THE white working class forms the principle electoral base of the British National Party, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight. A large chunk of the left is going to hate these findings.
You see, such a thing really, really should not be happening. We all know that fascism represents the political expression of the most reactionary sections of finance capital, which deliberately seeks to mobilise a mass middle class base as a weapon of last resort against an insurgent labour movement, don’t they? Trotsky and Poulantzas told us that.
And besides, how dare the BNP tread on our turf? The left and the left alone articulates the real interests of workers, in this country as in all countries. They cannot turn to the far right in any number. That’s just impossible.
Well, not according to Searchlight. According to its polling, 61% of BNP voters fall into the C2DE categories on the standard scale of class, even though this layer constitutes just 45% of the population.
Like everybody else who thinks about class in Marxist terms, I have big difficulties with the sociology textbook index being used here. But forget any methodological quibbles; the message is clear enough. There is little point in denying that the BNP’s vote largely comes from the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled white workers.
Some socialists reject the very concept of a ‘white working class’- separate from the working class in general and with a distinct identity, often regarded as implicitly reactionary - out of hand. Indeed, it is important for the left to stress the common interest of all sectors of the exploited.
But simple observation suggests that outside of a relatively limited number of melting pot areas, an undeniable white working class cultural exists in many parts of Britain today. What is more, they are not usually shiny happy people.
Political commonsense over the last two decades has insisted that elections are won and lost in a small number of key marginals, and manifestoes have been geared exclusively to swing voter concerns.
If there are millions of ordinary people out there who think that New Labour has written them off as mere voting fodder with no viable electoral options, they are not far wrong. That, of course, potentially represents a colossal opening for the far right.
Let us avoid the all too frequent romanticisation of ’the workers’ to which upper-class and middle-class lefties are sometimes all too prone. It has always been the case that many proles are politically rightwing and viscerally racist. I don’t have to go outside some – a small minority, thankfully - of own family to know that.
On the other hand, there is something new in today’s situation, something different about today’s racism, that has made the growth of the BNP possible. It is no longer a racism based a deliberately-inculcated mass ideological basis for imperialism, which I noticed in an uncle sent to Korea in the early 1950s to shoot at gooks, for instance.
This is instead a racism rooted in the collapse of social housing, a racism born of the disappearance of blue collar employment and grassroots trade union organisation, a racism of benefit cuts, a racism centred on the perception that nobody in a position of authority really gives a shit. You might even want to call it a racism of desperation.
But whatever you call it, it is ugly and festering and dangerous, and Labour’s conscious decision to snub the white working class in favour of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman is no small part of the explanation. In her heart of hearts, I suspect many in the cabinet know that.
Posted at 14:31, 30 June 2009
Comments (41)
Watching the gap-year left and nepotic Guardianistas conflate 600k votes with the 40,000,000-plus working class as a whole ought to provide some queasy fun for those of us who take an interest in the elision-rich machinations of the entitled.
i don't understand what Scratch's post means
but I understand what GO means below...
"One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilisation it does not exist, but as a *positive* force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw... Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not."
'Why I write', George Orwell (p11, Penguin 'Great Ideas' edition)
Far LEFT, please Dave.
I've even shown you pictures, why do you persist in spreading the lie?
Jesus wept, even I'm bored by Obnoxio's trolling now.
"One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilisation it does not exist, but as a *positive* force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw... Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not."
I am inclined to view this as evidence that Orwell himself was nationalistically inclined, and assumed others were the same, or ought to be. His assumption that it was a "positive" force certainly seems odd to me.
What's wrong with simply calling them National Socialists - economically left wing, socially right wing? Ta da. The name blame game is solved...
"racism of desperation" sums it up very well in my view. No one really cares about immigrants if there are plenty of jobs and life is good - but when times change, immigrants are the first to be scapegoated.
LazyStudents,
'' National Socialists - economically left wing''
In Germany under the Nazis, Profits increased, wages fell and workers hours and conditions worsened. What is Left wing about that.?
"You see, such a thing really, really should not be happening. We all know that fascism represents the political expression of the most reactionary sections of finance capital, which deliberately seeks to mobilise a mass middle class base as a weapon of last resort against an insurgent labour movement, don’t they? Trotsky and Poulantzas told us that."
Youre confusing the analysis of the membership of the Nazi party with Nazi party voters. Trotsky didn't think the 44% of Germans were middle class. Also his analysis was not that the fascist movement represented the political expression of finance capital but that in a situation of desperation finance capital might swing behind a fascist movement in order to crush working class collective democratic organisations.
