South Yorkshire: where the left fears to tread
Judith Amanthis reports on how an innovative artist is pioneering methods of engaging working class communities whilst combating the far-right.
Everyone on the UK left knows why some members of the white ex-industrial working class have voted BNP. None that I know of knocks on doors in Doncaster or Dagenham, says “What can we do to help?” and talks to people. That’s what the BNP does.
Is it useful to engage in inside-left (excuse the pun) debate about whether the BNP is a fascist party? Is an elected Hitler likely in multi-racial 21st century UK? When the government’s far right immigration policy is an attempt to stem the haemorrhage of whiteness and Englishness from the UK working class anyway?
Whichever anti-BNP slogan the left chooses, one young woman is acting creatively. Artist Rachel Horne and her friends are trying to drag her South Yorkshire ex-mining community, and especially her generation, away from the BNP, but also from the British army and the drugs barons. An increasingly coercive and privatised social security system doesn’t help.
What is Democracy: a Climate Camp POV
Liam Taylor’s speech on radical democracy from last week’s Compass Annual Conference.
I must admit that I feel like something of an anomaly at this conference. Before coming here today I looked on the Compass website at the impressive list of speakers that are here: people from think tanks, from policy institutes, from NGOs, journalists, elected politicians. In other words, people who might be considered ‘experts’, people who do politics for their day job.
And I want to begin by immediately renouncing any claims to such expertise on my part. I probably know less about some of these issues than anybody else in this room. I don’t spend my days reading policy papers for a living; instead, I spend my days teaching secondary schoolchildren in east London. But I think the fact that I am here, and that my presence here feels slightly anomalous, tells us something interesting about politics, and in particular the way that our politics has become increasingly professionalized. That, I think, is a problem – and it goes to the heart of our thinking about radical democracy in this discussion here today.
Climate Camp, I want to suggest, is the antithesis of professionalized politics. We are not an NGO, with a full-time staff; we are not a political party, with appointed leaders. We are a group of ordinary people, from all walks of life, who have come together because of our shared concern about climate change, and our desire to do something about it. Each year, we set up a week-long camp next to one of the root causes of climate change, from power stations to airports, culminating in some form of direct action. In the past we’ve camped outside Drax coal-fired power station; outside Heathrow airport; and, last year, outside the coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. Most recently, on 1 April, thousands of people converged on Bishospgate in the City of London for a day-long camp outside the European Climate Exchange, the world’s largest carbon trading centre. It’s not just about protest: it’s about building our little vision of the future, in the here and now, a vision which we develop through workshops and education, through sustainable living, and through the day-to-day practices of direct democracy.
A New Day, a New Political Landscape
As I write my first editorial it is clear that the nightmare prophesied by Searchlight and others has become a reality.
A grinning Griffin and Andrew Brons entering the European Parliament may be a sickening sight for all anti-fascists, however there is some cold comfort when the truth behind the headlines is that the BNP have gained in popularity but Griffin in fact received a fewer number of votes than he received in 2004.
New Editor appointed
After a long search, we have found a new editor for TMP.
Justin Baidoo is a dynamic grass roots campaigner of the new political generation. He is a former President of Epping Forest College Student Union and a former teacher. In his present day job, he is an IT professional. Commenting on the state of the world today, Justin said “I don’t think social justice can be achieved without abandoning neo-liberal economic policies and embracing democratic socialism”. A committed trade unionist and one not afraid to engage in radical thinking and thought provoking debate, he was the obvious candidate to take over TMP.
Justin has assumed full editorial control of TMP. The advisory board will of course be on hand to provide advice and guidance to Justin as needed but from hereon in, it is very much his “baby” (so to speak).
TMP was founded to provide a vehicle through which multicultural progressives can come together and explore how we can build a more fair, free, equal and democratic world. We are delighted that Justin will now be taking this project forward.
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