Political platoformery

I have 90 minutes before I am released from work. I've planned lessons and done paperwork. I have admin coming out of my ass and my stationery orders are being processed. However, most of this week has been spent debating the whole "should the BNP be allowed on Question Time?" debate. I thought I'd spend my time to elaborate my views on this beyond facebook, set them down in a piece of writing longer than a comments box allows, and see how it goes.

I like this debate. It's the kind of debate that should be had. A lot of debates, especially on the left (and I say this as a lefty myself) can be about posturing and pretense. We're worse at it than the right. Because the left believes in things like rights and egalitarian principles, they find it very hard to stand up to other people and say "Shut up, I won't allow you to speak". We find it hypocritical and contradictory so we avoid it as much as possible. However, we're now actually encountered not by a hypothetical situation but a very real one. The left is not dogged by the lingering "what if" of having to allow air time to the far right, but by the very actuality of it. In a few weeks, BNP leader Nick Griffin will be allowed onto the stage of Britain's most popular (and only?) political debate show, Question Time. Question Time has a long history and is well respected as a bit of an institution. As it appears on the BBC (a publicly funded broadcasting service) the show must remain impartial, which includes allowing a platform for any party which is registered by the electoral commission and acting within the law. Thus far, they are doing so. Plus, it is also noted that Nick Griffin has been elected into European Parliament and as such represents the views of a chunk of the population. This is no longer hypothetical. Griffin will get airtime, so what are we going to do about it? Good God! We actually have to talk about something that might actually get us to do something!

This is the tricky bit. The line is now drawn. A wide group of individuals are arguing for various "against" tactics. For example, refusing to appear on the show with Griffin is the more moderate option, whereas the harder option of protesting outside the BBC, bombarding them with complaints and getting him removed from the show is the other option. On the other side is the "pro" group, for want of a better word, who think that Griffin should be allowed on the show even if the thought of it makes them want to puke. The trickiness comes down to something very rare in political debates: the fact that both sides make excellent cases and that both sides can see the merit of the view of the other. I've not heard anyone (and I've heard a lot of people talking about this) who can say flatly that they see no reason why the other side has argued in the way that they have. In fact, both sides seem to bite the bullet on a number of issues, none of which are comfortable, in order to push their point forward.

My problem is that my heart says he should be banned from the show (and the planet) yet my head says that this is not the best tactic. My other problem is that I think the arguments for banning him/not sharing a platform actually have hidden principles, consequences (which are never certain, but that counts for both sides of any argument) and assumptions which are worse than the ones I'd have to accept otherwise. This is the nasty side of this debate. It's not about what benefits us the most so much as what causes the least problems. There have been a wide number of responses and so I can't really respond to each directly. Instead I shall use a mish-mash of what I see as the main threads of argument running throughout, with the odd nod to specifics here and there. What I think I should probably do is lay out what I think with reference to other responses here and there.

Firstly, there is the argument concerning consistency. Can we truly say that we are pro-democracy if we choose to silence a democratically elected MEP? Of course, this only really refers to the choice of stopping him from speaking and doesn't easilly transfer to the idea that we could boycott talks with him. However, the point of boycotting a platform with Griffin is that he won't be asked to speak or the programme will be cancelled, thus effectively silencing him (no one would refuse to debate with him if they thought he'd be allowed to polemicise on his own for an hour on TV). In honesty, I think the answer is no. We cannot be consistent in arguments that we find Griffin abhorent because he is anti-democracy if we are willing to suspend the rules of democracy for our own gain. We complained at Blair and Bush about it, so why not extend the same principles to ourselves? However, for myself this is not the biggest problem. One can simply outsmart the argument: just don't argue from a democratic stance. Let's face it, democracy aside, there is enough to loathe about the BNP without worrying about that particular set of views. You could easilly pick up on their racism, homophobia and misogyny instead. Is that a dangerous thing to do? Possibly, but not necessarily. After all, democracy is a means and not an end. Democracy helps us to pursue certain goals, but as any good Marxist should know, societies may not always need democracy. To argue against the BNP from the standpoint of democracy requires you to be consistent and stick to its principles. If you're not willing to do that then just pick another angle- there are loads to choose from. So I don't worry about this argument myself, but think that anyone arguing for democracy should seriously wonder about their own consistency, then choose whether to bite the bullet or do a U-turn.

