An Analysis of the Hope Not Hate Campaign In Barking and Dagenham - By Glyn Rhys

One thing I hope to extend, both on this site and another I am developing over the Summer, is an invitation to a series of guest writers. Oddly enough there seems to be a few people out there who think like me, and it is time to give them an airing. 

In the article below Glyn Rhys considers events in outer east London. His arguments are in a way familiar - I can recall similar ones being made in 1994 by Anti-Fascist Action, when the BNP's Derek Beackon lost his council seat in the Isle of Dogs - but increased his vote substantially. As ever debate and feedback is welcome. Over to Glyn.....

Analysis of the HnH /UAF campaign in Barking and Dagenham May 2010 

At the May 2010 Barking and Dagenham council elections, the BNP lost all their 12 Councillors, all previously elected in 2006. Their national party leader Nick Griffin, who it was suggested would take the Parliamentary seat of Barking, only came third, and petulantly walked away declaring Barking and London ‘finished’. But away from the headlines the actual results in B&D show the BNP nearly doubled their vote from 2006 to 2010, though where they had stood previously their vote did decline slightly. I have used their highest votes in each ward. 

While it is good news to see the Councillor parasites of the BNP wiped out, however the Hope Not Hate victory claims are as ever deeply flawed. HnH (and to a lesser extent UAF) carried out a massive campaign in Barking & Dagenham. They argued there was a serious threat of a BNP breakthrough in Barking and for people to vote, but not vote BNP. In 2010 HnH put out nearly 250,000 leaflets into B&D, 130,000 in the last 10 days, 90,000 put out by 540 people on the ‘Day of Action’ on 17th April, (5) and another 25,000 in January and March. And this was out of a massive 1.8 million leaflets delivered nationally. (6) In 2009 HnH also put out 50,000 leaflets in B&D (7) out of the nearly 3.5 million leaflets they delivered nationally for the Euros elections. (8) 

Firstly, the idea that Griffin would win the seat was never likely. In 2005 Hodge got 13,800 on a 50% turnout, while the BNP got 4,900. And in the most relevant election since, the London Assembly of 2008 in those wards that make up the Barking constituency, the BNP only got c.6000. (2) And while the BNP vote increased from 4,900 to 6,600, a massive increase, Hodge nearly doubled her vote to 24,600! The bookies knew best, it’s their livelihoods to do so, and while Paddy Power had Hodge at 1/6 back in November 2009 by early April Ladbrokes had Labour at 1/8 and BNP at 5-1, in political terms, unsurmountable odds. 

Secondly it was always more likely that the general election race would be used by the BNP to get more Councillors. And this the BNP also failed in. While they increased their overall vote to a massive 15,000 and would have held many of their seats on a similar turnout to 2006, they were wiped out in a massive increase in the Labour vote, e.g. almost 100% in Valence ward between 2006 and 2010, mirroring the increase for Hodge. So the HnH/UAF campaign essentially, and as always, relied on getting out the Labour vote, in this case for the ultra NuLabourite Margaret Hodge, the cause of most people voting BNP in the first case! 

Most people vote BNP as a protest and tend not to vote BNP more than once or twice. They are not ardent racists or fascists and vote BNP as a protest over a number of issues. We have seen this everywhere the BNP have appeared. Britain does not have, yet, a majority in any area of people who would allow a BNP council or MP to be elected. And thirdly the BNP are their own worst enemies; they have been infighting in Barking & Dagenham as elsewhere and have suffered embarrassing setbacks - for example their own website was taken over by their webmaster alleging corruption and violence only two days before the election (9). Their local Councillors do not have a good reputation and regularly fail to attend meetings. 

