A good idea.

Might I suggest the organizers add someone with wider public appeal, such as Frank Field, to the platform as it sounds like a rather narrow base? Or even someone from the Liberals or Conservatives?

Opposing the BNP should not be not the preserve of the left.

@1

Yeah but whenever the Right try to oppose the BNP they do it by out-racisming (yes it’s a word, shuddup) them… Pandering to the Daily Hate Mail with “No WE’LL send the buggers back” rhetoric. a race to the bottom, as they say.

J Alfred Prufrock,

I’m not sure it’s wise to dismiss ‘the Right’ with regard to this. In so doing it is easy to get lost in defending ‘us’ against them.

Left / Right policy is actually closer when you consider something like immigration and notice how Labour moved much closer to ‘the Right’ during the past decade – not because they were attempting to be more populist but because their initial policies were naive and partly based on opposition to the other.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qh0zf

It’s in not in the interest of any the main parties to see the BNP do well, so I would have thought they should all be there.

rumpypumpy,

The problem is that Labour are now part of the right-wing politics, something most people seem to forget. The case in favour of immigration is seldom, if ever, made: you’ll normally hear about the “need” for a “points based” system, or whatever.

No-one points out that freedom of capital should equal freedom of labour (except the far-left).

Course all mainstream parties should oppose the BNP, but they should also stop pandering to the lowest common denominator Daily Express-style headlines. Criticism of that type of scaremongering wouldn’t go amiss.

But then it’s a bigger problem than that, cos people feel excluded from debates etc which is where UAF should find their niche, explaining and including everyone (ie: potential BNP voters) in debates and not preaching to the converted (to be fair they are pretty good at winning the argument anyway).

Alfred,

I think it would be better phrased: ‘Freedom of capital should equal freedom of labour – to the extent that it serves the nation’s long-term self interest’.

But then we would have to define what is it’s self interest.

rp,

Meh: the point is that the whole conversation should shift from a (stereotypically, if you like) right-wing perspective to a, ahem, more broad-minded viewpoint. Educate people away from the BNP, don’t dumb down to lure them away.

I’d kill* for a Mail/Express/Star/Sun headline that for once praised the contribution of migrant workers. Or even distinguished between immigrants and asylum seekers. Sigh.

*Metaphorically of course. This in no way condones violence…

4, I agree that the Blair and Brown party and its loyal henchmen in parliament are right-wing but let’s not call them Labour. They are no such thing, they are fucking Tories.

So many times I read the news about some fucking cunts and think “If only we had a Labour government to stop them”. Because we haven’t got them.

7.

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. ” – George Orwell, Animal Farm. Never been more true!

This is no less then a politically motivated group of people trying to force the media to report opinion and spin rather then facts. The real goal is to ensure that every story relating to the BNP is presented as something evil and sinister even if the story is benign.

“The new campaign will tackle the BNP’s “attempts to construct a respectable public image” and support media workers who refuse to work on uncritical programmes or material, the group announced today.”

This is not healthy or a normal democratic tactic and will not go down well with an increasingly media savvy public.

The BNP thrive on the status of victim hood and “establishment fear of the truth” and this is handing it to them on a plate, as well stepping into totalitarian ground.

Who else do you disagree with that needs silencing / smearing / special treatment?

@7

Get over it – Labour has changed. It’s not socialist, and it’s not left wing. Why are you so angry that they are still using the name?

How old are you? I was around when they were socialists, and called each other comrade, had show of hands votes on actual policies at conference and wanted to make pips squeak (still love that line); the point is that I noticed them change, and now I know what they are. It’s not like some gang has sneakily taken control and subverted them – there was an extensive and deliberate change of ideology under Smith to actually move away from socialism.It bores me to tears to hear people bemoan that they’re not real labour. Everybody knows they’re no Ramsay McDonald (probably a bad example as he was expelled for being too nice to the conservatives) – reminding us of that is unnecessary and tedious.

Blair and Brown and their “henchmen” are indeed Labour. that’s what happened to it. That is what labour is. A socially centre left party, with economically centre right policies. Whatever they are, they’re not Tories (more like Liberals really); but then, neither are the tories – the poor old conservatives have the same thing – can’t call em Tories, can’t call em Whigs, can’t really call em Unionists.

Just support a real socialist party, instead of bleating on about one of the two centrist mainstream parties. In particular, support electoral reform, which means that you can vote for the people you believe in, rather than tactically.