Facebook (FB) is a peculiar world occupied by office workers, students and the unemployed. On it you can follow the latest intrigues of this or that friend, stalk the weirdest sectarians and at times find out somebody’s politics by where they post. The RMT, the Stalinist CPB and the “Trotskyist” Socialist Party of England and Wales (SPEW) have gone to lengths to try and convince us that the No2EU campaign is not right wing, not anti immigrant and certainly is not nationalist! FB exposes these claims as nothing but lies.Leading Cardiff SPEW member Andrew Ballard has been doing his best to promote No2EU on FB, nothing wrong in that. The problem is, he is promoting them on far right, nationalist, racist and BNP controlled pages. Pages such as ‘British jobs for British people’, ‘get foreign labour out of Britain’, ‘UK jobs for UK workers’. The demands of these groups centre around getting foreigners out of the UK. For those who think we are making this up, have a look here at a copy of some of the pages he has been posting on. On these pages apart from posting links he posted this message:
‘British jobs for british workers and Italian jobs for Italian workers. The only reason the EU has such a large migrant workforce is to drive down workers wages and increase profits for the super rich. Vote no2eu on June the 4th.’
So much for a workers’ Europe then. Such slogans would find a loving home in the BNP and nationalists parties across Europe. Did he forget about internationalism?
So many of us on the revolutionary Left have been repulsed by this campaign, we have been called sectarians and all of the other usual crap internationalists get called. It is doubtful that Ballard is the only one, and is certainly not a loose cannon, he is leading cadre. When we said that No2EU is nothing more than little England politics dressed up in trade union clothes we never expected SPEW members to campaign on nationalist, far right and BNP controlled sites and pages. SPEW members need to sit up and wake up, good socialists are being dragged into a nationalist adventure by Left bureaucrats and vile opportunists.
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11 comments:
Who would have thought this of any SPEwers just a month ago?
" Be worth plugging the campaign here. Big subscription. Steal a few BNP votes!"- Ballards status and link to site last Thursday.
never expected SPEW members to campaign on nationalist, far right and BNP controlled sites and pages.Yeah, imagine trying to appeal to BNP voters. What a crime. Thankfully CPGB and Workers Power members would never sully themselves by even visiting such sites.
Around the time of the Lindsey strike I posted loads of stuff on far right and BNP sites about what was actually going on to challenge them politically. Presumably I was infected with some sort of far right nationalism as a result of this.
The odd thing is I actually thought the CPGB had a decent understanding of the relationship between the BNP and their voting base and wasn't prone to denouncing them all as racist, fascist Nazis beyond redemption.
At the upcoming joint local and European elections the BNP are probably going to win literally millions of voters. The extreme right is now many, many times larger than the far left. You should think carefully about how you seek to reverse that without engaging with people who have come to support the far right.
How on earth do you propose halting the rise of the far right without trying to appeal to BNP voters and win them away from the far right? Are you two going 'no platform' every last one of them?
Issue is there was no attempt to counter the BNP, fascism or nationalism. Links were posted to fascist sites; the only aim to win support from fascists for the No2 EU campaign. ‘British jobs for British workers, Italian jobs for Italian workers’-straight from the BNP propaganda sheet, The Nationalist!. Thee is then the classic SP stuff about the EU, race to bottom etc, all of which comes after and behind the nationalist appeal for votes to fascists who post on fascist sites. Read this site. There could be a million supporters, this would not make this reactionary appeal defensible.
No attempt to make the socialist-internationalist case of jobs for all regardless of the country of origin, united working class struggle for jobs, homes and services-which used to be the SP line I might add-but instead the BJ4BW track.
What a strategic thinker you are Duncan-start by conceding that nationalism is ok and acceptable and go from there. Ballard did not attempt to win people away from a nationalist view, he agreed with it in an open forum and urged the racists to vote No2 EU.
Socialists fight nationalism and fascism with internationalism, joint working class struggles-not by posing nationalist solutions to jobs. Would WP or CPGB sully there hands? well, not with nationalist strikes or fascist groups no. You must be so very proud of all the jobs stolen, the immigrants intimidated. Good work.
Would WP or CPGB sully there hands? well, not with nationalist strikes or fascist groups no. You must be so very proud of all the jobs stolen, the immigrants intimidated. Good work.Lol, I love the irony of you posting that on this site in particular.
'Chris S', the CPGB and, I think, Communist Students all supported the Lindsey strikes.
Here's what they said at the time:
Some idiots ,morons and Workers Power have come out and condemned the strike action by construction workers up and down the country as reactionary.http://hammer-and-sickle.blogspot.com/2009/02/lindsey-oil-refinery-strike-confusion.html
Oh dear Duncan, what a shame it has fallen to you to defend this shit. You have such a readable blog as well. Surely you can see that No2EU is dragging good comrades like yourself into a world of Stalinist fueled nationalism?
No2EU links where sitting happily on BNP controlled pages, next to links to the Nationalist BNP union ‘Solidarity’ with no mention of being for internationalism, being against deportation and class solidarity.
On LOR, our position and I think is still correct that what was needed was intervention and participation of socialists not abstention which is what WP and the SWP were putting forward. On reflection we should have been somewhat more guarded as the use of LOR by section of the bureaucracy and left opportunists has been detrimental to the movement.
Intervention of course. WP did not oppose the correct intervention. SWP having a principled position for once! Had to happen sometime.
Very disturbing stuff,if an sp member is linking to dodgy bnp facebook sites.
"Leading Cardiff SPEW member Andrew Ballard"
Are you sure? Living in Cardiff you see the same old faces in the sp all the time and this guy isn't one of them.
By the way I'm no admirer of the sp but I really dislike the use of the acronym SPEW. Rather childish.
Cardiff SPer yes. Now Glyn Matthews is claiming not to know Ballard, despite already confirming he is SPer. Typical bullshit.
Glyn really say that ? I've tried follwing the thread on your communist students blog but half the comments are so illiterate its hard to make any sense of it.
Perhaps this Ballard chap is quite a new member which is why I haven't come across him before .
Doesn't say much for the level of politics or political education in the SP if he can come out with xenophobic dodgyness and get away with it.
The same anonymous as before.
I don't think we should tar the SP, or Glyn for that matter, with Ballard's brush. Most are a fine bunch and have the interests of workers at the center of their activity. We must fight the reactionaries though.cheers
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