The dispute between Richard Barnbrook and Nick Griffin is probably the reason behind the wide disparity between the BNP vote locally and for Griffin. In 2010 Griffin got 6,600 votes but the local council BNP votes add up to 10,000 in the wards that make up Barking. So 4000 who voted BNP for the council decided NOT to vote for Griffin at the general election!
What though is deeply worrying is that after every election in which HnH claim victory, the BNP vote nationally, and the presence of the English Defence League on the streets, continues to increase. At the 2010 general election the BNP have increased their vote by 150%, from 192,000 to 563,000 with dozens of saved deposits. Though this is only half of the near million votes they got at the Euros, small parties rarely achieve large general election votes due to the ‘first past the post’ system of voting. By comparison at the 1974 General Elections, the NF got 73,000 and 113,000, and peaked at 192,000 in 1979. And crucially what does this now mean in terms of those who, after all the leafleting, after all the door knocking, after all the arguments that the BNP are a fascist party, still voted for the BNP in Barking & Dagenham. Are we to now believe that these voters are all fascists? 

There is a very real risk that by not providing any alternative and by continually marginalising those who will not tolerate the likes of Hodge, we actually push those who would vote BNP as a protest into actually identifying with the BNP and starting to think fascism is an answer. Nick Lowles the leader of HnH/Searchlight is well aware of this and after the Euros in 2009 wrote 

“..Addressing the widespread economic insecurities, solving the democratic deficit and forging new progressive identities requires public policy changes that are beyond the remit of the HOPE not hate campaign and anti-fascism generally. We can mobilise the anti-BNP vote and even sometimes suppress the pro-BNP vote but we cannot build houses and reduce waiting lists; we cannot prevent undercutting of wages and the abuse of migrant workers. Local anti-fascist movements cannot get resources into communities, often the poorest, dealing with extraordinary levels of migration. That is the job of politicians and political parties. It is their failure currently to do so that is resulting in the increasing tribalism of local politics along racial and religious lines….To fight the BNP effectively we must move away from city and town centre events to focusing on the very communities where the BNP is drawing its support. We need to return to localised leaflets and newsletters, tapping into the local identities of neighbourhoods and addressing local issues to undermine the BNP’s message of hate…” etc etc (10) 

But what Lowles writes is entirely contradictory and illustrates only too well why this brand of anti-fascism simply does not work. What is needed is a community based strategy yes, but one that is class based, and addresses all the concerns of local people and does not get drawn into the far-right’s and state’s racialising and divisive politics. To conclude we have another situation where superficially it appears that fascism has been defeated, but it has not. And it is worth also noting that nationally they will have been squeezed by the swing to the Tories (as in 1979). These pyrric HnH victories based on massive time and financial input, do not defeat fascism, frustration and anger but merely hide them. And in fact they may do worse. They may even, by tieing what is seen as the Left to New Labour, break yet more links with the working class and progressive ideas. 

References for this article, and a statistical analysis of voting patters in the area, follow below:Download Bnp voting patterns

1) asterics indicate wards that make up Barking parliamentary constituency
2) London mayor/assembly etc at http://www.londonelects.org.uk/results/xls/ward_city_east.xls) or http://www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk/9-democracy/elections/london-2008/london-2008-main.html

3) 2010 http://www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk/9-democracy/elections/results/elect-local-10.cfm 4) 2006 etc http://www.barking-dagenham.gov.uk/9-democracy/elections/elections-menu.html 5) http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/751/We%E2%80%99ve-done-it , http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/711/A-day-to-remember 6) http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/679/Taking-delivery 7) http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/377/Barking-and-Dagenham-Day-of-HOPE) 8) http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/article/400/A-big-thank-you 9) http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/news/article/1622/BNP-campaign-derailed-as-webmaster-withdraws-services 10) http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/index.php?link=template&story=284

Comments

[jordan retro 1]

If you would convince others, you seem open to conviction yourself. What do you think?

[james]

You will not defeat us in the BNP,1 we are not nazis 2 we are not facists. 3 you you are right we are ras--ic, ic means the law of numbers is truth and rules all things ,bases of british empire.what are you and your retarded types going to do when we implerment genetic engineering balance in regards to blacks , 50 eye colours 50 hair colours,= EQUITY not your degenerate consept of american equality