Ipswich Fashwatch

Over the last year (and more specifically, the last few months) the racist and fascist 'British National Party' (BNP) have been campaigning throughout Ipswich and other areas of Suffolk.
This campaign has brought with it a spree White Power Graffiti and even racist attacks in the town centre. It is no coincidence that such violence rises alongside the BNP. Throughout the country, every time a BNP presence in a town rises, so do racist and homophobic attacks.
Ipswich-Fashwatch is a resource to collect information on fascist organisers so that a they can be stopped through non-violent means. If you have any information on such people or their activities please get in touch with us.
If you would like to get in touch with active anti-fascists in Ipswich/Suffolk, send us a message or e-mail and we will put the most suitable person in touch with you.
Contact us by MySpace or e-mail us at [email protected]
What is fascism?
Fascism is an ideology that pits itself against the whole of the working class. From its origins in 1920’s Italy as a response to the growing power of the workers movements up till the present day fascism has been and is an ideology and practice that works against the working class of all races and nationalities. From Mussolini’s fascists to Hitler’s National Socialists, Franco in Spain and Pinochet in Chile all fascist and Nazi organisations that have come to power have violently destroyed progressive working class movements and persecuted those who fought for freedom and equality. Fascist governments have always brutally crushed working class resolve and silenced free speech in the interests of the wealthy and powerful in society. The BNP would be no different.
Who are the BNP?
The British National Party (BNP) are a rag tag party of racist thugs, white supremacists and right wing reactionaries whose leadership have a string of serious criminal offences ranging from bomb making, organising illegal paramilitary groups and possession of firearms. In recent years the party have moved from a strategy of “controlling the streets” to an approach based around winning votes at the ballot box. The main reason for this change of tactics is that throughout the 80s and 90s groups such as Anti-Fascist Action ensured that fascists like the BNP were kept off the streets. By the mid 1990s the BNP were unable to hold stalls and public meetings throughout much of the country for fear of being on the wrong end of physical working class resistance. Now the BNP have donned suits in the hope that they can gain credibility amongst the British population and avoid confrontation with militant anti-fascists. The BNP claim to champion the rights of what they call “native” British citizens, the reality is that the BNP couldn’t give a shit about any of the British working class and see us simply as their route to power.
While posing as a new and radical solution to our problems the BNP are nothing more than the representatives of the wealthy and the establishment. The role of the BNP and other fascist groups is to divide society along lines of race and religion, thus fragmenting and weakening the working class, establishing arbitrary divisions and weakening the solidarity and fighting spirit of those who organise across national and racial borders to fight for a classless and equal society. Make no mistake, while claiming to be radical opponents of the status quo the BNP are really its staunchest supporters.
A tactic used by the likes of the Nazi’s in Germany and borrowed by the BNP is to direct public anger at the problems caused by capitalism (poverty, unemployment, insecurity, poor housing etc) onto a racial group. While the Nazi’s blamed the Jews for the failings of German capitalism the BNP blame immigrants and Muslim’s for the failings of British capitalism. For example with regards the problem of housing which has resulted in 100,000 homeless households and widespread inadequate and dilapidated homes the BNP does not blame the wealthy landlords who leave some 790,000 properties empty, have a monopoly on land ownership and charge extortionately high prices. Rather they blame asylum seekers who for the large part live in cramped and appalling conditions. Instead of blaming businesses, which routinely throw thousands out of work and pay derisory wages in order to maximise profits the BNP blame immigrants for “taking our jobs”. Instead of blaming the disintegrating health service on years of privatisation and under funding the BNP blame migrant workers without whom the NHS would almost certainly collapse. The BNP even have the audacity to suggest that unemployment would disappear if immigration was stopped. The truth is that businesses use unemployment to drive down wages and keep employees in line. The fear of being unable to pay the bills and feed the children is one the capitalist class has long exploited as a means of controlling workers and is something that will exist as long as capitalism does.
So you see the BNP do not wish that we fight those who turn our lives into a dot on a profit chart. Rather they wish that we fight amongst each other for the crumbs that fall off the bosses table, leaving the shareholders and bosses to go about their profiteering. The BNP are the bosses little helper, dividing people along lines of race, fuelling race tensions and thus making assaults by business leaders all the more easy to implement and enforce. The likes of the BNP will exist so long as class divisions in society exist, while the government may publicly lament the existence of fascist parties they know that those very parties may be capitalism’s last line of defence should we ever choose to take our lives into our own hands and organise society along lines of direct democracy and equality.
If you would like to find out more about anything, Just ask!