Secondly, there is what I could call the tactical side. The reason many anti-BNP types are willing to let Griffin speak is not because of their fear of being inconsistent, but because it would be a) a smart move or b) a bad move not to do otherwise. (Just as an aside, it shouldn't be thought that anyone likes or approves of Griffin being on QT. It's just that some think we shouldn't try to stop him and others do). Why would it be a smart move? Because it would get Griffin in front of the nation for him to be made a fool of (remember, the best bits of QT often pop up on the news next day). Why would the opposite be a bad move? Because the BNP have a persecution complex and feel that the liberal elite and the marxists are too afraid to let them speak. Sadly, many BNP voters feel the same- not on a conspiratorial level, but as much as the PC brigade are too afraid to talk about these things and keep it under the radar. You'll only drum up further support if you paint them to be martyrs.

Of course, that's not the end of the story. Several responses have come back. One is that the BNP feel persecuted anyway, so this particular event won't make any difference. Everything they do/don't do is spun as if the liberal elite are pulling the strings, so why worry about it? Another is that QT is not the best platform for this kind of thing because it is just political posturing and soundbites, and as the BNP work through that medium (let's face it, they can't sustain a debate in the face of things like logic and facts) it would be a disaster to allow them onto the show. Finally, reasonable debate is useless any way as BNP supporters don't care about logic and rationality. Beliefs are more instinctive and visceral than that, and so the average BNP voter won't be swung by what will be seen as lefty trot pinko rhetoric. So what are we to do?

Let's face it, these arguments are a little misguided and patronising. It's a little straw man to start by saying "you can't convince the BNP with reason". Of course you can't, that's not the point. No one intends to convince the type of person who attends the Red, White and Blue festival at Codnor and throws nazi salutes over the fence. You won't be able to, largely because these people have motives beyond the usual. However, the moderate growth in BNP support is from the fringes, from people who feel dissatisfied with the mainstream parties and are being lured in by horseshit about immigration and Islamification. These people aren't evil, but misinformed- and I speak from experience. I met a guy in the pub a few weeks back who voted BNP, until we gave him evidence about the real policies and intentions of the party, then he thought twice. And this is the real issue. We didn't guide him to vote for A or B, left or right, we just said "that choice is not the choice you think it is" and he went away assessing who he really should vote for. It's not about getting people on our side, but about getting them away from that side. So the target audience is not the unconvertible, but the marginal figures who need illuminating. This particular argument to silence Griffin or to avoid debating with him is based upon a false assumption about who the target audience is.

Re: target audiences. There is also the disturbing view that many of the left have that the general public are completely unable to make up their own mind about things and that by hearing a soundbite from Griffin, they will become full on SS stormtroopers. This reached its apex when a writer in the Guardian used psychological research to show that we are predisposed by our characters to favour some beliefs over others. If we let the public hear Griffin, those who are predisposed to like Nazi bullshit will be convinced, so we can't let it happen. Firstly, that's a horrifically condescending and elitist view of what I can only assume is the working class. The vanguard are OK to engage with Nick, but those poor proles won't know what to make of him. Secondly, where does that leave democracy? How can such a deterministic view of human nature help us at all? Surely even moderates will be subject to the same laws; centre left and centre right will be unable to hear reasonable responses to their arguments as they are blinded by a priori mental structures. This is nonsense, and if it isn't nonsense then there's not much we can do about it. If we can't actually reason about things, then the choice is to either pretend that we can and live in blissful ignorance or stop beating about the bush and fuck democracy off altogether. Democracy could be no more than the registering of the deterministic mental frameworks of individuals, like stocktaking the synapses, in which case the only way to win elections is to breed more people like us or to wipe out the opposition. This is not hyperbole, even if it sounds like it. It's the logical conclusion of a disturbing assumption which is either truly believed (which is disturbing enough) or which is just being used as a political tool in this instance (which isn't a nice precedence).

The other argument along these lines was (as mentioned above) that QT is based on soundbites, which is the BNPs best platform. So what? Hit them with better soundbites. We've all seen how flustered old Bozz Eye gets when someone asks him a question he didn't expect. All you need to do is say "Here is a quote from yourself....you're a racist, discuss" or "what's this policy here about the dismantling of the electoral process?" and he's fucked. Don't think that the panel won't do it, and don't think that Dimbleby won't either as he regularly drags up long forgotten quotes and bears panelists over the head with them.

