Fashwatch is Back
Posted on 18. Dec, 2009 by fashwatch in Anti Fascists
When we closed this site for business a little over 2 years ago the internal rifts within the BNP were threatening to tear the party in two. Since then those particular rifts have been unceremoniously ironed out, the BNP have two MEPs and their leader Nick Griffin has appeared amongst other hapless bureaucrats on the BBC’s Question Time.
We’ve also witnessed the return of nationalists to our streets with the BNP influenced English Defence League taking their crusade against Muslims to cities around England, Scotland and Wales.
The recession has seen a right shift in politics with race, religion and immigration taking an all too prominent place in political discourse. We’ve had religious fundamentalists appearing on GMTV and right wing football hooligans roaming our streets, looking for confrontation with Asian youth and increasingly any anti-fascist who opposes them.
It is in this climate of rising jingoism and the continuing normalisation of the divisive politics of the BNP that Fashwatch has been re-launched but the purpose this time is subtly different.
The Original Fashwatch
When we first appeared we were distributing stickers asking for information on fascist activity and saying this was to be passed onto Antifa and other militant antifascist groups. This wasn’t the entire truth about our activities.
When information we received concerned a specific area it was passed on to a relevant group and we published the email addresses of various groups at their request so information could be passed directly. It was clear to us though that any information given to us anonymously by email was virtually impossible to verify and probably less than worthless. The BNP and other groups of course could not be sure what was being passed to us and what resources we had to analyse it. What we aimed to create and did so quite successfully was a time sponge for the BNP during local elections. The resources of the first incarnation of Fashwatch were entirely focused on producing and distributing stickers. More than 10,000 were sent all over the UK. This gave the impression we were a much larger and well-resourced organisation than we really were.
During the 2007 local elections we were at our most active. In Birmingham over 1000 thousand stickers went up around the city between March and May. The BNP instead of concentrating on their election effort were organising patrols to find us and worrying themselves about what information we had been passed. In streets where we knew a BNP activist lived we made sure a large number of stickers were displayed. That we already knew they were there didn’t seem to occur to them, we diverted them from winning elections with scary looking bits of plastic.
With the emergence of the leaked BNP membership lists the personal details of BNP activists are now more widely available than ever before and anyone can, if so inclined, use those details.
The New Fashwatch.
It is clear now at the end of 2009 that traditional forms of antifascism have failed. Tactics such as distributing propaganda and organising mass protests employed by the UAF have had no discernable effect on the trajectory of the BNP and while the militant form advocated by Antifa has achieved small victories in some areas this approach clearly has it’s limits and obvious drawbacks.
What is required is a new approach, or maybe an old approach depending on how you look at it. An article in Red Pepper recently titled Antifascism isn’t Working laid out a realistic assessment of the current situation and more importantly how best to proceed. In a nutshell the model of exposing the BNP and it’s leaders past should be replaced by exposing the ineffectiveness of their policies in tackling social problems and building alternatives. Paul Stott in a speech Giving up No Platform to the Anarchist Book Fair this year argued for the same approach.
It is as part of this current of thought that Fashwatch has been re-launched. Again we’re asking for details of fascist activity in your area but this time we don’t want names or phone numbers. We want details of their political activity, what they’re doing to win votes and the arguments they’re using.
In our section on antifascists we want to detail grass roots organisations that are working in their areas to improve conditions and that have an antifascist stance such as Haringey Solidarity and the IWCA and less well known groups such as the Pits n Pots a radical news site in Stoke on Trent and the Hereford Heckler.
The aim is to use Fashwatch as a resource for analysing the BNP and other far right groups and opposition to them. To look at the initiatives that have been employed by local groups who are opposed to the BNP. What has been successful and what has been less than successful.
Sorry, but the “Red Pepper” article was literally delusional, and if anyone on the British left was really dumb enough to believe the arguments put forward in that article then it’s hardly surprising that the BNP are in a position to spend so much time gloating over what they trumpet as the failure of the British left. In order to succeed in anything, you need to objectively analyse relevant facts. If you want to fail (as the left has been failing for decades) then ignore those facts. The election of 2 BNP MEPs was a disaster, but the Euro 2009 election still proved that 94% of the UK electorate actively oppose the BNP – so, to argue on that basis that strategies that previously discouraged around 98% of voters from supporting the BNP have “failed” because they now only work at 94% efficiency is objectively totally illogical, factually false, politically irresponsible and dangerous. Clearly (for reasons that are too complicated to go into here) these strategies don’t work as well as they used to and that IS alarming. Novel strategies do therefore need to be discussed, devised, tested and implemented, but it really is a no-brainer to say that novel strategies can be applied ALONGSIDE the same strategies that still effectively discourage the overwhelming majority of UK citizens from ever having anything to do with the BNP.
The ************ is being used by fascists, the Jobbik Party for meetings. The landlord, ******** supports the nazis.
We’ve edited out the details of the pub name and landlords name. It isn’t useful to post that info here mate, it’s not what we’re about.
UK Fightback, to our minds the more traditional antifascist tactics, being disconnected from everyday life as they are are more novel than the approach that we are advocating. Also why do you think that “94% of the UK electorate actively oppose the BNP”?
What’s active?
Great, concerted effort to stop the fash, so where do we send info to?
Email us. info at fashwatch.org
where do we post info about fash meeting points
As it says mate they’re not so much interested in where they are meeting but rather what they are doing, i’d suggets passing such information onto Antifa directly.
To reply to Fashwatch’s question – why do I think that 94% of the UK electorate actively oppose the BNP? Because, as I already said in the comment that you were responding to, that’s the proportion of Euro 2009 voters who actively voted AGAINST the BNP
To reply to Fashwatch, obviously I apologise for not parroting the Antifa party-line as regards the definition of the word “active” (yes, actively voting against the BNP is still “active”), but if you want to know why I think 94% of the UK electorate actively oppose the BNP just re-read my original comment.
To explain that comment, just 6% of Euro 2009 voters supported the BNP, 100% minus 6% = 94%. That means 94% of UK voters actively voted against the BNP (and, factoring in non-voters, the proportion that passively opposed the BNP is even higher).
As regards more Antifa-friendly definitions of the word “active”, I have great respect for anyone who has the courage to take on the BNP, but it’s worth remembering it was an alleged act of left-wing terrorism (the burning of the Reichstag) that gave Hitler the pretext to abolish democracy in Germany in 1933, and in many cases the BNP gain more from being physically attacked than they lose and the BNP is absolutely desperate for more martyrs – please don’t give them any
I have been on some EDL marches and have heard from some EDL supporters more that once, words along the lines of -once we have sorted out islam4uk, the teachers who are brainwashing our kids are next!-
I have one question for you. Why are the left so full of hate?
Sam, are you saying that the EDL are influenced by the research of Bowles and Gintis and are planning on campaigning against social conditioning in the classroom? This sounds like quite a leap from getting pissed in Weatherspoons and singing God Save the Queen, but it’s an interesting development.
I’ve got a feeling that i might not fit into your definition of “the left”, who are you referring to and who are they hating?
Nice post. Thanks for the interesting information!
Great blog! Looking forward to receiving new posts!
I’ve only just come across ‘FashWatch’, is this thing still going?
Are you organising around the Bradford EDL thing planned for August Bank Holiday?
We are still here mate, just been having a bit a bit of a break. If the EDL do go ahead with a march in Bradford i’m sure they’ll get the same treatment the BNP got when they went there a few years back, but i also expect they’ll leave an even bigger mess than the BNP did because this is what they want.