Time to dig out your old copy of FSAUF Dave. You seem a bit rusty.
I think you can also read the stats to show a clear shared space with the tories - 59% would prefer a Cameron government. Just less than half were from Labour-supporting households and the views are classic representations of the types of bloke we work with - typical tory voting loudmouths who have migrated further right.
The idea that these are disillusioned Labour voters is not borne out at all by these results. (I know that is not what you are saying here, Dave.) Add this to the fact that their voting numbers have not increased by much but were exaggerated as a proportion of the total vote by Labour abstainers and I wonder if we are not creating something that distracts from the reclamation of Labour - something that would not affect the number of folk turning out for the BNP, but would marginalise them?
Maybe it is just me, but I have read 3 analyses of this report now and they all push the same idea whereas I think the numbers are actually more interesting than that.
PS Dave - I understand you are ex-Wellingborough??? where we you when I was selling Militant outside the library in '85/86??? you could have doubled my sales!
They cannot turn to the far right in any number. That’s just impossible.
they aren't turning to the far right - look at the BNP manifesto - pure socialism, almost the same as the labour manifeto of the 80', and if you add the insane local houses/jobs for lcal people that bown is spouting the mesh is complete
Fascism/nazism have always been left wing collectivist ideolgies, its just the false dichotomy we have been sold that set the poles as communism/socialism nd fascism/nazism with our own collectivist set up being centre ground. When the real choice is collectivism of all hues and shades on one side and liberty on the other.
Dave,
Why is any of this surprising? This outcome was the prediction of Anti-Fascist Action 15 years ago and has been evident for years.
The worst advertisement for Libertarianism is its adherents.
It is no longer a racism based [upon?] a deliberately-inculcated mass ideological basis for imperialism, which I noticed in an uncle sent to Korea in the early 1950s to shoot at gooks, for instance.
The U.N.O. sponsored the 'police action' in Korea remember - officially it counted not as an imperialist war at all, although you like myself would no doubt challenge that characterization. You could alternatively look at Britain's actions during the 1950s in Kenya, Malaysia, Iran, Yemen, Egypt etc.
Personally, I believe that Britain's recent involvement in two wars within its former colonial stomping grounds has contributed to the rise of the BNP as a political force. Popular anti-Muslim sentiment and the perception of them lurking as an enemy within the body politic encouraged by the state and its supporters in the media meshed quite well with the traditional fascist message.
We officially invaded Iraq to get rid of an evil Muslim dictator and teach the natives how to live like good, English speaking, white, civilized, democratic people. They'd obviously failed in the post-colonial era at self-government and required remedial lessons from their natural superiors. Britain lifts the white man's burden onto the shoulders of its subjugated coolies once again. This neo-imperialist vision powers the demand that local Muslims adapt to our customs and ways or else (they'll do it abroad so they must do it at home). If you can't reason with Muslim or Arab leaders abroad how can you here at home?
The de-industrialization of Britain must have contributed something to the toxic mix. The sudden, very visible prescence of Muslims wearing Muslim tradtional garb and making all sorts of demands tha strain at teh social fabric, the constant belittling of the British working class by people who feel themselves superior, the total bankruptcy of the political class and the supra-national organisations that appear to control our lives. I said once before on this site that fascism is due to the failure of social democracy and I still think that is the case. I don't know if Fellow Traveller is making a serious point or being an arse. I must say though that as a white European brought up in a rationalist tradition, I do find cultures where people cannot pull together and get on with their neighbour rather strange and do wonder what is the matter with such people, don't they like law and order?
"I do find cultures where people cannot pull together and get on with their neighbour rather strange and do wonder what is the matter with such people, don't they like law and order?"
What the fuck are you on about here Sue?
Sue R:
"The sudden, very visible prescence of Muslims wearing Muslim tradtional garb and making all sorts of demands tha strain at teh social fabric, the constant belittling of the British working class by people who feel themselves superior, the total bankruptcy of the political class and the supra-national organisations that appear to control our lives."
Oh yea? And quite what are those 'demands' that 'strain on the social fabric'?
Ugly stuff, I think.
...and Labour’s conscious decision to snub the white working class in favour of Mondeo Man and Worcester Woman is no small part of the explanation. In her heart of hearts, I suspect many in the cabinet know that.
And in your heart of hearts you know they did it on purpose, as part of an explicit strategy. They couldn't give a toss - worse, they actively hate white working class people. Sometimes born out of a fear of an organised working class, other times out of shame for their own roots. And the result is that a political elite has evolved (as in Italy during the 1990s) that is of and for itself. And itself alone.
