The fight is not over: 50 years of fighting for equality and still more to do

It is fitting that in the year the Young Fabians celebrates its 50^th anniversary, that we hold our first ever ‘Equalities Month’. Issues of equality have been of prime concern to Fabians, young and ‘older’, throughout the society’s history; as seen in the Fabian Equality Project and reflected in the 2010 Young Fabian members survey, where equalities policy was amongst the top five interests of today’s young thinkers on the left.

Numerous legislative changes and cultural shifts, have taken place in the last 50 years which have moved towards (though not realised) an equalisation of experiences of life in Britain. I want to look all the way back though to two events in 1960 – the year the Young Fabians were founded – with impact both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed around the world.

1960 brought the death of tireless activist, Sylvia Pankhurst. The Pankhurst family (Fabianism was part of their DNA too, you know), as leaders of the women’s suffrage movement, had international reach and their determination and work is felt today, and will be forever. Whilst women are free to participate in the electoral process, we still see a deficit in involvement in political, business and civic leadership. In crude numbers, we’re talking 32% of board seats on public bodies occupied by women, just 12% on FTSE 100 boards, and 20% of seats in the Commons and Lords. (The only parliamentary figure vaguely representative is the 47% of the Welsh Assembly that are female.) Whilst these figures must change, we shouldn’t dismiss improvement – which has happened, and is happening, as a result of action by the Labour Party and this Labour Government.

Fifty years ago, Harper Lee’s novel To Kill a Mockingbird was first published. Ahead of civil rights legislation in the United States, the story took as its main theme racial inequality and injustice. It has been a focus of classroom study from the early 60s to the present day and in 2006 Britain’s librarians named it as the one book everyone should read. For me, Lee’s skill in using a child narrator – rather than her lawyer father, Atticus Finch – exposes the simple views and flawed arguments of prejudiced individuals and an unequal society. Despite the election, to increasingly significant positions, of BNP politicians in the last couple of years, Britain has moved on, not least due to the work of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission and its predecessor. But we as Young Fabians should take responsibility for preventing BNP ideas further permeating our society.

So, March 2010 is marked by the Young Fabians as Equalities Month. It is likely to be the last full month of this parliament. A month that will see the launch of Young Fabian Women, a new section of the society aimed at encouraging young women to become active in politics. And royal assent should be given to a single Equality Act.

We know these issues are important to Young Fabians, the wider labour movement, and Britain as a whole. And we shouldn’t forget – as we approach the general election – the threat that the right poses to the causes fought so passionately and adeptly by the Pankhurst family, Harper Lee, and millions of other campaigners for equality ever since.

Is film an engine for social change?

The Left has always used the arts as a potent ideological weapon, highlighting and agitating for social change. Film has been critical to that, pointing to the worst injustices in society and reflecting back onto us the reality faced by the most disadvantaged around us.

On Monday we start a series of free monthly film screenings at Birkbeck Student Bar, each film a rallying call for a social issue affecting us in 2010. In true Fabian style we’ll point to a cause still worth fight for.

This month we start with racism and the rise of the BNP by screening Shane Meadow’s sobering This is England: a stunning, brutal look at 1983 Britain, during the conservative Margaret Thatcher regime, the growth of racism and the controversial Falklands War.

Introducing the movie will be Hope Not Hate’s Sam Tarry, also National Chair of Young Labour, on the battle to stop the BNP gaining their first parliamentary seat in Barking.

So bring your firends, bring popcorn and get ready to be affected.

For more details click here or email me: vrampulla@youngfabians.org.uk

The BNP – closer than we think?

The news that Nick Griffin (infamous leader of the British National Party, UK MEP for the North-West and now parliamentary candidate for the constituency of Barking) will be part of the European Parliament delegation to Copenhagen will no doubt have further knocked the public’s faith in European institutions.

Nick is not the greatest believer climate change, in fact he has regularly calls it:

“…a global Marxist mantra that is going to be used to beat people around the head, tax us to the hilt, smash nations and impose a one-world government.”

So his attendance at the summit is an unwelcome distraction and is unlikely to be of any help to the UK’s efforts to reach a deal in Copenhagen. Only Griffin will benefit from his attendance as the BNP draws out more political notoriety from the event.

More than embarrasing, BNP’s new spin on the European stage this week is another worrying sign of the rise of the BNP. Their appearance on Question Time last October caused uproar but most are resigned to the fact that it is unlikely to be the last time we see them on our TV screens.

So are we just getting used to the BNP?

The results of the European Elections earlier this year with their two seats gain, their Greater London Assembly seat last year and  57 local BNP councillors across the country, all point to a growing belief amongst some quarters of society that they are a legitimate political force.

