[I'm going to get lazy and just put a repost up today. My dissertation work is keeping me pretty busy. I will at least add a new postscript to this, though. The piece was originally written on 25th October 2009, around the time of the Nick Griffin/"free speech"/Question Time "controversy". Hopefully the absence of topicality is not terminally vitiating for you.]
Nick Griffin: makes lovely biscuits.
Of the many arguments advanced for allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin to air his opinions on the program Question Time this week, perhaps the most popular is that relating to “freedom of speech”. The word “argument” is in fact over-generous here, since the concept of “free-speech” is rarely unpacked by those invoking it; neither are its implications fully laid out. Rather, the elephantine weight of the signifier is allowed by itself to crush opposition — “free speech” is, after all, an inviolable principle. “No true Englishman” would object to policy which follows its dictates: the ideal is chief amongst those which protect us from tyranny and prevent us from metamorphosing into such popular bogeys as Islamic fundamentalists, Nazi Germans or even (and this is the neatest rhetorical trick) into Griffin himself.
The problem with all this, of course, is that it’s bollocks. As Stanley Fish has argued, “there’s no such thing as free speech — and it’s a good thing, too.” I personally have never encountered anybody willing to countenance the full implications of a society without restrictions on speech. Even that rapacious libertarian Johann Hari (he of “the antidote to free speech is always more free speech”) responds to cases of perceived defamation not by glibly quoting pseudo-Voltairean maxims, but by threatening lawsuits. Likewise, I find it hard to believe that those who are today denouncing those opposed to Griffin’s appearance will tomorrow turn their attentions to the Advertising Standards Agency, the Press Complaints Comission, OFCOM, or those laws which prohibit slander and libel. Too often, absolute commitments to freedom of expression are under-pinned by the naive and unsupportable assumption that language has no practical effect — that, in the semantic realm, “anything goes” because everything is divorced from material consequence. Such a formulation does language no justice at all: “words,” as Stephen Poole is fond of noting, “are weapons.”
Fixations upon “free-speech” appear particularly misplaced in the context of a debate regarding a national television program. This is after all a context in which “speech” necessarily cannot be “free” — it is a limited resource which can be offered to only a particular number of agents. If Griffin is “silenced” by a prohibition upon his appearance, then he is only suffering the same degree of censure experienced by Socialist Party chairman Peter Taafe, by myself, and by former Arsenal left-back Lee Dixon. For none of us, in the last analysis, is likely to be appearing on Question Time anytime soon.
Stanley Fish: not Larry David.
The obvious counter to the above paragraph is that neither myself, Taafe nor Dixon can claim politically to represent a large element of the British population. Evidence for Griffin’s “mandate” is marshaled in the form of British National Party vote counts in this year’s EU Parliament election. This data is certainly significant. However, it might first be noted that EU election voting data can give only an indirect and imperfect sense of national political sympathies. I doubt that many people believe that Nigel Farage will be asked to form Her Majesty’s Opposition next year, or that the Labour Party will come away from a 2010 general election with roughly 15% of the vote. British Euroscepticism seems significantly to assist the fortunes of Right-wing parties in these elections. British unbelief in the desirability or necessity of a European parliament might well also encourage protest votes or abstentions in these polls. If one reverts to a slightly more sound (but still objective) measure of BNP support — the 2005 General Election voting data — then the picture changes rather. The BNP could marshal only 0.7% of the vote at those polls, scarcely higher than the 0.5% of votes recorded by the RESPECT/SSP ticket.
My reference to RESPECT/SSP here is advised. I have not heard any agitation from any quarters this week to the effect that the “far” Left should be given the opportunity to exercise its “freedom of speech” in the way that Griffin has. I suspect that this would be explained via reference again to “representation”. It is worth mentioning at this point that a close association between party vote counts and an invitation to “join the debate” imports a significant bias against the contemporary Left, simply for the reason that it is more fractured than the contemporary Right. Indeed, if all three Left parties represented at the EU elections (NO2EU, the SLP and the SSP) had combined their resources, the resulting coalition would have come away with some 300,000 votes — a virtually identical total to that tallied by the Scottish National Party, an organisation very much “part of the debate.” (This, of course, is a gedankexperiment that probably underestimates the popularity of a broad Left ticket — a united contemporary socialist movement would also have real prospects of drawing voters away from Labour, the Green Party and perhaps also the Liberal Democrats.)
