TMP Editor on Al Jazeera
In the early hours of the morning of 7th May, as the results were coming in for the British General Election 2010. I appeared on Al Jazeera English News Channel to speak on two topics:
- Proportional Representation and what it means for far-right parties like the British National Party
- The Barking “Hodge vs Griffin” results from an anti-fascist perspective, I was billed as “Hope Not Hate” though I asked to be named a representative of “South London Anti-Fascist Group”
My debut on Al Jazeera is below, filmed and uploaded on to YouTube by a good colleague of mine and now on The Multicultural Politic for you to enjoy/lament/laugh at:
BNP GE2010 results: anti-fascism doesn’t work
by Glyn Harries
At the May 2010 Barking and Dagenham council elections, the British National Party lost all their 12 Councillors, all previously elected in 2006. And their national party leader Nick Griffin, who it was suggested would take the Parliamentary seat, only came 3rd, and petulantly walked away declaring Barking and London ‘finished’.
But away from the headlines the actual results in Barking and Dagenham show the BNP nearly doubled their vote from 2006 to 2010, though where they had stood previously their vote did decline slightly. I have used their highest votes in each ward. While it is good news to see the Councillor parasites of the BNP wiped out, the Hope not Hate (HnH) victory claims are as ever deeply flawed.
Open Thread: I’m an Al Jazeera News’ Election Pundit tonight. What should I say?
Thanks to the debate I had with Margaret Hodge MP for Barking, your friendly neighbourhood blogger and community activist/organiser has been asked to speak the infamous Qatar based news channel: Al Jazeera at 2.30am (British Summer Time/1:30 GMT) tonight/Friday morning.
They have asked me to discuss the local and general election results in Barking & Dagenham which will either show that the British National Party have control of the local authority or not.
BNP Candidate Bob Bailey Kicks Asian Man’s Head
From Sam Tarry at Hope Not Hate
Yesterday, BNP candidate Bob Bailey – the party’s top official in London – viciously attacked a young man in the street.
A camera team caught the attack on video – you need to watch it and then share it with everyone you know.
BNP London leader doesn’t want black children
From Expose the BNP
Barking and Dagenham’s disgraced BNP leader Bob Bailey may be suspended from his role as councillor for making racially offensive remarks.
His racist rant was made during a planning meeting in July last year, when the predominantly Nigerian Redeemed Christian Church of God, applied for permission to turn an office space at Rima House, Barking, into a place of worship.
In discussion with Margaret Hodge MP
So on Wednesday night, your friendly neighbourhood community activist and blogger attended the excellent play “A Day at the Racists” and was in a post-show discussion with Margaret Hodge, Minister of State for Culture and also Member of Parliament for the Barking constituency.
The play to review it briefly, was excellent. It was not describing the exact situation in Barking for this election but a scary glimpse of a possible future where the British National Party moderate themselves to accept a British mixed race Asian candidate. It was well-researched, very funny in the first half and then becomes a visceral emotionally and political rollercoaster in the second half, also it upset Margaret. For a more fuller review look here. Below is a short Al-Jazeera (English) news item on the play: Read more
What should I say to Margaret Hodge tonight?
This is your one and only chance to use me as a proxy to put your thoughts and feelings across to Margaret Hodge MP for Barking, and Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Tonight I am speaking at a post-show discussion of “A Day at the Racists” at the Finborough Theatre, SW10. I’m going to ask her to apologise for claiming in the Observer in May 2007 that immigrants were the reason that white working class people couldn’t get council housing in Barking & Dagenham.
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The EDL and The Islamist Far-Right
From The Commune
Last month the English Defence League announced plans to march in Tower Hamlets, East London, in protest at an Islamist conference planned for June 20th at the Troxy centre. The conference was planned by groups tied to Islamic Forum Europe, among the major Islamist groups in the area.
Anti-racists planned to demonstrate against the EDL: but the SWP-run Unite Against Fascism and its front group United East End insisted this should be on the basis of uncritical support for — and collaboration with — the conference organisers. This meant whitewashing the worst religious fundamentalists and supporting their right to represent the Bengali community in the borough.
Read more