A supine labour movement, a recession and an increasingly frustrated layer of long-term unemployed and small business people are the classic conditions for the growth of racism and fascism. And the British fascist organizations have started both to grow and step up their activity since Thatcher's fall.
They have put their wilderness years to good use. Their tactics now are much more refined. Last September, before Thatcher went, the most prominent of the British groups, the British National Party (BNP), won 25% of the white working class vote in a council by-election in east
London's most deprived areas. The BNP will be standing about 20 candidates at the next general election and another fascist group, the National Front, may be standing another dozen.
Left-wing activists attacked
They have also started a serious campaign of harassment of left-wing activists. Supporters of the revolutionary Marxist fortnightly Socialist Outlook have been attacked and threatened in a number of cities. A Black member of the far left Socialist Workers Party had his house firebombed and every week there are reports of attacks on comrades selling the SWP's paper Socialist Worker.
But most disturbing of all is the increase in both the number and degree of viciousness of racist attacks. There have been firebomb attacks on Black and Asian families and there have been horrific incidents in which three or four adult men have literally jumped on the faces of 10-year old Asian children.
According to the government, there were 6459 racially motivated attacks in Britain in 1990. This is certainly substantially lower than the real figure. But what