National Front Facts-but No Analysis

Scan page 9

The Toolmakers Strike and the Fight to End It is difficult to know where to start in reviewing a book whose declared intent in the first chapter is "to start with the premise that there are two kinds of society, totalitarian and pluralistic."

When the book's subject is the National Front and the author sets out to suggest that Communism and Fascism are basically different sides of the same sociological coin we are faced with a disappointing jumble of half-baked theories that can do nothing to assist class-conscious workers to understand the development of the NF or how to fight it.

Nevertheless Martin Walker touches upon some aspects of NF history which have particular importance for the labour movement.

One of these is the role of the Labour Party leadership in boosting the development of racism and anti-immigration one of the main planks in the policy both of the NF and their political forbears.

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Police hold back anti-fascists at For example, in 1964, Labour MP. for Southall, George Pargiter was calling for "a complete ban on immigration to Southall". And it was a Labour councillor, Ken Birch,. who lelped run the Sandwell Youth Club in Smethwick in the early 1960s which operated a colour bat.

This club was one of the centres of the British National Party's National Youth Movement. Ron Bradham, later secretary of the local Labour Party fought one local by election on ne policy of a total ban on immigration.

In fact the author points out that successive Labour and Tory governments have in fact carried out many, of the original demands of the various racist groups for increasingly stringent immigration controls.

He shows that the re-enactment of the Immigration Act in 1964 was a triumph for the racists:

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of urban centres to transform the PLP's policy from staunch and principled opposition to full-hearted enforcement of the immigration laws."

Other important aspects of NF activity have been their attempts to win support in the Trade Union movement, especially in London and the Midlands.

Walker recounts the NF machinations at Imperial Typewriters, Mansfield Hosiery, on the docks and their surprising support for the 1974 miners' strike.

Militants will be interested to learn that it is true that record files of left wing activists are kept by the NF in local areas and passed on to the Special Branch.

PERSONAL BATTLES However, apart from providing us with a long drawn-out account of inter-personal battles within the leadership of the NF and their closest rivals the author is unable to'offer any real analysis of the NF.

To write a book on LICATIONS The Fight for Revolutionary Wage Control.

NO STUDY All these are mentioned the author in passing-but real study ensues.

This is because Walker lack:

any kind of class perspective and in fact is even able to quote from Trotsky in such a way as ic suggest that the decisive social force in a revolutionary situation iS... the petit-bourgeoisie!

Therefore when it comes to showing us how to destroy the NF Martin Walker can point to the labour movement as the means of carrying out such destruction but cannot say how and cannot express anything bur pessimism about the strength of the organised working class.

Yet as the recent election results have shown, a determined fight by the labour movement in areas such as Bradford and Leicester has drastically reduced the NF vote.

DAMNING The most damning criticism of the book must therefore be that it is more likely to demoralise an uninformed and isolated reader than to mobilise him.

Another weakness is the lack of information about the alleged membership of the NF by large sections of the police, immigration and prison authorities.

Such areas of investigation are much more worthy of attention than Tyndall and Jordan's squabble over a female fascist of the millionaire Dior family.

The book is written as a piece of journalism-lacking any index or chart of the various fascist organisations, racist sects and right wing groupings.

Since these are constantly referred to by their initials this makes unravelling their various splits and tangles a confusing task.

Despite its numerous weaknesses, "The National Front" carries useful information. For those who are not shackled by the author's weaknesses it can provide a useful aid to antifascist propaganda and activity within the labour and trade union movement.

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The book does not even ::: any, analysis of the histori: origins of racialism.

There are many aspects of N activity from which we mu draw lessons. Their deliberat cultivation of support amongs sections of women isolated fro: the working class movemen! their recent turn to youth whi are jobless and equally cut oi from the labour movement; thei efforts to wreck trade unionisn and to campaign for the incor poration of trade unions into the state-Mussolini style-are al crucial aspects of NF activity.

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& FISCISTS THEY SHALL NOT PASS