"Is Britain too complacent about the far right?”
Categories: Latest News
Tuesday April 03 2012
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BBC 1 on Sunday morning broadcast the discussion show, The Big Questions, asking the panel “Is Britain too complacent about the far right?”. |
The discussion came as a far-right demonstration took place in Aarhus, Denmark on Saturday, organised by the English Defence League to catalyse the creation of a pan-European ‘anti-Islamisation’ movement. Those invited by the BBC to be present on the panel included the leader of the English Defence League, Stephen Lennon, Jamie Bartlett, a researcher at the think tank Demos; Dr Matthew Goodwin, author of several studies on the British and European far right; Mohammed Ansar who organised an e-petition calling for the EDL to be banned, and Shaista Aziz a freelance journalist.
The programme looked at the lack of mainstream success by the far right in the UK and the definition of ‘far-right’; as well as comments by Lennon, including threatening remarks he made during a demonstration in Tower Hamlets and remarks he made joking about the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik, which were filmed by a television crew for the documentary ‘Proud and Prejudiced’. The programme delved into the role of the EDL in stoking hatred and fear of Muslims and Islam, and the role of the media in whipping-up hatred and misinformation.
In the documentary, Lennon accused the Muslim community of being complacent about Muslim extremism and of not integrating into society. He also stated that “Islamism and Nazism are both sides of the same coin…they’re fascist ideologies”.
Blogging on the debate over at Demos, Jamie Bartlett writes:
“I was on The Big Questions yesterday, to discuss whether Britain is complacent about the far-right.
“Predictably, the debate quickly degenerated into Tommy Robinson versus the world. Are the EDL racist? Violent? What about Tommy’s conviction for headbutting? And so on. That’s a shame, because no-one really answered the core question. So, as I couldn’t squeeze it into the show, here is my answer (which, by the way, is ‘no’).
“There are three types of far-right threats as commonly understood.
“The first is the terrorist one. There are the neo-Nazi groups and the likes of Anders Breivik. Around a dozen people are currently serving time in prison for far-right related terrorist activity. In the immediate aftermath of 7/7, the security services and the police perhaps did underestimate the threat from these groups as a result of a relentless focus on al-Qaeda…Police and intelligence agencies are spending a lot of resources and effort on monitoring and disrupting these groups. It is a serious threat, but not on the scale of al-Qaeda related groups.
“The second is that from groups like the English Defence League. This is not a terrorist threat, but the EDL can disrupt community cohesion, raise tensions and cause lower level violence or criminality. For all the bluster and noise the EDL creates, they are in fact quite small – rarely more than 500 people at their demonstrations, and are not getting any bigger. Complacent? I think not. The media and the police monitor their every move – probably giving them too much attention – and anti-fascist groups relentlessly scrutinise their activities. Their marchers are always outnumbered by counter-demonstrators.
“Finally, there is the electoral threat from the BNP. The BNP is probably the country’s most welcome national embarrassment. Fractured, incompetent, and currently polling at around 1 per cent. When there was a glimmer of possibility that the Nick Griffin could take Barking from Margaret Hodge a national campaign was mobilised and ensured he was obliterated.
“Across large swathes of Europe, the far-right is growing. In France Marine le Pen polls at 20 per cent; in Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands radical right wing groups are far more significant than here. All the factors that tend to help them grow are present in the UK too: social dislocation, high levels of immigration and pockets of poor integration, out of touch political elites. We should probably congratulate ourselves, because the UK is something of a shining light.”
A Home Affairs Select Committee report published earlier this year on ‘The Roots of Violent Radicalisation,’MPs found that there has been a growth in “more extreme and violent forms of far-right ideology”.
The MPs argued that they had “received persuasive evidence about the potential threat from extreme far-right terrorism” stating that “The ease of travel and communications between countries in Europe and the growth of far-right organisations, which appear to have good communications with like-minded groups within Europe, suggest that the current lack of firm evidence should not be a reason for neglecting this area of risk. The Prevent Strategy should outline more clearly the actions to be taken to tackle far right radicalisation as well as explicitly acknowledge the potential interplay between different forms of violent extremism, and the potential for measures directed at far-right extremism to have a consequential effect on Islamist extremism, and vice versa.”
While Bartlett is right to point to the UK’s comparatively better record in challenging the activities of far right parties and organisations, the select committee is judicious to counsel against neglect.
The Big Questions is available to watch here on BBC iPlayer.