Oxford Union and ‘free speech’

This article originally appeared in the weekly worker. We are publishing it here so discussion can take place.

JT

The decision by the Oxford Union debating society to give a platform to BNP leader Nick Griffin and holocaust denier David Irving provoked national controversy. James Turley digs through it all and argues for a particular application of the ‘no platform’ tactic

It was probably not the most edifying moment in the Oxford Union’s history. The elite debating society (not, as the name implies, the student union) was excoriated by almost every public figure in Britain this last week for its decision to invite the British National Party’s long-time leader Nick Griffin, along with infamous holocaust revisionist David Irving, to a debate on free speech - only the flightier liberal free speech advocates, and, of course, various dubious far-right luminaries, defended the decision.

In the event, the debate passed off successfully. A crew of 500-odd anti-fascists gathered outside and, using some clever tactics, managed to get 30 or so protesters into the building, where they temporarily occupied the platform. In the end, they managed only to delay the proceedings by half an hour, and force its rearrangement into two smaller debates.

Communists do not bend over backwards to help the reactionary organisations spread their views. Fascism is distinguished from its predecessors by being the last line of defence of class society against universal liberation. The revolting brutality for which it is infamous is not an accidental phenomenon, but a necessary function of its social role.

We are, and must be, fascism’s most vocal and steadfast opponents - if only because the fascists are certainly ours (first they came for the communists …). We do not abstract free speech from its proper place in the reality of its use in social intercourse, like the liberals, but
realise that the public statements of fascists are necessarily accompanied by the ‘hidden programme’ of violence against all their opponents.

The establishment reaction

This is not to say that we share the opinions of all who opposed the invitation, or are even united with them in any meaningful way.

Since this is not a time of extreme crisis, the bourgeois establishment was queuing up to denounce the proceedings. Julian Lewis MP, the shadow defence minister, publicly resigned his lifetime membership of the union. Some of his comments on BBC television were perceptive: “I think there are people who are confusing this with an issue of free speech,” he remarked.
“It’s not an issue of free speech to offer a privileged platform from a prestige organisation.”

However, he is, of course, articulating a typically elitist Tory position. In his resignation letter, he wrote: “[Irving and the BNP] have been exposed and discredited time and again by people vastly more qualified than you in arenas hugely more suited to the task than an undergraduate talking-shop, however venerable.” Which would be true, were he not talking about himself
and his parliamentary colleagues. As it is, it is a laughable proposition.

New Labour functionary Trevor Phillips, meanwhile, called the event a “disgrace”, fuming: “As a former president of the National Union of Students, I’m ashamed that this has happened” (although precisely what Phillips’ CV has to do with it is something of a mystery). His view, in its bald simplicity, was typical of the establishment reaction, which ran more or less along the lines of ‘The BNP are very, very bad, as are holocaust deniers. It’s a terrible disgrace.’

Of course, these people have a very good reason for being defensive. It would certainly be convenient for them to caricature the whole matter of the rising profile of the far right in terms of a cabal of devious evil-doers and their useful idiots. Unfortunately, the truth is that fascism
develops as a necessary excrescence of the capitalist system - a system defended and operated by the likes of Lewis and Phillips.

The bourgeoisie has proved itself consistently incapable of living up to its own ‘democratic’ PR, for the simple reason that it has no interest in defending democracy. Fascism may only be installed in times of severe crisis, but it is nevertheless used at all other times as a stick with
which to keep the self-activity of the masses to a minimum. ‘Vote for us,’ the ruling class says, ‘to keep the extremists out.’ The truth is that - for the time being - Nick Griffin is the useful idiot: for the likes of Trevor Phillips.

UAF

It is a shame that the Socialist Workers Party-dominated ‘united front’, Unite Against Fascism, is in its political approach of a piece with the bourgeois charlatans quoted. Throughout the run-up to this event, its pronouncements have been getting more and more hysterical. “Would you
give Hitler a platform?” asked the reliably incandescent Weyman Bennett. He refused an invitation to take part.

In the event, it was UAF which led the protests. And, sure enough, the slogans were directed almost wholly at how bad the BNP is. The one slogan with any positive content at all was the now infamous ‘Hope, not hate’.

