The recent electoral gains by the British National Party have triggered debates over how best to oppose it. Unite Against Fascism (UAF) believes that the BNP is a fascist organisation, and as such it should not be treated with the respect one accords to democratic parties. The BNP should be physically confronted wherever it tries to organise. It should be not be accepted as a legitimate political organisation, or mollycoddled with interviews and airtime. It should driven out of our political life.

Some people say that these tactics are counterproductive and risk granting the BNP victim status. But we believe that the greater danger comes from letting the BNP pose as a legitimate and democratic political organisation. As with fascist parties in the past, the BNP stands in elections to secure a veneer of respectability. This acts as a cover for its real agenda: promoting vicious race hatred and thuggery on our streets.

It is therefore essential to deny the BNP the respectability it craves. That is why UAF supports the anti-fascists who successfully disrupted Nick Griffin’s press conference last week. Griffin chose to be filmed outside the Houses of Parliament to secure his credentials as part of the establishment. Instead he was humiliated and forced to deliver his “victory” speech the next day in a Manchester pub.

Politicians in Germany in the 1930s promised to oppose Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party, but went about it through peaceful and legal means. Far from preventing Hitler’s rise, the they ended up nurturing him and eventually handing power to him. Hitler used that power to smash every last vestige of democracy and to launch a disastrous and genocidal war.

In contrast, the militant tradition of anti-fascism has a track record of success. The National Front was defeated in the 1970s by a mass movement that rose up to confront it, led by the Anti-Nazi League.

Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists was defeated in a similar manner, most notably at the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.

This is the tradition that UAF stands in today. During the recent election campaign our activists distributed more than two million leaflets and newsheets urging people to vote against the BNP. We worked with our sister campaign Love Music Hate Racism to hold a 20,000-strong anti-racist music festival in Stoke-on-Trent. We need to combine all these tactics if we are serious about defeating the threat posed by the BNP.

Weyman Bennett is Joint Secretary of Unite Against Fascism

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