I echo Duncan's point, but closer to home, you need to bear in mind that the Left are often *seen* as part of the political elite, detached from reality, embedded in abstracts and thus not connecting to the working classes.
When you got a large chunk of the British Left that talks *at* people, not with them, then you aren't going to influence things.
I think John Sullivan explained it years back.
I suspect many in working class constituencies can no longer identify with the New Labour candidates that have been parachuted in. The shortlists have not worked either. The most unrepresented group amongst Labour MPs seems to be working class people who have not been to a fee paying school and who have not been to university and it's getting worse. Our New Labour MPs do not come from and do not live on the estates where these people are living. If we want to fight the BNP for support the party must not try to parachute in the likes of Georgia Gould but go for good local members who are already fighting local issues.
Where do the remains of the revolutionary left fit in this conflict - I suspect nowhere.
SueR is a very ugly white-supremacist indeed;
"I must say though that as a white European brought up in a rationalist tradition, I do find cultures where people cannot pull together and get on with their neighbour rather strange and do wonder what is the matter with such people, don't they like law and order?
"
'Fascism/nazism have always been left wing collectivist ideolgies, its just the false dichotomy we have been sold that set the poles as communism/socialism nd fascism/nazism with our own collectivist set up being centre ground'
I do love this particualr gambit. I like to call it the libertarian dye job. Consider how it basically makes the 'right' (that is an a-historic fallacy, eternally 'small government, pro-liberty' blah blah blah) entirely absence from the 20th century.
'So what were the right doing globally inbetween 1914-1973?'
'Erm....Churchill....and....errrrr....Reagan....and.......'
'Hindenburg, Carol II, Antonescu, Hirohito, Salazzar, Junger, Evola, Benoit'
'Errrr....kettle, must get kettle'
'You'll be back, right?'
'Kettle!'
'cos we might discuss the formidable rightist roots of statism in the 19th century as well?'
(receding into the distance) 'Kettle!'
Is this really a surprise?
I'm a little young to remember it, but surely Enoch Powell's supporters were working class, as were those of the NF in the seventies. They've re-emerged from wherever they were in the last twenty years or so - the "are you thinking what we're thinking" faction of the Tories, would be my guess - and they and their kids are now BNP voters.
It's pretty horrifying that people would vote fascist in the modern era, but not exactly surprising. Britain's always had a small support base for the far right, it's just a matter of who they tick the box for, and now it's Nick Griffin who's floating their boat.
As for what to do about it, well, the choice is between a) coming up with policies that are sufficiently racist to entice them back to the mainstsream parties or b) making rude hand gestures at them and telling them to Foxtrot Oscar.
Interesting discussion over at Socialist Unity on the meaning of these figures. No-one can work out the meaning of the 'Labour households' point as all other surveys indicate that the bulk of the vote is working class Tories switching to the BNP (it might indicate that people were born in Labour households). The second puzzling thing was the enourmous proportion who stated that they believed that Jews were involved in a conspiracy to control the world (generalised from the BNP vote this would indicate that 300,000 people in Britain are hardcore Nazies). These things made many a little wary about the sampling methods.
Dave is mistaken in stating that the poll was commissioned by Searchlight. It was carried out by YouGov itself and the results were first released through Channel 4 on 8 June, along with an article by Peter Kellner misrepresenting the findings.
As some comments posted at Socialist Unity have pointed out, by underlining the importance of racist ideology as a mobilising force among BNP voters the poll in fact undermined Searchlight's traditional crude economic-reductionist line, which dismissed racist views as merely the ideological superstructure of material deprivation.
There is a good short analysis of the YouGov poll, which implicitly criticises the traditional Searchlight position, by Anindya Bhattacharyya of Unite Against Fascism in Socialist Worker.
The sad truth is that Labour don't give a **** about the working class any more. Tony Blair dragged the party towards the private sector and it has never looked back. Now they have lost the support of the private sector as well.
You should also add 'fury about immigration' to the list of reasons why the BNP are coming up trumps, as this is their main weapon against the mainstream parties.
If you live in Cloud Cuckoo Land, of course everyone is happy and there are no social tensions. Isn't capitalism wonderful! Are Andy, Lobby and Paddy hoping for a job at Press TV?
Fellow Traveller's take is interesting - I think it is largely correct.
