On the Fringes of British Politics

...Left, Right—the March of Political Extremism in Britain, he labels fringe groups a cancer in the body politic" that could prove fatal to British institutions if not carefully monitored and exposed Though his tone is more alarmist than the facts warrant, the book is an informative guide to the bizarre outer edges of British political life Most prominent on the Right is National Front (NF) founded a little more than a decade ago Central to NF doctrine has been racial antagomsm directed against the nonwhites who comprise 4 per cent of the population The large influx of British subjects of Asian origin from Uganda (expelled by Idi Amin in the early '70s) has lent some impetus to the Front's recruitment efforts, as no doubt will the four days of noting last month by blacks in the Brixton section of South London Practically from its inception, however, the NF has been plagued by internal discord, and its pathetic showing in the '79 elections shattered whatever hopes it might have had of political respectability The organization has been better able, in the words of one of its spokesmen, "to kick its way into the headlines," sponsoring marches through black neighborhoods that have sometimes ended in melees The British Movement (BM), though sharing the scabrous platform of the NF, is contemptuous of its cousin's parliamentary aspirations and confines its own efforts to direct action Many people blame it for much of the harassment of nonwhites m the street and, in some cases, at their homes It has also sought to foment anti-Semitism BM tries to attract youngsters to its ranks, achieving its successes mostly with unemployed youths in working class districts Since its blandishments have recently been aimed at schoolchildren as young as 14, schoolmasters have been warned by education authorities to take appropriate precautions The Movement's young members are readily identified by their crewcut "skinheads" and heavy workboots, worn for fighting Column 88, another group in the extreme Right, is a self-styled paramilitary Unit Its name derives from the eighth letter of the alphabet?H"?doubled to signif\ "Heil Hitler" Tom-linson claims that the column has earned out a series of postal bomb attacks and has links with Italian and Palestinian terrorist cliques Its members consider themselves an elite neo-Nazi vanNorman Gelb, a regular New Leader contributor, reports from London for the Mutual Broadcasting System guard, and they rigorously select newcomers on the basis of ideological "purity" and physical fitness The League of St George also indulges in combat training and talk of "ary-an" supremacy in Europe Not all neo-Fascists are overtly bellicose, though Some shun street violence and excessive militarism in order to attract the elderly as well as family people, and thus project a more respectable facade for the dissemination of racial hatred With unemployment soaring to its highest level since before World War II, the climate in Britain is admittedly more conducive than ever to the appeals of the groups on the far Right But their vile "ideals" and their attacks against individual nonwhites notwithstanding, Tomhnson overstates his case when he claims they are an immediate menace to British democracy—a flower that has roots too deep to be pulled out by totah-tanans without anything approaching the beginnings of a popular following Regardless of their ties to American Nazis and other Fascist movements, Britain's racist organizations combined have no more than 15,000-20,000 members out of a total population of 55 million, and they have not been growing significantly even in the present atmosphere of severe economic troubles That, of course, is scant comfort to the Pakistani women mocked and jostled on a bus queue in Bradford, or the Bangladeshi family being threatened in a housing project in East London In view of such incidents, Home Secretary William Whitelaw, who has registered "extreme distress and horror" at the recent noting by blacks, has ordered a government investigation into the "disturbing increase" in orgamzed racism And Attorney General Sir Michael Havers has promised to consider strengthening legislation to deal with inciters of racial hatred Ironically, themost effective measures taken against such harassment so far have come from the other target of Tomknson's two-pronged assault—the far Left TheAnti-Nazi League (ANL), created and effectively run by Trotskyites, has assembled vigilante bands in some districts to protect ethnic families intimidated by neo-Nazis ANL has also mounted often violent counterdemonstrations to the National Front's provocative processions, forcing the Front to have such close police protection that its television impact is diminished Tomhnson may well be right in contending the real motive of the ANL is swelling its membership But there, he overstates the peril posed to British democracy Tomhnson quite properly discounts the clout of the largest extreme Left group, the British Communist Party It is now down to about 25,000 members, a remarkably small number considering the CP's past popularity in impoverished regions like Wales, Scotland and North England The CP has no charms for the newest generation of radicals, who are drawn to the more daring Trotskyites, and is further paralyzed by agonizings over whether to fully support Soviet policy (It has not done so in Afghanistan, and has opposed "outside intervention" in Poland ) The Communists retain strong influence in several British unions through some officials who are CP members Still, one can no longer point to a conspiratorial chain of command that enables the Communists to seriously influence union policy The notoriety of the smalhsh Trot-skyite Workers' Revolutionary Party (WRP) rests on its most famous member, actress Vanessa Redgrave Over the years the WRP has mutated into a strangely puntanital, Moome-like sect, with tight internal discipline and great secrecy Although the WRP claims to have no outside financing, it publishes a 16-page daily newspaper with regular features—a remarkable feat for agroup having at most 3,000 members Tomhnson dryly notes that the WRP's "unremitting idolization of Colonel Qad-dafi and Yasir Arafat hints strongly at two possible sources of subsidy " The Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) has certainly had greater impact, in part because it sets itself immediately realizable goals Believed to be the guiding force behind the ANL, the SWP is also known to have orgamzed the "Rightto-Work" campaigns aimed at galvanizing unemployed people into political action Right-to-Work canvassers are regularly on view, boisterously venting their demands at political conferences and, more important, outside union headquarters when officials gather to decide negotiating strategy Nevertheless, the SWP itself has no more than 5,000 members The far Left group that comes closest to meriting Tomhnson's warnings is the Militant Tendency, which is engaged in the subtle, imaginative strategy of "en-tryism " To the scorn of other Trotskyites, its activists have infiltrated the Labor Party, establishing credentials in local Labor organizations with the aim of ultimately winning control of the party over—an ambitious undertaking Technically, the Militant Tendency is not a separate organization at all, because Labor Party rules forbid such formations within the ranks Its members conceal their true allegiance and maintain contact through their publication, Militant They also hold regular caucuses to decide policy for all to follow strictly The current sharp Leftward swing of the Labor Party that has driven many former Labor moderates into the newly formed Social Democratic Party can be in considerable measure attributed to Militant Tendency Its short-term strategy of trying to bind Labor Party leaders to instructions set by the national executive and annual conferences—prime targets for Militant control—could spell disaster for the Labor Party in the next elections, and possibly for a long time after that The Militant Tendency is not overly worried by this prospect Should Labor be humiliated at the polls, the Militants would still inherit control of the rump of a much larger, more widespread national pohtical organization than any other extreme Left group can boast of today That is unlikely to qualify them as a lethal danger to Britain's resilient democracy, but they would certainly bear careful watching by the powers that be in London Meanwhile, despite its exaggerations, British officials might benefit from examining Tomhnson's informative book...

...LOOKING LEFT AND RIGHT On the Fringes of British PolltlCS BY NORMAN GELB WILLIAM WHITELAW London Liberal democracy is under threat from both Left and Right—not at some vague time in the future, but here and now " The author of that quotation is not an anguished German in the closing days of the Weimar Republic, but a former British Labor Party member of Parliament speaking today JohnTom-linson, once a junior minister at the Foreign Office, has come to his unhappy conclusion after devoting the last year or so to examining certain disquieting British developments Indeed, in the book he has just had published...