Milena Buyum of the National Assembly Against Racism had a letter in the 5 May issue of Tribune condemning the presence of the British National Party and its front organisation Civil Liberty at the “March for Free Expression” in Trafalgar Square in March. She pointed out: “There is a clear danger that actions such as the Freedom of Speech rally give the extreme Right a cloak of legitimacy.”

In reply, one Mazin Zeki has a letter in the current issue of Tribune (19 May) actually defending the participation of fascists in the demonstration: “Everyone was welcome to the rally regardless of their political or other allegiance. That is exactly how it should be. Free speech is the democratic space which allows the clear and open clash of differences to be resolved…. Free speech cannot be abandoned on the basis of demagogic ‘anti-racist’ demands from self-appointed groups …”.

Zeki continues: “I am submitting a motion in favour of free speech to the annual general meeting of Liberty on May 30 and welcome support from all true democrats including Tribune readers.” Hopefully Liberty’s members will treat Zeki’s arguments with the contempt they deserve.

For a detailed analysis of the forces involved in the “March for Free Expression”, see “The Right, the Left and ‘Free Expression'”, in What Next? No.31

Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Britain analyses the BNP’s anti-Muslim campaign:

“Carefully hidden – from public view at least – is the old-style racism of the past. Gone is the continual blaming of the ‘coloureds’ for all the ills of our society. Behind the smiling mask and the sharper suits, however, the British National party is out vigorously peddling the same combustible mixture of half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies, but this time with one crucial difference.

“Since Nick Griffin took over the party leadership in autumn 1999, the remodelled BNP has energetically focused on promoting a new and more voter friendly one-line answer to all problems: it’s all the Muslims’ fault. Following on from its shameless attempt to exploit the tensions caused by the 7/7 bombings in London, the BNP has been trumpeting tomorrow’s May 4 local elections as a ‘referendum on Islam’. Griffin’s choice of Islam as a target for focusing hatred reveals how he has correctly sensed that stoking up anti-Muslim sentiment has now become more socially respectable in Britain – as also in much of Europe – than other forms of xenophobia….

“The BNP has not exactly been hindered in its anti-Muslim campaign by our tabloid papers with their regular diet of hysterical stories claiming that our national culture is under threat from minorities. Richard Desmond’s Daily Express and Daily Star titles have been particularly nasty in this regard…. A vocal band of pro-Israel commentators – led by Melanie Phillips, whose rants are routinely published in the Daily Mail – has also decided to zero in on British Muslims as constituting a mortal threat to civilisation as we know it….

“Even if the polls have overstated the support for the BNP, current trends right across Europe would seem to indicate that the BNP’s anti-Muslim campaign is here to stay for the foreseeable future.”

Comment is Free, 3 May 2006

“When employment minister Margaret Hodge said eight out of ten white voters might vote BNP in Barking, it was linked by many in the media to a new report called The BNP: The Roots of its Appeal. This report is produced by Democratic Audit, an academic research unit based at the University of Essex, and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.

“In fact the report is far more sober and nuanced in its assessment of the BNP threat than the media spin would suggest. It mentions polls in London in 2004 that found 23 percent of respondents said they ‘might vote’ for the BNP, as opposed to those who ‘could never vote’ for them. But it also cites poll data that 64 percent of people across Britain expressed a strong dislike for the BNP. This ‘seems to confirm the existence of a large majority of voters for whom extremist parties advocating racist ideas are an anathema’, the report’s authors write….

“The authors explain how important it is for the BNP to be able to repackage racism in terms of defences of ‘free speech’ or attacks on Islam. ‘It is this stance that allows them to campaign viciously on race and especially against Muslims while retaining an outward air of respectability,’ they write.”

Anindya Bhattacharyya in Socialist Worker, 29 April 2006

See also “Livingstone slams claim that 1 in 4 Londoners support BNP”, UAF news report, 25 April 2006

For the Democratic Audit/Rowntree Trust report, see (pdf) here