GMB commits to campaign against BNP at election

Monday, 28, Feb 2005 12:00

GMB General Secretary Kevin Curran has today pledged that GMB activists will campaign across the country in the forthcoming general election to let voters know that a vote for the BNP is a vote for hatred.

In a speech to the Unite Against Fascism national conference at the TUC's Congress House in London, the GMB's Kevin Curran said trade unionists had a unique role to play in the general election.

Extracts from the speech follow. Check against delivery.

Colleagues

Thank you for the invitation to speak here on how trade unionists can act against the BNP, to stop them in their tracks.

I want to start by harking back to the announcement made by the Tories last week that immigrants should be compulsorily screened at our national borders. It will not have come as a surprise to those of us on the left who have been monitoring the increasingly desperate politics of Michael Howard's party. The Tories are not what they were, not that they were much in the first place.

But what is extremely troubling that the Tories, this close to an election, have sought to make the insidious link that they have between immigrants and disease. Even the BNP leader has accused the Tories of pilfering their policies, and if you look at what the BNP is offering, it's one of the few things Griffinhas ever said that holds up.

I do not deny the fact that in the interests of public health we should attempt to screen for disease, though the fact is that of 4,219 asylum seekers (not covered by the Tory proposals it must be said) screened at Dover last year only 0.2% tested positive for any active, contagious from of tuberculosis. Nine people.

Let's be in no doubt that there is racism implicit in the Tory announcement that screening should be compulsory. In my view the whole issue was carefully edged into an appeal to worst instincts, an appeal to cynicism and malice, another attempt to motivate people to vote for the wrong reasons, which is why I compared the Tories to the BNP.

I also made the point that it is time for the British people to accept our public services and economy will be reliant on migrant labour in years to come. Anything other than a mature, realistic debate is not going to help this country or the people who live here or want to settle here in the future.

The day after I made my comments I received an email from a man by the name of John, taking me to task. John works in "a public service" and tells me he is "not a member of the BNP". I quote him as fully as possible to illustrate the kind of attitudes the Tories are appealing to, and the challenge of information and persuasion we will face as we campaign against the BNP.

"It is patently obvious that if you allow people in from third world countries where disease is rife then this disease will spread to the host country. As regards the BNP statement, at least they tell it as it is and don't try to hide it under the "political correctness cloak" a route chosen by the likes of you. When will people like yourself get off your arses and step into the real world out there and see what people really want not what you want them to want. What is your objection to immigrants being screened first outside the country and not allowed in if they have any contagious diseases? Doesn't this seem like the first thing we should have been doing years ago to protect this island from any form of contagious disease? Finally why will our public services rely on migrant workers, haven't we got enough of our own on the dole and wanting to work?"

People like John can have a pop at me if they like. But they should not be fooled that the BNP stand for anything attractive. A more unattractive bunch would be hard to meet outside of a horror film. Yet these people claim to stand for British values. Their values of violence and intolerance against Britain's new communities have no value at all in this country.

Let's look at just one area of this Britainthe BNP claim to represent. The North. Let's do some naming and shaming.

There's Burnley BNP councillor Brian Turner who is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty last week to beating up his wife and assaulting a police officer. Despite the severity of the crime the BNP are standing by Turner and are refusing to expel him from their party or even demand that he resigns his council seat. In February a BNP spokesperson told the Lancashire Evening Telegraph "We are not in the business of persecuting our members." Of course not. The BNP is in the business of persecuting and smearing people they would rather not see in their country, let alone their party.

There's Burnley BNP councillor Len Starr. He's the Prospective Parliamentary candidate for Burnley. Last week he was cautioned for selling alcohol to people under the age of 18. If that was an Asian shopkeeper, there would be uproar from the BNP.

There's Luke Smith, who was forced to resign as a BNP councillor in Burnleyafter he smashed a bottle into the face of a man. He has since been banned from every football ground in the country for 3 years for soccer violence. No black player on the pitch would sink to that kind of behaviour.

There's Halifax BNP councillor Adrian Marsden. He has three convictions for threatening behaviour, the most recent in May 2002. This was just seven months before he was elected to the council. Any

There's Hull BNP organiser David Hannam. Imprisoned for three months in 2000 for distributing material likely to incite racial hatred. He and another man were prosecuted for anti-semitic and racist BNP leaflets distributed during the 1999 European Elections.

During last summer's local elections it was revealed that Barnsley BNP organiser Dean Strawson-Morland was really Dean Wilson. Small wonder he changed his name. He didn't want voters to know of his string of convictions, including 12 years imprisonment in 1994 for robbery, kidnapping, false imprisonment and firearms offences. Sadly, it was reduced to 8 years on appeal. In 2002 he was sentenced to a further 21 months for assaulting a woman.

There's long-time BNP organiser for Oldham, Mick Treacy. Five convictions for violence, threatening behaviour and possession of stolen property.

There's Oldham BNP's one-time leafleting organiser Robert Bennett. Convicted gang rapist and armed robber. In total he has 37 convictions.

There's Oldham BNP activist Jock Shearer, who has a conviction for possession of drugs.

And there's even the minder to the leader of the BNP, Joey Owens, has been imprisoned twice. First when he sent razor blades in the post to members of Liverpool's Jewish community and then, more recently, for possession of CS gas and knuckle-dusters.

So the evidence of the real character of the BNP is there. It is for us to go out and present it. These are the kind of characters who, if they were not white would be getting excrement and flaming rags through their letter boxes and bricks through their windows.

Colleagues, confidence in mainstream politics and politicians is ebbing. That lack of confidence has opened the door in too many parts of this country for the fascist BNP. If we do not act now, in numbers, they could become a lightning conductor for the angry votes, for hatred in communities.

With an election probably only weeks away, trade unionists have a unique role to play. We are not politicians but we are political. We are not asking for votes for ourselves, but for working people. So we can earn confidence that perhaps politicians on the doorsteps will not.

We must get out and tell the British people the truth about the BNP. We have to remind people that not to vote is a waste, but to vote for hatred is far, far worse. The behaviour of Tories and others on the right - UKIP, Veritas, the Liberals in some places - who are acting as outriders for the BNP will not help to close the door on fascism in this country. They are relying on it for votes. It is for activists from the Left, in the Labour Party, in trade unions and in other p