And what about the fact that they feel persecuted anyway? So what? They will look more foolish by complaining about persecution if they're not than if they are. That doesn't mean open borders for the BNP, but allowing them to appear on a show they've already signed up to do would be enough.

I think all of this hides some bleak assumptions that I'm not proud that many of the left hold: the view that the working classes are mindless sheep in need of direction from those of us who know, that they can be easilly fooled by soundbites and won't listen to responses that are delivered straight afterwards. After all, that's the big point. The BNP reach the people very well. We've all got leaflets from them, we've all seen facebook groups about them, we've seen the party political broadcasts, we've seen the interviews on the news, we've heard the man with the megaphone driving round the streets. If you don't reply then people will listen. Let's argue on the same turf as these assumptions: the public will hear the BNP's side of the story. If we're not there to respond then they will be the last word. If we argue back, and we know they can't respond very well, then we get the last word.

If you still feel that the public won't handle it and that the kind of discussion that will appear, which will be a verbal lynching in disguise, will fall on stupid ears then we might as well give in. Silencing our political opponents when they have been elected and thinking that the public are too stupid to look after themselves, whilst still arguing that you are "for the people" is not a pleasant world view, and not an accurate one. Mao said that the mistake Stalin made was not to trust the peasants. This is precisely the view argued here. It's not that we fear Griffin being racist in public, it's that "we" fear diddums in the factory overhearing it and copying it at home. Bless.

We should also look at the logic behind the view that the BNP hasn't grown in support but voter apathy has meant that they can sneak in. The numbers aren't growing, ours are dwindling. The logic of this is absurd. Let's put it this way: if no more people are voting BNP than before, then what is the problem in letting them speak? It just means that a few nutters and idiots are willing to vote Nazi, and the rest of us laugh it off. If only we'd had the time to go and vote ourselves then they wouldn't have won seats. That's one approach, and it just says that there is no problem. Their numbers aren't growing, so go out and campaign to get people to vote non-BNP. I.e. do your job as a citizen and be political!

On the other hand, we could say that the BNP isn't growing but they could! In which case we need to stop it from happening. As I argued above, banning them from QT won't do that. Allowing them on QT will drive people away from them and hopefully strike up a few more protest votes at least. It will also bring down the number of BNP votes from those who protested against mainstream politics as people realise who they really voted for. But doesn't this all depend upon the idea that the public (shock horror) can make up their own mind about who to vote for? Even if we take the BNP out of the story, they have to choose labour, conservative or lib dem. They must have a mind, an ability to choose, a faculty of reason....but that's what was being denied by saying "don't let the BNP speak because spazmoes don't understand". So you can either admit that people do know how to reason and listen and let the BNP expose their idiocy safely, or you can deny that people are able to choose in which case it doesn't matter because the BNP figures won't rise anyway. In which case we could safely allow them on screen and end up being consistent and democratic. Et voila.

However, perhaps echoing the Guardian opinion piece, this may fall on deaf ears. People have decided which side of the fence they are on before the debate even started. All arguments start from the heart and are backed up with reason. I feel that those who wish to silence Griffin don't do so because they've laboured over each point but that they feel it is wrong and hang the rest. I'm not saying it is a bad thing. I admire the spirit, we need more of it. I'm distancing head and heart and the head says to let them speak as much as I choke on those words. The Guardian piece summed it up for me. A lot of the responses to the "myths" reported are inconsistent. One cannot argue against myth a and myth b at the same time without contradicting oneself, which makes me believe that the writer has either not thought about it enough or doesn't care. The point is not to produce a series of consistent arguments covering all angles, but to give mutually exclusive arguments for each angle so that you can drag them up at different times when arguing with different people. The point is not to be accurate, but to win.

But the debate still hurts. I don't like saying what I am but I find it hard to say otherwise. I wish I could follow my heart on this but the whole thing smacks of a greater problem. I feel that choosing the other option is a massive slap in the face for the ordinary folk of the world who are painted as trained chimps in overalls. I feel that it paints a sad view of the future of democracy and a slight vanguardist tendancy in the left, which I am not pleased about. The willingness to argue for democracy with a "but..." at the end also disturbs me. It shows that some people on my side genuinely condone the suspension of democracy- the state of exception as that delightful Nazi Carl Schmitt talked about- just so they can win a battle without any thought of the final result of the war.

And yet, I still can't help but pay attention to my heart time and time again.