But more broadly, one might question the wisdom of relating vote counts to legitimacy. In a political context that has witnessed the convergence of major parties upon an ever-increasing array of issues, the need for alternative voices is acute. If one permits exposure only to those parties which can prove that they “represent” a “significant” (however this might be figured) proportion of the electorate, then this narrowing of British political discourse is likely only to be re-enforced in a cyclical process. The Left has real and coherent arguments, and is well-positioned to offer a radical critique upon that issue that Griffin himself owes much of his popularity to — immigration. This widening of discourse may well be something in which the BNP has a part to play.
The PCC: imbued w/ great celerity.
But that cannot be taken for granted. My earlier references to the ASA, the PCC and OFCOM were not entirely stabs in the dark. The BNP remains a party which employs lies and fabrications as part of its normative electoral strategy. Lies about the local presence of asylum seekers, about the way in which housing is allocated, even about non-existent murders committed by illegal immigrants. There is no more reason to lend credibility to the party that knowingly propagates these lies than there is to permit the dissemination of the lies themselves (a thing which, I’m confident, not even the most implacable guardian of free expression would prescribe). The BNP may be invited to “clean up its act”, but central planks of its policy programme can only be supported by distortions, since the party relies upon the magnification (and, indeed, fabrication) of marginal issues in such a way that they become urgent problems close to the heart of Britain’s very survival. It is often stated that to censor the BNP “brings us down to their level” — it does nothing of the sort. It serves as a statement that in order for a political party to be given national exposure in this country, that party must conform to certain minimum standards of honesty in its campaigning. The right to freedom of expression, in sum, does not and should not incorporate a right to the distortion of facts or the dissemination of lies.
A final argument in favour of Griffin’s appearance might reflect that this is all very well, but inviting the BNP’s leader onto Question Time is an individual act with no further consequence. This is untrue: self-evidently so. Those who are quick to tender the “freedom of speech” argument tend also to be those who scoff at counter-arguments relating to “legitimation”. Yet the proof of this latter argument is rendered by the actions of those who espouse the former: already the BNP is being defended glibly with hand-waving references to “free speech” — it is “just another party” with a right, nay an obligation, to “represent” those who support it. The peculiarity of the BNP lies not, as is so often stated, in its racism — that attribute is observable across party lines. But rather, the unique crime of the BNP is the centrality of deception to its programme and praxis. If deceptions of this magnitude and consequence were being fostered by a big business between blocks of Big Brother on C4, then there would rightly be trouble. They should be no more permissible — perhaps even less so — on the BBC.
Postscript
Billy Bragg: attracts all sorts.
Recently, I got into an internet argument with some Billy Bragg fans[1] about the rectitude of using court action as a weapon against the BNP. I was surprised to find that many of them were opposed to this tout court: that is, they were opposed to prosecution not only for the notoriously slippery fish of “inciting racial hatred”, but also for good old-fashioned speech circumscriptions such as libel, slander and defamation. This seems crazy to me. The arguments against court action as a legitimate weapon are threefold, I think.
i) “Democracy is about altering opinions by the free exchange of information and rhetoric.” This reflects what one might call the “optimistic” presentation of democracy’s functioning (or, if one wishes to be spunkier, the “naive realist” presentation of the same): democratic societies are composed of intelligent political consumers, who expose themselves to all available ideologies, before choosing in a free, rational and deliberative fashion, their preferred option. Democracy is this envisioned as one perpetual and multi-polar debate, and the disallowance of any aspect of that debate (however small, marginal and distasteful) threatens democracy.
It is, of course, odd to hear this gloss placed on democracy by anyone on the Left; it is a consumerist and rather ahistorical explanation of the relationship between parties and voters, erasing as it does the considerable degree to which parties consciously represent class interests. The “one big debate” theory of democracy also fails to appreciate the role played by the media in achieving saturation of certain acceptable viewpoints, whilst consigning certain alternative ideological formulations to the dustbin of “extremism”.[2] That is to say, these various ideologues are not just presented “neutrally” so that any consumer can happily make a free, informed and unrestricted choice.
