Left and right influences on workers in the UK.?

Question

A right wing press, the capitalist bosses and the BNP are trying to 'win over' the UK workforce to the idea that immigration is the cause of job insecurity and unemployment.. promoting disunity between workers.

Unfortunately, this has even crept into SOME individuals attitudes on the picket lines in recent disputes...

What is the best response from the left to this...

Should we abandon these misled workers to the right wing influences...
or should we get involved and win them back to the left?

Answer 1

I think you're yet another BNP troll.



Edit: Definitely a troll.

Answer 2

"British jobs for British workers"

Gordon Brown



and there is nothing racist about the above statement, because you don't have to be a white Anglo-Saxon to be British - if you are born here in the UK, you are British, end of argument.



Also I have noticed the Union Flag being carried by striking and demonstrating British Workers - well good for them. It's the British flag and not the banner of the BNP.



We we were told of the London Olympics - Londoners were promised thousands of jobs at the Olympic site. Less than a quarter of these jobs actually went to born and bred Londoners. Instead, a vast army of Poles and other Eastern Europeans were brought in to do the work for less money.



Don't make me laugh - there is no way that any of us will ever be influenced by such as the BNP.



You need to focus properly on exactly what and who the British people are. We are a home owning democracy and the vast majority of us are Conservative with a small 'c'. Wait until June 2010 and see if I'm wrong - I'm not saying we're going to have a Conserative government, but we sure as Hell might. It's touch and go.



On the whole, being an unapologetic Royalist, I prefer Labour in power for the simple reason that it at least does it's best to redistribute the wealth - at which it is failing dismally right now.

Answer 3

Abandon workers!? We are socialists. Without workers we are nothing. If we wait until the workers are "ideologically pure" and rid themselves of "false consciousness" we will perish under an avalanche of fascism. Historically Left parties have been strong in areas where the far right also has a following. Witness Petrograd in 1917 and the Black Hundreds and Bolsheviks. Same in pre-Hitlerite Berlin with the Nazis and the Kommunists.



We have to fight for our ideas in the real world and get out of the sectarian hothouse. We must start to get our hands dirty again and get involved in the electoral process on every level from local councils to the European Parliament. We cannot afford to let the likes of the BNP make the running.



As for workers' attitudes - at Lindsey Oil Refinery it was the worker's themselves who asked the police to remove the BNP from the picket line.

Answer 4

We should certainly NOT abandon workers who have been conned by media scare stories and pulled to the right by the rhetoric of the far right.



One of the roles of the left is, and always has been, to explain capitalism, particularly when it's in crisis, to workers. It was Gordon Brown and New Labour who came out with the reactionary slogan 'British Jobs For British Workers' and this was a clear, cynical attempt to cash in on the racist anti-immigrant frenzy whipped up by the media.



The nazi BNP latched onto this and sent their 'lie lorry' to several picket lines to try to stir up racism and xenophobia, and ultimately attempt to divide the working class. Interventions from the left were largely successful and the result was that, on many picket lines, the fascists were physically chased away.



You cannot debate with a nazi but it's vital that workers, even those with some reactionary and soft racist views, are engaged in discussion about economics, unemployment, factory closures and recession!

Answer 5

the element on the topic of the advantages gadget is that is no longer as problem-free as you may think of. people who've purely come under no longer problem-free cases (like at the instant lost their activity) are actually not susceptible to be ordinary for advantages with the aid of their reductions. they are being punished for his or her accountability. that is basically people who chosen to have no longer something and don't something that thrive on the advantages gadget yet do no longer choose the united kingdom too harshly. the middle classes keep this usa working, and many the working classification do artwork very no longer problem-free, that is basically a nasty few who provide something of them a nasty call. as much as I dislike the tories, hopefully their screw the detrimental coverage will provide the advantages gadget a lots mandatory replace. yet once I have been to provide up my activity day after today, i does no longer be entitled to any advantages, ironic no? additionally, immigrants are purely as undesirable for abusing the advantages gadget. Jane: inaction makes "incapacity" worse. If people have been given off their arses and stopped believing they are able to't do something because of the fact they have have been given despite self clinically determined ailment, they may well be taken aback what they might accomplish. My grandmother calls me often to whinge she will't do undemanding projects like open the oven door, or %. up the bathing powder. once I talk her by it she discover's that she's no longer as cripplingly disabled as she believes. As for looking a job, it relies upon the place you're. I stay interior the south, purely exterior of London, and that i haven't had any problem looking a job. My sister has purely grew to become 18 and have been given a retail activity in a heartbeat. possibly that is greater good interior the north.

