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23
March 2006: 'working-class' fascism
An
interesting email from Doug Lowe, who writes:
"A few thoughts off the cuff re the susceptibility of certain
sections of the working class to fascist 'ideas'. Electoral
patterns are obviously a very useful pointer - even though
fascists have traditionally hidden/toned down their ultimate
intentions behind a 'patriotic' facade we must assume that voting
for them constitutes a particular mindset at that point."
"A general point - fascism as the ideology of despair and
nostalgia - back to a time of relative job certainty/sense of
workplace/social solidarity, now gone. The presence or proximity
of visible non-white people 'merely' provides an immediate, local
and tangible, 'target' for that despair/nostalgia but is not
necessary the catalyst."
"For instance, NF votes in Coventry reached nowhere near the
large levels reached in Leicester. Coventry had a comparable sized
'immigrant' population but still had a creaking but viable car
industry and a history of trade union militancy. In Leicester
there was less tradition of active trade unionism and a widespread
hosiery trade in rapid decline (with an obvious 'foreign' reason
to identify - cheaper clothes from abroad)."
"Lancashire - a persistent tradition exists here of working
class Toryism going back to the 19th century (imperialism,
destruction of Indian cotton industry competition etc). Add to
this decline of cotton (and other?) industries with little history
of trade union activity. In certain parts of East London, the
traditions of working class xenophobia/Mosleyite fascism."
"What about areas with little history of immigration? Why the
BNP (and UKIP) vote in Boston? Sure, the area has no history of
trade union struggle and a generally inactive/right wing Labour
Party. But the West Country contains all these ingredients
and the BNP are barely on the radar here."
"Question: what role do you think the relative skills
required in the jobs lost/threatened has on subsequent
susceptibility to fascism? My theory about traditions of trade
union militancy looks a bit iffy in the case of the 2005 BNP vote
in former Yorkshire mining areas, once bastions of trade union
militancy. Is there are difference in the voting patterns where
there was localised pit militancy/strong trade union organisation
and places where this was traditionally weaker anyway? Then again,
the BNP have never made any kind of headway in South Wales."
"How important is the role of anti-fascists? Have their
'successes' been mainly a reflection of the depth of existing
roots of working class/trade union activism/militancy? In other
words, it's likely to more effective having working class
militants with existing credibility and respect from their
workmates arguing the case against fascism, rather than a student
giving out leaflets outside."
"In general, can we talk of general factors nationally or are
unique mixes of local factors the key? If there are relatively
large votes for fascists in some places and not in others with a
similar 'demographic' profile this suggests the primacy of other
factors."
The following is the gist of what I wrote back:
It's hard to generalise from electoral patterns given that the
BUF made almost no electoral interventions before it was closed
down in 1940.
I agree that you can have racism without black people, but I think
there is something significant about the Europe-wide process of
the post-war right adopting immigration as a central concern (to
the partial exclusion of class).
Working-class Toryism has been important in market-town
Lancashire, but this was also a base of other traditions,
including in the 1890s the ILP and in the 1930s Labour and the CP.
(Remember that CLR James was so impressed by the working-class
socialism of the people of Nelson that he was converted by them to
Marxism). I'd be interested in a sociological explanation which
would explain why Preston has been a base for Respect, while
Burnley has gone the other way.
I'm not sure that the BNP is doing best in ex-mining areas - more around
Leeds / Bradford - ie dispersed white former textile areas. When I was in
Sunderland, people talked about the BNP doing well in former mining areas
- and the BNP has been trying to tap into this since - it's hard to tell
how solid that is.
In terms of London, Christopher Husbands once tried to map a far-right
vote, the problem is that it jumped from Shoreditch to Bethnal Green to
Hackney to Tower Hamlets and is now located in Barking - in London terms,
these areas include the upward- and the downwardly-mobile, poor areas,
'middle-class' areas, the city centre, the suburbs, areas of high and low
migration.
I do think within the towns where the BNP has done best these have tended
to be middle-sized towns rather than cities (witness the relocation of the
BNP from Bradford to Keighley), they tend to be relative affluent wards in
relatively poor towns, they tend to be areas of low migration, but which
sometimes border areas of low-medium migration, the population density is
not high, and these do tend to be towns with a tradition of working-class
Tory voting with some spectacular exceptions.
But even here, I'd say that they key issue is just as much the degree of
popular hostility - from the political parties and from networks such as
working men's clubs and trade unions, where the latter are a barrier, the
BNP tends not to reinforce gains, where the latter have been more
permeable, the BNP has done well.
I've also written about some of the questions elsewhere:
Explaining the success of
the British National Party (BNP) 1999-2003
Fascism
and the Extreme Right: reading list
Fascism
and the Extreme Right: lecture notes
14
March 2006: Fascism and the British Labour Movement
Cercles,
a French journal of English studies has just published a very thorough review of the collection I published with Nigel Copsey on fascism
and the labour movement. 'It is a pity sometimes,' the review begins,
'that the Notes on Contributors found in most academic collections should
not mention dates of birth. In the volume under review, we have a few
clues, though, since we learn that one took his Ph.D. in 2000 and two
others in 2002. Why should that be important? Because it confirms one’s
impression when reading the book that there is a (welcome) generation gap
in the approach to Fascism and the discussion of the attitude of the
working class to it.' More here. While
I think the reviewer Antoine Capet tends if anything to criticise the
book's distance from older Communist-influenced narratives (with their
implausible assumption that the workers must always be socialist), he is right
entirely to see the book as a product of the left and in particular of arguments sparked
by the BNP votes of the last 6 years.
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