Nope he’s wrong but his description could be an apt description for the touchy-feely Greens . . . erm, until they get a sniff of office.

what you know about the SPGB couldn’t fill a twitter post, but please carry on twittering away.

Such has been there view for well over eighty years, now…

Sorry to split hairs, but it’s the SP, rather than the SPGB in No2EU – the SPGB, who are as sectarian as the CPB(ML), stood separately in London.

Is it the fault of his employer that they could not afford to retain him?

No.

Is it his fault he is out of work?

No.

Is it the fault of the Somali immigrant coming to the UK to try to better himself?

No.

Is it the fault of those who profess to know what is best for all the above and have put in place a social and political system that caused this?

Yes.

And they will reap the whirlwind.

By taxation.

but the unemployed bloke might think – there’s money going on that which could be helping me. Or he might think why should *black* carers have specific state funded help?

So the challenge is – what do you say to him?

He’s fucked. But in a good cause.

Or – by even thinking those things do you deem him a racist and thus not worth bothering with?

That’s the conundrum.

Higher minimum wage and greater employment protection = higher structural unemployment = UK less attractive destination for migrants.

Now I understand your cunning plan…

So the challenge is – what do you say to him?

Or – by even thinking those things do you deem him a racist and thus not worth bothering with?

I’ve read Marx, lots of. In fact I was reading one of my final year essays the other day on the 18th Brumiere and the German Ideology. The problem with Marx’s arguments of how society works with historical materialism as its base and then his materialist extension of Hegel dialectic is that its untestable pseudoscience.

Like much sociological and cultural argument, where it fails is in its assertion of presenting itself as objective knowledge, and effectively negating that it starts from ideological subjectivity. This as something deftly highlighted by Karl Mannheim in his infamous paradox about the inherent and unavoidable subjectivity of societal analysis.

This said, and on topic with the post, I wouldn’t say the “Left” per se is to blame for racism. I would say though that the rise in popularity and support for those with racist views has come about in the past couple decades as an inevitable consequence of the politics of identity which started off with the likes of Foucault and other in the Frankfurt School.

It stands to reason that if political discourse moves along a path that seeks to pigeon hole debate into certain special interest groupings based on identity, that other such groups will appear that also define themselves along identity lines. We may not like the views of such groups, but they are wholly in keeping with the politics of identity.

So I’d argue that rather than the Left being to blame for racism today, it is more the unintended consequence of the political thought that is dominant as a result of thinkers who just so happened to be on the Left.

Sure, but I think most of that’s down to having some solidarity with refugees from across the world, rather than wanting to fuck up the working classes here.

Patrick, James: the response to many on the left to allowing open borders would be that it doesn’t by itself lead to falling standards. You can have open borders, but a high minimum wage and enough employee protection to ensure that working classes here can’t be crapped on. That way you offer opportunities to other to make something of themselves here, while ensuring the working classes don’t lose out.

A local community centre is unlikely to set up a place to help Somalis get benefits given that the state tries to avoid offering benefits as much as possible. In my area, where there’s plenty of Somalis, there hasn’t been anything like this.

Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol West, will readily admit to spending much of her time helping Somali asylum seekers. She is an active supporter of the Black Carers Association which is state funded and who’s mission is to help black people claim their state funded entitlements.

Alex @9

To say that it should even enter the mind of our hard up unemployed white man in Bristol that the Somali centre is a source of grief to him personally makes no sense.

Of course you are correct and all the points you make about why the ex-apprentice should not feel as he does make perfect sense. But racism is not founded on rational analysis but on emotional responses- mainly fear but also feelings of envy and rejection.

So don’t bother with a rationale to explain why the young man has no reason to vote BNP. Try to empathise with him and then tell me who he will actually vote for.

It may have been a little “simplistic”, Sunny, but as I look a couple of posts further up at LC I see Unity straight back on message, seeking to explore who has been pushing the anti-immigration line in the media…

Whilst the left and the right commentariat continue to focus solely on the BNP’s overt racism, rather than discuss other aspects of their policies, I will continue to believe that the view that I expressed is fundamentally correct, and that there is an intentional desire (amongst the entire political/media elite) to prevent the BNP’s other policy positions gaining any publicity. Time will readily demonstrate whether my thesis is correct or not.

With a few notable exceptions (the UKIP of the far left, the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), for instance: who argue that immigration is a ruling class plot to drive down wages & argue against foreign students draining all our cash and knowledge in their newspaper) most of the far-left is in favour of open borders, pro-migrant, etc…Everyone from the SWP to AWL. Its a distinctive characteristic of the Trot far-left, especially.

On the other hand you could argue that their nationalisation fetish is…Well…A tad nationalistic. Or at least presupposes a nation-state. Their view is that its easier to merge state property into one big socialist super-state than it is for aforesaid socialist super-state to have to scrabble around scooping up private fiefdoms to absorb. Probably correct, I suppose.

Almost the entirety of the Labour Left was anti-EU, at one stage. Saw it as a free-marketeer plot. Given the enthusiasm for privatising Royal Mail the EU has, perhaps they were not wrong…