The SWP has chosen to concentrate entirely on getting ‘respectable’, mainstream opinion on its side. As such, it has tailored its entire strategy around these figures’ programme. At best, it is the programme of patronising liberal ‘awareness’ campaigns and the like. At worst, the SWP has openly called for the state to send far-right figures to jail for ‘hate speech’, and enthusiastically feted the Racial and Religious Hatred Act last year.

This is deeply misguided. As I have mentioned, appealing to the bourgeois establishment’s ‘anti-fascist’ credentials is a dangerous illusion. What it is, in point of fact, is pro-capitalist, which means at certain times pro-fascist. To hand over the right to decide which political discourses are acceptable to the bourgeois state essentially amounts to printing out the train tickets to Dachau for the left, including the SWP - because you are giving these powers to a state apparatus which in times of extreme crisis will itself turn to fascism.

A better approach

It is in this way - and this way only - that communists defend the free speech of fascists. With regard to the bourgeois state, all opinions must be permissible. The main political lesson of Marxism is that this state, at any and all times, is the main enemy. It is what the ruling class deploys against us whenever we threaten its power. Furthermore, the ready-made state apparatuses that Nick Griffin aspires to acquire - police, army, prisons - are precisely what makes the prospect of fascist power so terrifying. The SWP approach, by contrast, ignores all this - thus it is useless to the anti-fascist struggle.

What does this mean, then, for anti-fascism on the campus? Firstly, the CPGB has traditionally sought to undermine the traditional focus in the far left on ‘no platform’ tactics. In my view (and in many of the more subtle no-platformers), reducing everything down to displays of physical
force or, in UAF’s case, liberal, ‘something must be done’ outrage is indeed a chimera.

Nevertheless, I would argue that communists must support, and fight for, no-platform policies on campuses - or at least when it comes to student unions. The reason for this is simple - student unions are not the state. In however distorted a fashion, they represent organs of self-organisation among students. Furthermore, they hold public general meetings at which such a policy can be regulated by students and any attempt to no-platform left organisations circumvented.

Given this, any appeals to rights of ‘free speech’ are bogus. Nick Griffin should be perfectly free, as far as the police are concerned, to write his crypto-fascist rubbish. That right is not infringed if I fail to invite him to give a speech in my living room - nor is it infringed if a body of students does the same. It is not even infringed if some militants from Antifa break his collarbone in the street. We should defend the rights of fascists only where and when our own rights are, by the same stroke, under threat.

In the case, however, of a university which has not passed a no-platform policy facing an invitation to fascist figures, and the failure of all available means to prevent the event from taking place (short, of course, of high court injunctions and the like), communists should not be squeamish about entering the debating chamber. If the meeting cannot be shut down, it is better to minimise the profit to fascists. Whether this means disrupting the meeting or simply refuting the racist bilge claim by claim is a matter of tactics.

What did Weyman Bennett, when it became clear that the attempts to stop the meeting had failed, have to lose by taking the platform? Why shouldn’t he admit defeat to the OU (who did - after all - win), cut his losses and do his best to expose Nick Griffin inside the hall? The only problem with this is that the entirely neutered political approach of UAF would
have played directly into the hands of an experienced dissembler such as Griffin.

It is these scenarios - and they are inevitable when the left is as weak as it is now - which invalidate attempts to elevate no-platform into a ‘basic principle’ of anti-fascist struggle. Basic principles are those that follow necessarily from the logic of fascism - for example,
the basic principle of organising our forces apart from, and against, the state follows from fascism’s relationship with that state. No tactic - however glorious its pedigree - must dominate a struggle by elevating itself into an untouchable dogma. In a struggle as important as anti-fascism, this applies a hundredfold.

DebSoc and the BNP

Exeter University was aflame with controversy this past Friday night, as a Debating Society…er…debate took place amid an ever thicker fug of controversy.  The topic is an old DebSoc standard - “this house believes that the BNP should be allowed to speak on campus” or some equivalent wording - but it is now clear that, at some point, a BNP spokesman (Bath University’s Danny Lake, was approached to speak.  Although the offer was formally withdrawn, it was far from clear that BNP members and other fascists would not be able to turn up anyway (ultimately only students were allowed into the debate, with only one identifiable potential fascist who was no less a potential Tory).  Best of all, a photograph of DebSoc president Daryl Scatcherd in full SS regalia was discovered by an enterprising local anti-fascist.  Apparently it was at a bad taste ball.  I’ll say.

