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NC members debate LRC statement on EDL

Andrew Fisher
31st August 2011 at 22:22
4 comments

The LRC put out a statement earlier this week to mobilise people against the EDL in Tower Hamlets on 3 September. It also criticised the tactic of calling for a ban on the EDL march.

Below two NC members with contrasting views debate the issues:

Sarah Evans: I’ve just read the LRC EDL statement and I’m quite concerned.

Aside from disagreeing with this statement on the ban, it’s the sectarian comments about Hope Not Hate which are very unhelpful and divisive.

I can see the argument for and against banning the EDL marching - I think on balance I’d agree with banning them, to protect vulnerable people in the east end who could get hurt, and to help build the movement against the EDL.

Of course the political campaigning needs to happen too.

However, the point about not banning could have been made in a less sectarian way - it’s just so not the LRC’s style to write stuff like this….........

I’m surprised to see an LRC statement publicly having a go at Hope not Hate, rather than sticking to the arguments.

Andrew Fisher: I think to say the comments about HNH are sectarian and divisive is a bit strong. We only mention them once and that’s to say they got their tactics wrong and need some internal democracy. The view of the EC was that - as a tactical question - we should not ask the state or the police to ban marches (for the reasons we set out).

The vast majority of the feedback so far has been positive.

It would have been nigh on impossible to make that statement and not mention HNH, since they campaigned for and then celebrated the result: a 30 day ban for all marches across 5 London boroughs. These questions need to be debated as does democracy within the anti-fascist movement – sorry if you think we got the tone wrong though.

Sarah Evans: Thanks for your reply and I’m sorry if you think I was being a bit harsh.

Has there been any discussion with HNH? Surely if anything is a bit harsh it is the sweeping reference to its ‘tactical failings’ when it has built a major campaign in recent years and has scored major successes against the fascists? I still feel that this language against HNH is counterproductive and divisive at a time when maximum unity is needed.

And are we really arguing that we shouldn’t be putting demands on the bourgeois state? How can it be wrong for a community to ask the police that they be protected from the violence of the EDL? In the real world it is the east-end communities who would have borne the brunt. Do we not call the police when we are burgled or assaulted?!

HNH’s petition has many precedents – not least the Battle of Cable Street: ALL the community organisations, including left parties, the Workers’ Circle and other Jewish organisations, petitioned for Mosley’s BUF march to be banned – they collected over 100,000 signatures. Are we arguing that the left was wrong to do this? It was the failure of the state to ban Mosley’s march that helped the movement to mobilise so many people so successfully against them.

We wouldn’t have any race-relations legislation (however flawed and badly policed) if the movement hadn’t made demands on the state, and it was demands on the state in the US, backed by a mass movement that won an end to segregation.

This is not to have any illusions about the nature of the state, or naively to expect the state to fight our battles for us – but putting demands on the state has always been a part of our campaigning – including, for example, putting pressure on the state to reverse its decision over the Siemens train contract, or not closing the UCS shipyards.

Why is this any different?

The fact that the state has responded with a blanket ban doesn’t make the demand wrong.

Of course we need to defeat fascism politically, but if we are serious about a position of ‘no platform for fascists’ we must include calling for their violent manifestations to be banned, as well as banning them by force of popular mobilisation: would we argue against a local council banning the use of its halls for fascist meetings?

In short the call for a ban and campaigning and mobilising against the fascists are not mutually exclusive, but rather are mutually complementary – and can indeed lead to a clearer understanding of the coercive nature of the state.

Andrew Fisher: You raise some really good points, and I think the LRC should discuss this.

Obviously my comments are only mine personally and not necessarily those of the EC, but in response to your points:

HNH has done some excellent work in exposing the true nature of the BNP and EDL, and in mobilising people against fascism. However, there is also a need to offer a political alternative which obviously as a broad-based campaign HNH cannot do or endorse. That’s where political organisations – including the LRC – need to step up and provide the political alternative.

However in asking for a ban on the march – and celebrating the ban as a campaign victory – it demobilises people, and does nothing to remove the fascist threat. The EDL can still hold a static demo in Tower Hamlets, but many people will not now mobilise for the counter-demo thinking the battle has been won. The fact that the state, as predicted by many, reacted by banning all marches is a defeat for the left (at a time when we need to mobilise people against cuts).

Of course we make appeals to the state; but to give us more power over the state and employers (e.g. the race relations act, as you say), not to give the state more power over us – that is a fundamental difference. I’m not an anarchist, but I am a libertarian. I don’t want to give the state more authoritarian power over our civil liberties. Many people whose neighbourhoods or estates were disrupted by young people with nothing to do supported ASBOs and dispersal orders, the left did not. It’s a difficult argument if gangs are scaring people, but authoritarian powers won’t solve the problem.

As you say with the Battle of Cable Street, it was the community that successfully mobilised against it. The state didn’t act in our interests then and it hasn’t now (by banning all marches). You could equally read that lesson from the history too – but I take your point.

