EDL and the battle for hearts and minds

By Sarah Hayward / @sarah_hayward

On Saturday as EDL were blocking streets and the tube in the King’s Cross area a number of Camden and Islington Councillors were tweeting about the situation from their view. The newly elected Alice Perry was right on top of the EDL action so to speak. Meanwhile I was literally round the corner at the opening of a new community garden. The ceremony was attended by the full rainbow and age spectrum of central London life including many Muslims who are a target of EDLs vile (and violent) racism.

The behaviour of the EDL thugs was never going to stop the opening of the garden – that so many of people from the local community had worked so hard to get off the ground. It was a brilliant salve to the bitter racism being meted out in chants only moments away. And we should remember that there are many more demonstrations of community unity such as this – up and down the country than there ever are of violent EDL’s violent, racist protests.

During my tweeting about our community event, as a counterpoint to the EDL, one local charity chief exec provided a challenge, observing that there seemed to be much gloating about the lack of impact EDL were managing to have but nothing about winning the batter for hearts and minds. My retort was short – simply that Saturday wasn’t the day for hearts and minds.

But he provided a challenging question and one I’ve thought a lot about over the years. And one that the left has, in my view, often failed to come up with a convincing answer too? Literally how to win the battle for hearts and minds with those people who may be receptive to messages or some arguments put forward by the EDL.

Before we get in to the debate I’m not talking about Stephen Yaxley Lennon or Nick Griffin or any of their henchmen. There are some, and probably many of those that congregated in London at the weekend, who are beyond help, they are racist to the core and will do and say anything to reach their ends. I also must say, banning the EDL march was absolutely the right thing to do. In my view you forfeit your right to free speech the minute you start to use your fists, feet and weapons to make a point.

But there are also many people who are persuadable to messages of fear and division. Many people who don’t see themselves as racist. But are concerned or fearful of rapid societal change. And there are now many more who are also fearful for their jobs and how they will pay their bills. The economic circumstances and the ‘austerity’ programme create the very circumstances when people who want to be divisive and sow seeds of hatred are likely to be most successful. People are competing for fewer jobs, fewer houses and fewer services free to the user as cuts bite. And with the economic outlook so gloomy it’s difficult to see an end.

With resources for maintaining our current quality of life becoming more scarce it becomes much easier for those who want to, to point across the street and say look what they’ve got. For a far right racist the people they pick out will be ethnic minorities. For the EDL it’s specifically Muslims. A throw away comment from an acquaintance in my local over the weekend demonstrated how easy this might be. Seemingly straight from the pages of the Express he was expressing views that I suspect are more common than we’d like to think. I’m pleased to say he was roundly challenged and persuaded by those within ear shot of his comment, including myself. This is a person who grew up in multi-cultural, multi-faith Camden. I and others happened to be on hand to challenge. But this isn’t always the case, and all to often people aren’t willing to step up and challenge.

To add a further anecdote, some months ago I was out canvassing with a large group of people and a relatively prominent person, who I thought should know better, suggested we shouldn’t knock on the door of a person who had previously been canvassed as BNP. I guess it fits with a no platform view of the world. But, assuming the canvassing data was right, if we never knock on that person’s door again how are we supposed to persuade them that the BNP too, is racist and violent. How are we supposed to persuade them that the BNP’s language over the last few years has been softened specifically to suck people in who would otherwise be appalled by their agenda? And are we really saying as committed party activists who believe in equality regardless of faith or skin colour that we want to leave that person in a political vacuum that only the BNP can fill?

It’s a view I hear too often. And heard again, in person and on Twitter, over the last few weeks in conversations about the EDL. But what this view ignores is that the strategy of the far right, and other forms of extremism, that increasingly play on legitimate concerns and fears that people have about their job security, their children’s prospects, how grandpa is going to be looked after in old age. Labour should have some answers to these concerns and every Labour activist should be able to make them.

It’s not a sustainable position for the left to say it is not only going to ignore the leaders of the far right, but we’re also going to ignore those that might be susceptible to their extremist racist message. Messages that are often, these days, cleverly couched in terms that can give them the thinnest veneer of respectability. Just as it’s not acceptable to say that we’d ignore Muslims who’d be susceptible to an extremist religious message. It’s an uncomfortable truth but, particularly in times of uncertainty, fear is a feeding ground for extremism. If we ignore it and don’t take on the arguments, if we don’t step up to the challenge and seek to persuade people of the merits of our view of the world, then the extremists – whatever their particularly brand of malevolence extreme right, or extreme religious or even extreme left, will win.

And not because they have the better argument. They don’t. But because we couldn’t be bothered to try. Or because it was too uncomfortable. Or because it was just too difficult.