 As it was, Exeter Socialist Students, the local UAF branch and various anti-fascists and Socialist Partyites from as far afield as Kingsbridge and Ilfracombe (okay, that’s not that far afield) mobilised for a protest outside.  The local TUC sent us some leaflets and all.  It was fairly impressive.  We had made it clear in the run-up that we were prepared to physically prevent BNP members from entering the venue, whatever UAF might have thought about the matter (and given the people we mobilised, it would have been a brave Danny Lake to try and get in), so every bureaucrat was on tippy-toes trying to keep them out.  Dance, puppets, dance! As it became clear that the picket was fully formed, the DebSoc heirarchy formally, in that odd earnest way they do, invited us in to take part - which was nice of them.

the debate

Onwards to the event itself - in the blue corner, besuited and bepoppied, were two grandiloquent chaps from DebSoc to propose the motion; in the red corner, two teachers from UAF. 

For those who have never been to a DebSoc debate, it is worth sketching the atmosphere somewhat - I assume the pattern holds outside of Exeter, although the advanced state of political degeneration on this fair campus may propel the general pretentiousness to particularly ridiculous heights.  Firstly - I have mentioned suits and poppies.  The reason for the suits and poppies is simple: these people pretend they are in Parliament.  When somebody says something you approve of, you say “hear hear!” very loudly and still more unironically.  If somebody says something bad, you say “shame!”.  Another gesture of approval is banging the desk with your hand.  The whole thing is rather like watching two Greek Choruses arguing over which part of the Oresteia to perform.

This should indicate quite clearly the “DebSoc demographic” - they are the very same meat for the establishment mincer, slimy bureaucratic types, shadow cabinet members in waiting that poach all the NUS delegations and sabb positions.  If the set-up is a particularly idiosyncratic part of your mainstream-political training, it is a part nonetheless, where you learn various key skills for that career. Lesson #1: how to argue somebody else’s corner - other things we’ll get to later.

Back to the debate.  The debsoc position was simple enough.  No Platform “hasn’t worked”.  We should invite the BNP up to campus, tear them to bits (metaphorically, of course), and that’ll work instead.  They obviously intended to defend the farcical “balanced platform” policy, but didn’t really get round to it - I had to have the damn thing explained to me in the pub afterwards.

The teachers from UAF didn’t really manage to land the killer punches.  The BNP are very bad; they have a core of hardline Nazis; wherever they go, violence follows. They did refute the idea that “no platform hasn’t worked” - but the DebSoc robots, in their Demosthenesian rhetorical wisdom, decided to simply ignore the point three or four times. There was also a note of exasperation from Mike Gurney - he had been there three or four times, in the same debate, and had better things to do on a Friday night.  You could almost hear 20 or so leftist students nodding sagely in sympathy (over the 50 or so embryonic bureaucrats moaning “shame!”).

Who needs floor contributions anyway? 

Typically, the odd pulled punch on the top table is not an issue, because then you have the rest of us to plug the gaps from the floor.  Which brings us to nonsensical DebSoc quirk number whatever: such contributions had to be phrased as questions, “not opinions”!  Some bloody debate.  Most of the questions were fairly banal: “I went to an independent school” - (good start) - “and we invited a BNP speaker and tore them to bits! If a bunch of teenage girls can do it, why can’t we?” (’We’ being the Mighty Exeter Debating Society, Masters of the Universe.)  Again and again the point was made that the BNP just don’t actually care what a bunch of teenage girls at an “independent school”, or a bunch of bureau-liberals at a Devon campus think about them.  If you invite a delegation down from wherever, they will simply use it as an excuse to go to pubs, go to council estates and spread their poison there.  The ever-sharp Greg Wilton seized on this, asking DebSoc if they had the troops in these pubs and elsewhere to circumvent such spillover from their masturbatory exercises.  Criminally, the chair refused to take the question - the debate was “not about DebSoc”.  (Shame!)

And here’s the thing.  Debating Societies are not traditionally political, but rather operate tests of rhetorical mettle.  If we take their word for it, that they really are serious about showing up the BNP, then we must admit their intervention as a political one - but it is clear that there is a very important shift here which they have not really thought through.  For if you move into the realm of real politics, rather than gladiatorial discussion, you have to realise that the political battles are being fought everywhere, all the time.  DebSoc’s view on these matters is so bloody awful simply because, whatever their intentions, they still behave as though the battle ends at 9pm with the summary statements and vote.  And this is why they are unable/refuse to acknowledge Cde Wilton’s question as a serious one with relevance to the debate.  The debate was not just a debate.