A local council is a political space we control (if a Labour council) and I would argue against hiring out a council building to fascists. The police are a semi-independent arm of the state, with little political accountability. The streets are all of ours. These are separate spheres to some extent, although I accept it’s more nuanced than that. To be clear though, I’m not (and the LRC statement did not) pushing an absolute free speech line.

The question is tactical – and therefore should be openly debated – my question is: ‘is there space in the anti-fascist organisations for those questions to be debated and voted upon?’

Sarah Evans: I agree that HNH as a single-issue, broad anti-fascist campaign cannot offer the political alternative to capitalism that political parties can, but this is a side-issue to the discussion in hand: your view is that HNH was wrong to seek a ban on the EDL march, and mine is that it was right.

You say that HNH’s campaign has a demobilising effect, but the context of EDL march is that of a provocative and almost certainly violent rampage through an east-end community, and it is not for us to say that that community does not have the right to say we don’t want that to happen here, and the HNH call chimed with that local sentiment.

Many might say that ‘demobilising’ people for this particular event is exactly what is needed – but if you mean that HNH is demobilising people politically in the longer term I couldn’t disagree with you more: the campaign has mobilised thousands in a way that has done serious damage to the fascists, particularly the BNP.

Nobody has said that banning the march would ‘remove the fascist threat’, but it may well serve to avoid seeing many people injured or worse on that day. Yes, the EDL is able to hold a static demo on the day, as indeed are we, but there is now less likelihood of a bloodbath outside the East London Mosque.

Similarly, no-one is claiming that “the battle has been won”, only a small but significant victory in what is an ongoing struggle. It may well be that fewer people turn up, but that will cut both ways.

Yes, it is a loss for the left that all marches have been banned, and we need to campaign to reverse the ban on democratic organisations, but the fact that the state responded in that fashion is not HNH’s fault and doesn’t make seeking the ban wrong – and it underlines the political battle that remains to be fought to win people to an understanding that fascist organisations are illegitimate and anti-democratic.

If we stopped ourselves demanding things of the bourgeois state because it might respond in a contrary way we would stifle ourselves politically – and that really would have a demobilising effect.

Of course I don’t want to see the state take away our civil liberties, but I am serious about ensuring that fascist organisations are denied a platform whenever and wherever possible: fascist organisations are illegitimate and have no rights.

It is slightly perverse to argue against seeking a ban on a violent fascist demonstration in order to preserve democratic rights: I’m not sure that many people in the East End would see it that way!

You cannot possibly liken a call for a ban on a fascist organisation terrorising a community with our opposition to ASBOs, which are an oppressive judicial instrument against individuals who are as much victims of dead-end capitalism as those who complain about them.

I have no illusions about the coercive power of the state, but we need to recognise that things are a bit more complex than suggesting that we can squeeze nothing at all from it – it’s all about relative strength (and of course the capitalist state becomes a lot more interested in fascism when it perceives that it is losing its grip on power).

Of course we still need a political campaign to address the issues that have provided a breeding ground for the EDL and BNP: jobs, council housing, education, healthcare – all the things that are under attack by the coalition, and all the things that the LRC campaigns for.

Finally, I’m not sure about your fine distinction of a labour council being “a space we control”: does this mean you would not support a Tory council banning fascists from its premises, or demand that it did? I’d also take issue with your description of the police as ‘semi-independent’, but let’s not go there now…

Andrew Fisher: Sarah, you say that by banning the march we have a avoided a potential bloodbath. I don’t think that’s true. Let’s look at what is happening now on the day:

A UAF activist found this on the EDL Facebook page:

“Tower Hamlets demo is NOT banned. What they have done is banned our ‘march’ but we WILL still have a static demo.

“Remember that we have to walk to ‘muster points’ and from those muster points we have to walk to the demo area. Makes no difference what way you look at it, we will still be marching in Tower Hamlets next Saturday.”

So as before the EDL will be marching in Tower Hamlets with a heavy police presence. If the march had gone ahead as planned the police would still have been there in force, they still will need to be. What’s changed?

HNH pursued the ban not because that is what the community decided through democratic decision processes but because that is their pre-conceived strategy - and of course people signed up to opposing the EDL - who wouldn’t? - but I doubt HNH were telling people the consequences of ‘banned’ marches in Leicester or Telford: a police protected EDL ‘march’ from designated muster points to designated ‘static’ demo area - and violence anyway from breakaways.

What did those bans gain practically?

And what have they lost? Today Theresa May announced an extension of the ban to the City of London (a sixth London borough)- effectively banning the protest against the DSEi arms fair.

So has this ban worked even on its own terms?

It’s not a sectarian intervention to critique the tactic of an anti-fascist organisation. To say this damages unity is not true. We are united in our opposition to fascism, to racism, to homophobia - we remain indivisible from all anti-fascists on those points. But the tactic of calling for marches to be banned needs discussion and debate - and a democratic structure to make a decision.

Finally, we on the Labour left (and the left more widely) should all approach this with some humility (one failing of the LRC statement is that it didn’t emphasise this point) - it is the failure of Labour to represent working class people that has opened the space for the far right to grow.

The labour and trade union movement must work to represent all working class people and provide a credible political alternative to the division and bigotry of the far right. Again we’re united on that, I hope.