New movement with class unity at its core can spring from these ashes

In this week’s column, the aim is to sketch out a critique of authoritarian responses and reliance on the state, in favour of elevating questions of social class and democracy. Furthermore, while at times there can be a false counter-positioning of identity and class, it is clear that successfully combating the rise of extreme right and racist attitudes in general must entail a project for class unity at its core.

While arrests and sentencings appear to have quelled the mobilisation of racial violence, this cannot solve the underlying problems – and it should be noted that these mechanisms are also directed in class terms. Meanwhile, a sprawling state and surveillance apparatus also targets movements of the left, a process which appears to be accelerating. Returning to first principles can provide a guide to navigating such an era.

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To start, racism does not exist in a vacuum. It is not “natural” as the hardcore elements on the right purport. Indeed, the introduction of skin colour as a means to categorise groups into hierarchy, with white being at the top, is a relatively modern idea which develops alongside the major projects of Western colonialism.

CLR James noted the way in which race had been a minor feature in previous societies: “Historically it is pretty well proved now that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing about race. They had another standard – civilised and barbarian – and you could have white skin and be a barbarian and be black and civilised.”

In Britain today, the idea of a detached “white working class” requires some nuanced explanation, and careful repudiation.

Firstly, and most obviously, the working class is multi-racial, and emphatically so. This is a cause for optimism, in the sense that should a politics which foregrounds class take hold, it contains within it the possibility of building a society free of racial division.

Secondly, when right-wing commentators and ideologues use the phrase, the “white” part of “white working class” is as, if not more, important than the class dynamic. They are not concerned with the interests of the working class as a whole, but in perpetuating its fragmentation.

How many times have these partisans of the workers stood up for those taking strike action? How many demonstrations around housing have they promoted? Most of them even want to privatise the NHS. Thus, their intervention into “class politics” must prioritise racial identity as a means to manufacture consent for their economic doctrine.

Yet the organisational forms and the slogans of the far-right do enjoy support among substantial parts of the working class. Here, we need to have some understanding and emotional intelligence, in order to win those who have become susceptible to such an agenda to an alternative.

Is it any wonder that charlatans like Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson (below) have been able to capitalise on discontent and frustration, when these communities have been abandoned by “social democracy”?

Collapsing living standards, and an apparently distant and self-serving political class, provide a fertile terrain from which the opportunist right can operate. This is a process hastened by corporate globalisation and its unaccountable and unknown mandarins, coupled with the effects of Thatcher’s revolution such as the decline of trade union organisation and the decay of genuine community life beyond the market.

As Kenan Malik writes: “Sections of the working class have become open to identitarian arguments because of the way that much of the left – indeed much of society – has embraced politics of identity at the same time as deprecating the politics of class. As social democratic parties have moved away from their traditional working-class constituencies, leaving many feeling abandoned and voiceless, some within those constituencies have turned to the language of identity to find a social anchor.”

Anti-racism should be nurtured as part of the working-class movement that has to be constructed out of these ashes. More than “bread and butter” issues, there is a need to raise general political ideas, and that includes anti-racism. At the same time, such a project is distinct from “unconscious bias” training fads and the lexicon of “privilege”, which in my view are insufficient and, indeed, counterproductive.

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What is required is a movement which can restructure the nature of the debate and the basis for action. In short, to provide an alternative to both the Faragists and to the failures of neoliberalism.

This is no easy task. But it does stem from a political reality. That racism flows from the top of society, rather than springing up from the bottom. It is an ideology that can only be dismantled through the unity of working people as a whole. It cannot be arrested away, nor can it be fought through state repression. In this vein, the violence of the far-right should not be allowed to legitimise draconian measures across the board.

(Image: Archant)

It should go without saying that in Scotland we are not immune from these issues. Reform’s vote at the General Election was high, given they didn’t run a campaign here. And with a weariness around Scotland’s own political institutions setting in, a big agenda for democracy, industry and economy is needed.

In the post-2014 era, it remains to be seen how this will configure. One thing, though, is for sure: the solutions are not going to come from on high.