For DebSoc, it was just a game.  This is Lesson #2: it’s just a game.  The real action is in hand with the political elites.  (The previous Friday, they had a mock question time debate; one of the questions was whether there should be a referendum on the new European treaty.  Many argued from the floor that there shouldn’t be one because people would be confuzzled by the Daily Mail and make the wrong decision.)

Back to the poppies

It is here that the absurdity of the establishment affectations really comes in.   If we are to believe these people, then a BNP speaker would be banned from breaking the various religious, racial etc hatred laws.  In which case - exactly what would be the point, even from the already absurdly narrow perspective offered?  In what sense would the racist ideas of the BNP be torn to bits if they are banned in advance from even being aired?  Why the BNP, even? If you really want to have a debsoc field day, invite the lovely November 9th Society, and gag them from voicing their openly-Nazi drivel.  We win in advance!

So here we have Lesson #3 for the aspiring junior ministers of DebSoc - you must learn to win pyrrhic victories, and use them to pretend the argument as such has been won - cf. Blair on almost everything (”it was in our manifesto, so we have to do it”, etc). 

And they wonder why the BNP keep on growing…

Ballerina ’socialist’ shock

There has been public surprise at the revelation that Ms. Lilliput Duchamp, of the Swindon Ballet Troupe, is a practising communist. “What can I say? A planned economy just makes sense” Duchamp told the press this morning. “And of course, for real freedom and the flourishing of art forms such as my own, capitalism will have to be cast off” she added.

Far right groups have lined up to condemn Duchamp, saying her public role is incompatible with her political worldview. A UKIP spokesman told us that “This is just another example of the far left’s hypocrisy. They moan about the EU being undemocratic and evil and then stand for the European parliament! Er…”. A BNP protester addressed the point in hand. “You or I might not notice it, but through subtle movements in her dancing, Duchamp is infecting the minds of the audience with all sorts of common-sensical communist ideas. This has to stop. We can’t have attractive women skilled in a delicate artform going round promoting positive politics”. Duchamp contends that the analytic method of dialectical materialism has contributed greatly to her dancing. “It’s all about the dynamics of counterposed forces, know what I mean?”

Some have suggested that Ms. Lilliput is not, in fact, a communist at all. “Half of her fellow cast members are bourgeois, for Christ’s sake,” opined William Hague of the Tories, “as are 80% of the audience. Surely, Honourable Members, it could be that she is not the genuine materialist article, but merely a Labourite who’s been fooled by the far-left’s new reformist look exemplified by Respect”. The debate shows little signs of slowing and Labour are proposing an Anti-Extremism Law which (cont. p.85)

by Laurie McCauley

How to Fight the BNP

BNP leaders Nick Griffin and Mark Collett were recently cleared of inciting racial hatred at Leeds Crown Court. The results of the court case confirms the idiocy of relying on the state to deal with the BNP. It’s given them publicity money just cant buy.

But what is the BNP and how should socialists fight it?

The BNP isn’t just a right-wing, racist cult, they’re a fascist organisation and this means they want to destroy their opponents. In the past BNP supporters have fire bombed asian homes, beaten up lesbians and gay men, attacked socialists, Irish republicans and anti-fascist campaigners. If they came to power, these attacks would become institutionalised. This the lesson of Hitler’s rise to power. Some people believe in defending “free speech” for the BNP. But the BNP is modelled on Hitler’s Nazi party, they’ll only use “free speech” to deny the free speech of everyone else. They believe in expelling non-whites from Britain. How can this be acheived? Only by extreme violence. The BNP denies the right of lesbians and gays to enjoy loving relationships. They believe a women’s place is “in the home”. They want to solve the “problem” of Jews and of people with disabilities. We know how the Nazis did this when they were in power. The BNP would be no different given a chance. We must deny them them the right to spread their hatred and lies.

So, how to fight the fascists?