Several things are coming together. De-industrialisation in Britain, creating a large dispossessed class whose "indigenous" element can be whipped up with variations on "the asylum seekers/Muslims/bloody foreigners are to blame!" This is against the background of a weak left and trade union movement, and a spectacularly rootless, pro-business Labour Party that spits on its traditional support.
Add to that dubious foreign wars, mainly against Muslim countries, and the need to shore up support for them with appeals to combat "the enemy within".
Last and not least - the collapse of the USSR etc. created a vacuum for a "Western" military-industrial complex which needed an Enemy to justify its funding, activities and so forth. If Bin Laden did not exist, he would have had to be created.
All these things are coming together in a toxic mixture.
SueR
Please do not try to obscure your open racism by hiding behind the code words of "social tensions"
I would think you could give some real personal insight into a discussion of former Labour supporters who now find themselves agreeing with the BNP
The Trotskyist Left have most things wrong, so whats new, the IWCA formerly Red Action/AFA, etc predicted all this in a briefing document in 1995, yet were derided as 'racists' by the 19th C left, chickens and roosting comes to mind...
latest comment
http://www.iwca.info/?p=10141
'Sue R
Please do not try to obscure your open racism by hiding behind the code words of "social tensions"
I would think you could give some real personal insight into a discussion of former Labour supporters who now find themselves agreeing with the BNP
Posted by andy newman | 11:54, 1 July 2009
Andy Newman,
Sue I'm sure can defend herself but you and your partys obsession and indeed much of the Left's obsession with 'identity politics' and its abandonment of working class issues in favour of issues like Iraq which it has no real control over has also been a driver of these changes. The Left may be miniscule but the SWP, etc and the various fronts do know how to get their mesage across on the media,etc, to date these messages have not been about housing, welfare, jobs, pensions, the NHS, but instead, anti-imperialism, migrant rights/racism, the veil, etc.
"to date these messages have not been about housing, welfare, jobs, pensions, the NHS, but instead, anti-imperialism, migrant rights/racism, the veil, etc."
And whats wrong with that? Aren't these class issues as well? They cut across all sections of the working class and are just as important as health, housing, jobs, pensions, etc. Or are you saying that those whose origins are from outside Britain aren't part of the working class?
Sue's language is a tad Daily Mail-ish and she seems prone to essentialising about the Muslims, but resorting to calling her a white supremacist seems ridiculous. Do the SWP have anything to say on integration? (Not that the rest of the left has much to contribute, mind)
"Or are you saying that those whose origins are from outside Britain aren't part of the working class?"
I think that many people do not consider themselves to have a class identity in modern Britain, and the trend towards cultural/communitarian politics especially amongst ethnic minorities is being encouraged by people who really should know better - i.e. us on the left.
I'm not an ugly white supremecist, I'm actually very beautiful and often get mistaken for Sophia Loren when I go out. I'm sitting here now, Andy, in a silky burqua, tht clins to my naked body beneath ....and I'm hot, hot, hot.... I think I'll take it off....I'm sliding it upwards over my long legs ....(continued next week).
Incidentally, this is one voice (neda) that will not be stilled.
Surely it's Brigitte Bardot you get mistaken for?
IWCA supporter,
I agree with what you're saying (in fact, if you scroll up I basically said in my first comment what you said) but do you think the IWCA is the best way to politically challenge and replace the BNP in working class areas?
The IWCA gave been precise and accurate in outlining the problem and predicting what would happen but less successful in providing the solutions. A decade after the IWCA was formed the failures of the '19th century left' are your failures as well.
The IWCA gave been precise and accurate in outlining the problem and predicting what would happen but less successful in providing the solutions.
The solutions are entirely straightforward; direct democracy and the consequent disempowering of class interests be they in the town hall, in the plod, on Fleet Street or behind the bench...unless of course, one believes that the average punter is a raving Nazi.
I have not sustained the sun damage to my skin that Ms Bardot has, also, I am not a fascist like her.
Sorry why are people joking with someone who is clearly a racist?
I think someone doesn't see the difference between "religion" (and criticism thereof) and "race" (and racism).
No wonder the SWP are as successful as they are.
I don't know if Fellow Traveller is making a serious point or being an arse.
Like all wannabe revolutionaries, I do both simultaneously.
Sorry why are people joking with someone who is clearly a racist?
The reference to Bardot was supposed to underline the fact that Sue R is, indeed, a racist. It was intended more as sarcastic ridicule than a joke. I'm afraid this is a habit I picked up from reading Trotsky.
As long as you don't pick up his habits of wearing yellow shoes or white leather uniforms, it shouldn't be too much of a problem, Anon.