Answer 6

I was thinking of going to speakers corner to talk about this very subject actually, here's what I've in my mind that I'll say (summarised obviously):



The primary tool of the left, and of the working people of this country, is collective action, and one of the ideas of democratic socialism is solidarity with and of the disadvantaged and oppressed...

How therefore, is building walls within those sectors of society along racial and ethnic lines going to achieve anything other than to undermine that whole objective.



I'm fascinated by the phrase coming out of otherwise respectable left wing quarters of "white working class brits"...are we really expected to believe that a white, asian, or afro Caribbean person, who is living in the middle of an inner city council estate, working for minimum wage, wondering if their job is safe and how they are going to make ends meet, is going to have radically different concerns from other people on the same street who happen to be of a different ethnic background to them?



That's what my message would be anyway.

Answer 7

I think people that are swayed by the kind of invective garbage the BNP is spewing are a lost cause, generally.



Here in America, we have the Republican party. I'd say the one thing the Repugs do particularly well––and this is the difference between a far-right party and a SELF-DESCRIBED white supremacist party like the BNP–– is attract closet racists and xenophobes by insidious, more subtle means–– "southern strategy", for example. The BNP and other hateful bigot parties will hit a wall where their infamy is a strong deterrence.



I'd be more worried if the Conservatives started internalizing anti-immigration rhetoric. (They may have already; I only loosely follow UK politics.)

Answer 8

Let's put to sleep the myth once and for all that there remain any ideological differences between the so-called 'Left' and 'Right' in Britain. The days are long gone when Labour and the Unions could claim to support the interests of British working men and women. Nowadays, all the political elite parties and their Union lackeys bow the knee to Thatcherite laissez-faire Capitalism, globalism at the expense of British jobs, and blind faith in the uncertain benevolence of the EU to which they handed our national sovereignty.



It is clear that Lib-Lab-Con & Co. only really care about serving the interests of the rich. After all, corruption, money and expenses seem to be on their minds, rather than the plight of thousands of British workers thrown on the dole. The situation of the indigenous British worker is further disadvantaged by so-called 'positive' discrimination. After the strikes at the beginning of this year, British workers now know better than to expect the Unions to defend their corner either.



The whole 'racism' issue, and political correctness is a smoke-screen, to intimidate people into submission. But it isn't working any longer. People are seeing through the scare-mongering about the British National Party too.



Only the BNP have the courage to stand up for British Jobs for British Workers.

Answer 9

1. They have obviously turned into Nazis. Throw eggs at them.



OR



2. Maybe there is some truth in the stories of mass immigration having an effect on job insecurity and unemployment. Maybe these "individuals" have good reason to worry.

Answer 10

The left = subtle control & complete abandonment of responsibility, logic and efficiency. The classic liberal ideology of the left during the French Revolution has long gone, replaced and bastardized by socialists, hippies and naivety. A perfect utopia works on a piece of paper, if you're prepared to completely ignore the fundamental nature of human beings.



As for right-wing press - WHAT? I suppose when you hold a steadfast opinion, everything seems against you.

Answer 11

Left or right extremists and zealots are all worthless, the only rights they recognized is their "right" to wealth and power. They could give a hoot less for the working class, unless its election time. Then the lies start and whom so ever lies the best and can blame someone else for the problems wins.

Answer 12

"Right-wing press"



What? Oh, your a leftist, makes sense.



I'm not certain if the BNP is as big an influence as you seem to feel though.