So the question is “does the left have any plan that can stop the BNP?”.

Last week members of London Young Labour met to debate the ‘No Platform’ policy against the BNP, the mainstay of the left’s strategy to deal with the far right. Yet it has not beaten back the BNP. Putting aside the deomcratic questions of free speech, they lack of media coverage is not stopping them out there in the streets. In the debate Frank Dobson talked about John Smith asking lead a campaign to deal with the BNP council threat in Millwall in the mid 90s.

The Prime Minister has not done anything similar, although politicians like John Cruddas have made fighting the BNP a personal political aim. In the wider movement organisations like Searchlight and Unite Against Fascism have done sterling work creating campaigns like Hope Not Hate and Love Music Hate Racism to raise awareness and mobilizing support against the BNP.  Now more than ever they need our help.

But with the Labour Party focused on understanding the needs of working class communities, worried by reports that BNP supporters are actually old Labour voters who don’t see the party as relevant to them anymore, it is unclear what the overall strategy really is.  If the Party is serious about breaking the stranglehold of the BNP they may yet have to show that they can take a proper fight to them, as well as woo their followers back to proper mainstream Labour values.

Vincenzo

Young Fabians’ reactions to election of the BNP

The victory of Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons in the North West and North East in the June European Parliamentary elections has presented us with a new reality that cannot be tackled by ‘business as usual’ campaigning or government.

It would be naïve to believe that at successive elections, after the opportunities presented by an EU Parliament office and budget, the BNP will be less of a threat than it was this year.

I disagee with Peter Kellner who argues on Next Left that if we ignore them they will simply go away.

To stop the momentum of the BNP, we have to think again.

Following two Young Fabian round-tables on the issue, myself and two other members of the executive have given their views on preventative action to Anticipations editor Alex Baker, for publication in the conference edition.

Sara Ibrahim criticises the failure of no-platform policies to counter-act the BNP message, and says we should give our supporters the skills they need to challenge the BNP out in the open.

Tom Stoate suggests the current constitution puts a pressure valve on grievances which encourages protest voting, and calls for change.

I argue that Labour needs to find the guts to attack the BNP’s corruption of British identity and enable communities to express their Britishness.

The Labour movement should be putting forward a new patriotism built around institutions and heroes who embody our traditions.

I believe we need to hear about the proud history of the co-operative movement; the solidarity of the Tolpuddle Martyrs; the internationalism of the anti-apartheid movement.

I hope you’ll read our articles in Antics when it comes out, and that this can be the start of a discussion.

In the meantime I’d be interested on your comments on what makes up your British identity, and what heroes and traditions you think we should be championing as part of a new progressive identity.

Tackling the BNP

The irony of the BNP winning two seats in the European Parliament is that fewer people in total voted for them this year than in 2005 – almost 3,000 in the North West region, where Nick Griffin was elected as an MEP, and 6,500 fewer in Yorkshire and Humber, where Andrew Brons was returned.

That raises an important question about the role of mainstream parties in ensuring Britain is not represented in Europe by fringe groups in future.

Without doubt, the single biggest factor in the election of two BNP MEPs is the collapse in the Labour vote. For the most part, voters who supported Labour last time didn’t bother to vote this time around. This inflated the vote shares of other parties.

So how best to tackle the electoral threat the BNP poses?

The evidence from the European elections seems to imply that the BNP’s core support is unlikely to have some Damascene conversion as a result of reading the campaign literature of Labour, the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives; that focusing on those who don’t vote, but are otherwise inclined to support more mainstream parties, is a better course of action. Getting apathetic voters to return to the ballot box is the best remedy for the electoral success of the BNP.

Politicians from mainstream parties are making the right noises today about the troubling beliefs of the BNP. But it is too little, too late.

Mainstream parties have a responsibility to provide reasons for people to vote (in the first instance) and, more than that, to vote for them – they need to provide positive reasons to engage with their policies and proposals, rather than resort to negative campaigning, which is unlikely to work for the reasons outlined above.

Our politicians in Westminster should be ashamed that, on their watch, the conditions arose which has resulted in Britain being represented by extremes of the political spectrum in Europe.

They have to do better next time.

• As an aside, the fact that the BNP now have two MEPs makes ‘no-platform’ arguments more difficult to sustain – hence why both 5live and Radio4 gave time to Nick Griffin this morning. I have not always been a fan of expelling too much energy arguing about ‘no-platform’ issues – it uses time that can be better deployed encouraging those who don’t vote to support mainstream parties. Now more than ever, that energy needs to be focused on getting the apathetic to re-engage with the political process.