The BNP Threat

Attended a hustings organised by the PCS Union last night in Stratford, East London. There were many supporters of No2EU in the audience from the Socialist Party etc but also some mainstream trade unionists. The issue of the BNP threat was raised and some of the speakers on the platform tried to dismiss it. The Lib Dem candidate, who was a former Lambeth councillor and a lecturer in Politics, said that it was very serious. He had just been watching Roberty Carlyle's portrail of Hitler in the tv drama series 'Hitler, the rise of Evil' which portrays the dictator's life from fighting in the trenches in 1918 until coming to power in 1933.

As a historian, I agreed very strongly that there is a real danger and pointed out that Italy is where Fascism has now gone mainstream. Last year visiting Sicily, I was shocked to see busts of Mussolini in all the tourist shops. I also revealed last night, which produced shocks from those listening, that the Italian state was now awarding veterans pensions to those who had fought for the Salo Republic. This was Mussolini's statelet in Northern Italy, which is probably best known as a result of Passolini's film, but which was a byword for cruelty and anti-Semitism and where the most barbaric practices were carried out with partisans and those opposing Fascism as its victims. As many correspondents from Rome have reported recently, it is as if Italy is suffering from historical amnesia.

The increasing divisions in the UK between the haves and the have nots and New Labour's courting of the anti-immigrant and racist vote have created the conditions for the BNP to thrive. It is absolutely essential that they do not win a European seat on Thursday but in the longer run it must be a priority to address the reasons for their rise and to give those people who feel that they have no future in Brown's and New Labour's UK Plc, a vision and a place in creating a new and more equitable democracy. This is one of the main reasons why I am standing on Thursday as a candidate for the European Parliament for the Green Party.