Blair, Berlusconi and the BNP

Has the labour Party been talking up the BNP vote to frighten voters back to the labour fold? The BNP only have 300 candidates in the election, so only a small percentage of voters will have the opportunity to vote for them. There are two pretty obvious issues here. 1) concerns the growth of Fascism, it is propelled by neo-liberalism which out sources jobs and leads to heavy costs for the working class, with a race to the bottom world wide strugle to push down social wages (council housing, good public services, welfare state) and money wage. Fascism is perhaps always the socialism of fools looking not at capitalism but race and debt/evil bankers! The retreat of Labour from even social democratic politics means that working class voters are desperate for any alternative from Lib dems to ICWA to the far right...the very policies New labour promotes erode their support base.

2) Given the fascist nature of the recent Berlusconi government with Mussolini's successor party MSI, which has been a Blair ally...it seems a bit rich being warned of the albeit real and nasty dangers of the BNP picking up local councillors, where Blair has been cuddly with a real life far right government.

So we must resist BNP but look at some of the causes of the fascist advance and to see fascism as a wider authoritarianism on the march from Washington to 10 Downing Street.