should “we” ban the bnp?

by Kofi Kyerewaa

Despite the repetitive Nazi name-calling, the British National Party achieved their hope of getting elected into the European Parliament, and the British hard left once again finds itself at the margins of electoral politics and unable to match the BNP in votes even across its fractured political front. The landscape has changed: the British National Party can command 900,000 votes, while a hotch-pot of Stalinist bureaucrats, Impossibilists (SPGB) and Scottish Socialists garnered less than half at 350,000.

What is Socialist Workers Party leader Martin Smith’s remedy to this tragic state of affairs? More of the same with added egg throwing, “No freedom of speech for fascists”, “we should ban the BNP” and, bizarrely on BBC’s Newsnight Smith exclaimed to the polite but patronising Jeremy Paxman and Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes that the BNP had to be stopped because “they are counter-revolutionaries [to a Socialist Revolution?]!”

esol teaching: in whose interests?

by Alice Robson

‘many of them [Jewish migrants] do not speak English and they mix very little with Englishmen…they are a race apart.’ (article published as part of a collection The Destitute Alien in Britain, 1892)

‘One staggering statistic exposes the astonishing speed at which Britain is ceasing to be recognisable as a nation. Figures released yesterday reveal that as many as 14 per cent of our primary school children… speak English only as a second language, if at all… there are schools in some areas with high immigrant populations where barely a handful of children speak English as their mother tongue.’ (Daily Mail, 18 May 2009)

From Jewish workers arriving in London’s East End in the late nineteenth century to the diverse groups of people migrating to the UK today, the ability of migrants to speak English has long been a preoccupation of politicians and the right-wing press. This has, however, never been as significant as today, when as part of the UK’s increasingly draconian system of immigration control, the right of non-EU citizens to British citizenship, settle in the UK and soon even to enter the country requires certain attainment in English. Most affected are those migrants who have not had formal education in their country of origin due to factors including conflict, economic pressures or gender inequality, or are unable to access provision in the UK.

race, education and immigration

Saleh Mamon reports on the recent west London public meeting on Race, Education and Immigration 

On Saturday 31st January a number of progressive teachers, trade unionists, community activists and migrant organisations met at the West London Trade Union Club in Acton.

The public meeting, organised by the London Development Education Centre (Contact londec@hotmail.com) covered a wide range of themes- from individual cases, teaching strategies and politics of education. There were many contributions from the participants seeking clarification, bringing their own experience and suggesting further action. It was an excellent meeting both in terms of new ideas, sharing knowledge and campaigning for racial justice. The dialogue that the gathering sparked opened up possibilities of united action for different forms of community resistances to institutional and state racism.