reviews the Newham Monitoring Project's new pamphlet 'The Enemy in Our Midst: Exposing Racism and Fascism in Newham' EAST LONDON has always been a haven for fascists. Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the 1930s to the dockers strike in support of Enoch Powell in 1968, on to the rise of the NF in the seventies and today's BNP the east of the capital has always had high levels of fascist organisation.
Thouch Millwall has received a great deal of attention nationally since the election of the BP's Derek Beacon in October 1993, NMP remain convinced that the threat of the BP has not disappeared. Nor is it isolated to Tower Hamlets.
In local elections in May 1993 the BP in the Beckton ward of Newham polled 33 per cent of the vote - their highest percentage in the country. At the same time the Tories stood on a clear racist platform, issuing a leaflet talking about Labour's "ethnic cleansing" policies, and standing as "Conservatives against Labour's unfair ethnic policies".
The Enemy in Our Midst traces the current rise in BP support locally to the decline of the British Empire, the collapse of local industry based around the docks, the poor housing built after the war and the high levels of unemployment and poverty.
Failure
More significantly, it emphasises the failure of mainstream political parties to address the needs of the white working class community.
The pamphlet traces NMP's fight against racist violence since its formation in 1980, its battles against the current campaigns against the BNP. It addresses how NMP has fought to isolate the BNP core from its base of support in sections of the white working class.
Though fascists have primarily focused on local racist sentiment to build support, they have from time to time managed to tap into genuine grievances of the local community.
This pamphlet stresses the importance of relating to the genuine needs of the local community - especially in areas such as the south of Newham where the left has largely abandoned these communities for decades.
"Ultimately, anti-fascism means persuading people that the BP is not the only alternative and that local opinion is worth something and will be listened to.
It is for this reason that NMP has never seen the fight against racism in isolation from wider demands for social justice".
It also stresses the inadequacies of simply addressing issues such as challenging the racism within the working class.
Contrary to some views on the left, racism will not simply disappear through black and white people uniting over economic issues. Racism has, to a certain degree, its own dynamic that is cannot be reduced only to economics.
The Enemy in Our Midst addresses other controversial questions such as the need for a "no platform" policy in order to prevent fascists from intimidating black communities.
Chasing fascists
It also opposes the mis-conception of this policy as meaning elite groups chasing after fascists, with no relation to a wider movement:
"Such action does not, however, necessarily involve violent confrontation, and the greater number of anti-racists who get involved means a lesser likelihood that this will happen. doning the fundamental right of self-defence, a right which NMP has consistently argued in support of... we see no reason why it should be abandoned in response to fascist violence."
Newham Monitoring Project's starting point is that of a grass roots campaign fighting for the interests of the local community. This pamphlet is based upon that experience and is aimed as a guide to activists in their local communities.
That the pamphlet does not put forward a strategy for taking these issues to a national and international level is a reflection of the weakness of the wider anti-racist movement and the left.
These kinds of strategies are a question for the wider Labour movement and anti-racist movement, though the experience of grass roots organisations such as NMP will prove invaluable in developing such strategies.
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