This account by Sacha Ismail of a TV debate is taken from Workers Liberty’s site. It throws up some interesting questions.
Last night I took part in a television debate with Weyman Bennett of the Socialist Workers’ Party and Unite Against Fascism, on the Islam Channel. The other participants were Labour GLA member Murad Qureshi and Birmingham Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob, and the host recently expelled SWPer John Rees.
I’m trying to get hold of the ‘tape’ or at least a transcript and will post it when I do (all quotations are from memory until then).
I was invited because I participated in last Saturday’s conference to launch a new, working-class-based anti-fascist network called by Notts Stop the BNP. The producer, a non-Muslim who seemed to be a genial and open-minded lefty, contacted the AWL office a few hours before the programme. Rees billed me as “Workers’ Liberty and Nottingham Stop the BNP” – not true, as I don’t live in Nottingham and so am not involved in the local campaign, though as I was not asked to speak first I failed to correct him.
Murad Qureshi came across as what I think he is, a liberal social democrat; he was well to the left of “revolutionary” Weyman Bennett. There were three main areas of debate:
1. State bans
Early in the programme Bennett said in passing that EDL marches “should not be allowed”. Rees asked both him and Yaqoob if they favoured police bans on the EDL marching. Both tried to straddle the fence. Yaqoob acknowledged that such police powers can be used against the left, but argued that the basic issue was one of preventing EDL violence. As a liberal reformist who believes the capitalist police are a neutral and potentially benign force, she was probably genuinely unsure.
Weyman Bennett was more cynical. While claiming that he did not support bans or calling for them, he said that UAF would “support those in the community who are calling for such bans”. Now clearly, opposing state bans on the far right is not a precondition for solidarity with those under threat or for united mobilisations on the streets. But essentially this is a classic case of the SWP wanting to have its cake and eat it, opportunistically adapting to its allies without formally repudiating Marxist politics on the question. No to state bans, which will only strengthen the state’s power to repress anti-racists, the labour movement and the left!
2. “Unity” with whom?
In pretty much every contribution, I stressed that the most basic problem with UAF is its failure to take up the social conditions which provide the soil for the growth of racism and fascism. This is because UAF is a cross-class alliance which includes not only Labour politicians welcomed in on a flat, non-labour movement, ‘single issue’ basis, but Tories from David Cameron to Sir Teddy Taylor of the far-right, racist Monday Club. Of course such a campaign cannot operate on the basis of class struggle, uniting different sections of the labour movement to provide a working-class alternative to the demagogy of the BNP and EDL.
The issue was posed quite sharply by Salma Yaqoob’s celebration of a statement published against the upcoming EDL demonstration in Dudley. This statement is supported not only by the Tories but by UKIP! Perhaps unsurprisingly Weyman Bennett did not take up this question directly, limiting himself to a vague comment about “making the arguments for a progressive society”.
In passing, he said that the only issue is whether you are for or against the EDL and the BNP; I think he may have used the well-worn phrase “maximum unity”. This misposes the question, which should actually be “Unity with who?” We need the maximum unity of the working class and labour movement to struggle against fascism and the social conditions in which it grows – not unity with bosses and bourgeois politicians whose anti-fascism is token and who prevent us from saying and doing what is necessary for the struggle.
Bennett pointed out that almost all the unions support UAF, and Rees asked me whether I disagreed that this was the correct starting point. I pointed out that what the unions actually do is “contract out” anti-fascism to UAF, handing over large amounts of money and their logos for leaflets, but doing little to educate or mobilise their members and certainly not putting a working-class stamp on the content of the campaign. Thus UAF’s “labour movement support” is utterly shallow and one-dimensional, little different from the unions supporting any number of bourgeois organisations.
3. Islamophobia
The sharpest and most extensive debate was over Islamophobia, which Bennett correctly identified as a core element of the EDL’s politics. The conclusion he drew was, naturally, the need for “unity” with “the Muslim community” and that it is illegitimate to criticise… well, pretty much anything Islamic. When I challenged him on this, he spewed out a series of straw man arguments, attempting to present me as a right-winger or at best a liberal who believes that there is a straight equivalence between the far right and political Islam and that criticising Islamic reaction is a precondition for opposition to racism and solidarity with its victims. He also tried to imply that Workers’ Liberty supports a ban on the hijab. All this is, of course, nonsense. I responded as follows:
a) Many mosque officials, ‘community leaders’ etc have told Muslim youth to stay at home and not join demonstrations against the EDL. Even the immediate needs of mobilisation therefore pose the question of exactly who in “the Muslim community” the labour movement and anti-fascist organisations need to relate to.
b) The ‘number 1’, most urgent task is opposition to the rise of the far right. The racists thugs must be driven off our streets, and to do so we may have to mobilise alongside not only conservative ‘community leaders’ but even right-wing Islamists. However, that is not the only task. Our broader task, necessary for seriously marginalising the racists and fascists and pushing them not only off the streets but to the edges of society, must be to rebuild working-class organisation and working-class politics. That means confronting all forms of anti-working class reaction, including political Islam. SWP/UAF politics effectively promote rather than confront the latter.
c) No serious left-winger would argue that the marginalisation of the religious right with British Muslim communities is the precondition for defending these communities against racis
m and far-right mobilisation. But nor should any serious left-winger argue that defending Muslims against racism means abandoning the struggle against religious reaction.
Rees asked whether I disagreed that the defeat of the racists could create a space for more secular, integrated politics to emerge among British Muslims. While that idea is undoubtedly true in general, it fails to recognise the need for a political battle against right-wing Islamism now.
d) I would argue that it is not the Workers’ Liberty approach, but the SWP/UAF/Weyman Bennett approach which is in fact ‘Islamophobic’, since by condemning criticism of political Islam as “criticism of Muslims” it lumps all Muslims and people of Muslim background in the same reactionary box. Like all religious communities, Muslims are in fact divided by attitude to religion, by politics and by class, and the job of the left is to accentuate and develop these differences to promote the organisation of workers and youth on a class basis – not to shore up the unity of the “community” around self-appointed leaders and reactionary religious demagogues.
Liam redux 
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