Choudhary’s video rather gives the game away – they all need each other. The EDL is a fantastic gift to SWP-UAF as they can put aside their total inability to deal with the rise of the BNP and pretend it is the 1970’s again and they are the ANL fighting the NF. The EDL is exactly what Choudhary’s ‘Sharia Roadshow’ is designed to provoke and of course the sight of Trots and Islamists shouting violently on the streets is what the EDL wanted.
It’s all rather silly isn’t it? Except of course that when you take politics on to the street, especially highly-charged racial/religious politics, with football yobs on one side and nutballs yelling about ‘kuffar’ on the other – there is always the chance that it really does spill over into violence – and high-profile violence captured by the tv cameras as well. That of course runs the risk of increasing tension in areas with significant Muslim populations. Which is, I suspect what the EDL’s masterminds, the SWP and Anjam Choudhary would all like.
All extremist organisations know that their best chance of growing comes in situations of polarisation and tension – for the far right it is their ‘race war’ fantasy, for Choudhary and co it is the impending clash between “Muslim v Kafir’ and for the SWP it is the ever-so exciting state of ‘resistance’ or rebellion.
Sensible people should avoid assisting them in their fantasy role-playing.
Having spent a decent amount of time around the UAF crowd at university, what always struck me was the lack of any strategic vision. Street violence and trouble-making are elevated to the highest form of political activity in an orgy of self-validation. It doesn’t matter that every brick, egg, hammer and punch thrown boosts the BNP’s vote-share; what matters is that one participated in a public act of revolt. The onanistic nature of such counter-productive activity need not be stated.
John Denham is right to refer to the 1930s when he talks about the English Defence League, but it’s worth looking at what he actually said: the EDL seek to provoke a response in a manner virtually identical to that of the Islamist. Providing that response in the knee-jerk manner of UAF simply adds fuel to the fire.
One should also remember that the Nazis’ rise to power was not as simple as the Brownshirts marching around unchallenged; in the final democratic elections of the Weimar Republic, German society was massively polarised along ideologically extremist lines. The SA was seen as much as a response to the actions of Communist militias as it was a threat in its own right. Although one could argue that at that time there was little choice but to meet the threat with violence as a matter of basic self-defence, modern British society is fundamentally different from that of inter-war Germany, with an establishment, particularly within the police, army and judiciary, that harbours no sympathy for the far-right in any form. In that scenario extrajudicial violence has no justification whatsoever, and is simply counter-productive.
Unfortunately, so long as the self-gratifying tactics of “resistance” are venerated above hard strategic and political thinking about how to actually defeat the far right, no progress is going to be made.
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