The strategy of UAF boils down to appealing to the state to deal with the BNP, or as the UAF convenor puts it, “turn BNP into HMP”. No only is such a strategy extremely dangerous, as any new legislation brought in by the state will in all likelyhood be used against the left, but by refusing to build a militant anti-fascist movement they demoralise their own supporters.On Nov. 1st the anti-fascist protest only numbered about 100, and was out numbered by a large BNP presence of more than 200.

Instead, we need militant anti-fascist mobilisations based on the organised labour movement to physically confront the BNP when they seek to demonstrate or hold public meetings. Two years ago, when Le Pen visited Manchester to promote the BNP election campaign, he was prevented from getting his message across by a mass mobilisation which was reported across Europe. That action was condemned by the UAF speaker on the day, but it showed what’s possible. It showed we can build a mass movement willing to take the direct action needed to deny the fascists a platform.

We also need to fight the BNP at the ballot box. Any electoral success emboldens the BNP and leads both to increased racist attacks and to attacks on left-wing and anti-fascist activists as in the recent attack on UAF supporters in Morley. We should support working class candidates, including Labour Party candidates, against the BNP, as part of building up workers united front against fascism. Such a united front of trade unions, Labour Party and all workers organisations, cannot include bosses parties. The UAF line of “vote for anyone but the BNP” undermines the necessary direct mass working class action needed.

The BNP are not an ordinary party, they’re a violent fascist organisation so the ordinary methods of political debate are not sufficient. Only the strategy of mass mobilisation, based on the organised labour movement, can defeat the BNP.

No Platform for Fascists!

Smash the BNP!

By Jim Padmore

Unite Against Fascism Threatens its own Activists

David Isaccson Reports:

On Thu, 2006-11-16 at 19:29 +0000, david isaacson wrote:

Comrades,

it seems the Unite Against Fascism national office has gone mad and is threatening it own activists with legal action for handing out leaflets. Of course it is not maddness - there is politics behind this. For the UAF leadership (most notably the SWP) the organisation must be kept ‘broad’. This means that activists are not allowed to take up issues that do not directly relate to fascism. This seems to being taken to absurd lengths as you will see from the attached press release. I will speak to those involved and try and find out some more about this a.s.a.p.

Comradely, Dave.

—–

Press Release - 14th November 2006

Leeds University Unite Against Fascism (UAF) activists threatened with legal action for leafleting for conference against Islamophobia

At its weekly stall outside the Student Union activists from the UAF society were threatened with legal action by UAF central office, if they handed out a leaflet from the society encouraging students to attend this Saturday’s “People’s Assembly Against Islamophobia”. In addition, Omar Khan, of the Student Executive, told the activists they were not permitted to hand out the leaflets.

Other activists on the stall from LUU, who supported this stance, said that they would not do the stall, if the activists maintained they wanted to hand out the said leaflets. This despite the importance of raising the anti-fascist issue on campus, in the context of recent attacks on UAF members by the BNP.

The background to this was a heated debate at the society organising meeting last week, where members of the society had voted, by a narrow majority, to support and build the Islamophobia conference.

Mark Boothroyd, one of the threatened activists and secretary of the society, said, “the issue at stake in the original discussion was whether UAF could support a conference called by the Stop the War Coalition”. He continued, “in light of the rise of racism against Muslim people, denying them the right to religious and cultural expression, and the political capital the BNP were making out of this, we thought it was vital anti-fascists support this conference”.

John Bowden, another of the threatened activists added, “there is a real problem of democracy here. Our society had voted to support this conference at our meeting, and we are then threatened with legal action (!) when we come to implement the decision.” He continued, “its just a complete over reaction, threatening fellow activists, fighting together against racism and the far right with legal action. It’s crazy.”

Boothroyd concluded, “we were also told that we would have to change UAF policy nationally, in order to distribute these leaflets. There are two problems with this. Firstly, it assumes UAF is a political party which all required to have precisely the same policies on every issue. Rather, than the united front it is, which brings together groups and individual with different views. Secondly, I’ve been to UAF national conference, and there is no opportunity to change its policy – its just a rally with speakers and no resolutions.”

The next organising meeting of Unite Against Fascism will be Wednesday 22nd November at 4pm in the ARC centre, Student Union.

Mark Boothroyd, Secretary of Leeds University Unite Against Fascism John Bowden, activist of LU UAF and Treasurer of the Revolution Society

To contact Dave Issacson further about this please see the contact page