But, even if one were to accept that the “one big debate” theory of democratic politics has much to commend it, it seems eccentric to claim that the quality of this “debate” is determined in a proportional way by its extent; by the sheer volume of speech and speech-acts it comprises. If one wishes to “defend” democratic discourse, then I would suggest that preventing political parties from committing libel, slander and defamation might be a salient aspect of this defense, rather than contrary to it.
ii) “Court action against the BNP would increase support for the party by making martyrs out of its defendants.” This argument is heard very often – to the point, indeed, that almost any action taken against the BNP would seem to be “assisting” it in this manner to some degree. There is some merit to this contention, of course. But I think that it is best applied to “incitement” cases: i.e. in those cases where the judgement tendered relates to something other than the truth-value of the proposition in question. It is effortless to turn defeat in cases of that sort into martyrdom, for reasons too obvious for me to go into.
On the other hand, I don’t think there are many people who want to believe that a political party is just straight-out lying to them. I’m sure that there would be people content to regard a libel/slander ruling made against the BNP as just another piece of evidence for an elite conspiracy against the party. But such people are also unlikely to be moved from their present political position by the fetishised endeavour of “free debate”.
iii) “Court action against the BNP, even when resulting in victory, would not be an effective way of fighting the party.” Obviously, it cannot be the only tactic used. “Debate” (or, perhaps more realistically and specifically, relentless and well-targeted canvassing) has a part to play too. Perhaps the most effective “weapon” in the “fight” against the party is the improvement of material conditions for working class people of all ethnic backgrounds. But to say that court action would be completely ineffective seems odd to me. If the BNP is ruled against, it must be sanctioned in some way (perhaps via a fine or the disqualification of a candidate, depending upon the offence), and its activities (and strategic options) will be reduced to that minimal extent.
But I think that, for some on the Left anyway, there is a fourth and unspoken “argument” against the use of court action.
Francisco Largo Caballero: anti-ethno-nationalist.
To engage with this fourth approach, we must first consider that the discourse of anti-BNP activism is heavily imbued with historical content, drawing upon the interlocked experiences of World War Two and the Spanish Civil War. These two conflicts perform separate but related functions within this discourse. World War Two is well-established as a period of national unity; No True Englishman was opposed to or sceptical about confrontation with Nazi Germany. The Spanish Civil War is simultaneously encoded as a site of political unity. Broad sections of the Left and centre came together for a common (because uncontroversial) cause: the defeat of fascism and the restoration of liberal democracy. The factual content of each of the inscriptions is deeply questionable.[3] But, naturally, it is the puissance of these narratives which matters. And this combination of historical referents does much to shape British anti-racist activity. The strangely parochial and anachronistic moniker of the “Anti-Nazi League” is perhaps the most obvious indication of this. Moreover, the terms “fascism” or “fascist” as words of abuse to be arrogated without much analytical care to one’s right-wing and/or racist political opponents are perpetually present in this discourse (“Unite Against Fascism”, etc.).
This historicist language carries with it other overtones. Considering that these two referents are both wars, it is perhaps unsurprising that they give to the discourse a heavily violent register. Fascism is “fought”; perhaps not because this is the best tactic, but because the “thugs” who espouse the ideology cannot be dealt with in any other way. (On occasions, it is even hoped that “they will not pass” – though to and from where is usually not elucidated).[4]
In this context, then, court action seems positively pusillanimous. It is a cowardly and hopelessly indirect way of “fighting the fascists”, which is not only ineffective (even counter-productive), but indicative of Leftist weakness: “we” should not need to use the “undemocratic” tactic of seeking restitution for “mere” speech-acts.
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[1] Yeah. Facebook; you know, whatever. I don’t even know if these online discursive oddities are worth commenting on anymore.
[2] And here I mean both the media both as an autonomous collection of opinions and narratives, and as a device for refracting the opinions and narratives of “primary definers” (politicians, union leaders, NGOs, industry leaders, police chiefs, etc.)
[3] The cross-class differences in British wartime experiences are well documented. At a conference in Huddersfield recently, I was exposed to a paper by this guy about the specificity of wartime experiences in Britain’s geographical extremities. Paul Gilroy has written about the tension between an establishment of World War Two (a time, after all, of relative ethnic homogeneity in Britain) as the pinnacle of British unity and the performance of anti-racist work. On the Spanish Civil War side, anyone who has read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia should be familiar with at least one aspect of the Republican forces’ internecine strife. This strife was the product, at least in part, of differing conceptions of the war’s function amongst different leftist factions. The conflict ultimately resulted in open fighting between Communist and Socialist/democratic forces.
[4] Incidentally, I don’t even really understand the sloganistic appeal of “They Shall Not Pass” (in either language). I’d much rather declare that some place or other “will be the Tomb of Fascism”.
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