Respect Rewenal, the ISG, the CPB (M-L), CPGB (M-L), CPGB, the New Communist Party, anarchists, Greens, the Labour Party, Solidarity, The SLP, the SSP and the Cornish nationalist hegemonists."
I'm sure you've missed out some folk, here. I assume you like the RCG, the RCPBML, A World To Win, etc. ;-)
Charlie,
Andrew missed out the JPF and the PFJ. ;-)
Darren
You're a splitter.
oh FFS talk about shoot the messenger . Its no good arguing the toss over membership numbers or whether the Bnp have internal disagreements. Look at what Dave is saying.the far right are gaining respectability.They are making the inroads in the working class that the left are failing to do.They have a seat on the GlA . And what did the left do?about 2000 people marched through empty London streets. Two groups fight fascism(and each other!)rather than work together.
Talk about avoiding the issue .its much easier to just argue amongst ourselves isnt it.
Hold on a minute, there's lots of internal strife within the BNP and within the far-right, so let's not get ahead of things. Already the BNP has had councillors go independent - wanting to be ethno-nationalists sans fascist baggage.
There was a small amount of internal strife about 9 months ago, this didn't stop the BNP winning a seat on the London Assembly. I'd be interested to know if you could point out any more recent internal strife and how you think this can damage the party's prospects.
Most of the BNP who left have now come crawling back, except Sadie Graham and she was dodgy anyway.
The chapter from the book dealing with Griffin's rebranding of the BNP is available online here: http://tinyurl.com/2x2cfd
I'd be curious to hear from those on the scene about the size of the BNP's following outside of England. Are they primarily an English phenomenon? Or can it be argued that they represent a movement in Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well?
Thanks for the review, I've ordered the book for the university library at which I work.