Fragmentation Shrinks the Mainstream

Branding Ukip 'racist' is obviously misplaced

EXTRACT: We go on to read that, unless there is a “serious campaign” against Ukip, a “racist populist party” is going to establish itself as a “serious player” in parliament that could even form part of a coalition government - the Tories and Labour “prepared the ground” for Ukip’s rise by targeting immigrants, Labour leaders “seem to believe that the way to defeat Ukip is to match their vileness” and the Tories want to “end the right of free movement of workers” inside the European Union in order to “clear the way for yet harsher anti-immigration laws”. Such moves, thinks the SWP, “only gives credence to Ukip’s racism”. For all these reasons, naturally, the SWP will continue to “back initiatives” by Stand Up To Ukip - like leafleting that “exposes” Ukip’s “anti-working class agenda” and “its racism”.

Same old SWP nonsense. We in the CPGB reject the notion that Ukip’s aim of severely restricting European migration to the UK through some sort of points-based system means that it is racist. Reactionary - yes, but racist? In any case, how is this essentially any different from the schemes cooked up by the Tories or Labour? Rachel Reeves, the shadow secretary of state for work and pensions, wants to limit legal EU migrants access to tax credits and prevent them claiming out-of-work benefits for two years. What about Cameron’s drafted and redrafted speech on immigration, which will obviously be yet another attempt to match Ukip? Yet the implication of the SWP’s Sutu campaign is that we should vote for almost anybody except Ukip - which presumably must include the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour, whose anti-migrant consensus must also be ‘racist’. Where is the joined-up thinking from the comrades?

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