Livre d'Or

I am almost certain there are specifically fascist groups pulling their strings. But that doesn't make them directly a fascist group themselves, and my shorthand was problematic for just the reasons you say.

I think it's problematic to overuse the term "fascist" in all sorts of ways - I'm basically with George Orwell on the political (mis)use of terminology in "Politics & The English Language" (one of my fave essays ever).

Pertinently, I don't refer to the BNP as "fascist", because as far as I can make out, they do not appear (as far as one can make out) to be promoting a fascist political structure (centralised, hierarchical, corporatist). Insofar as it's possible to determine what they *really* want (and that assumes there is in fact a consistent long-term political goal or goals across party members, rather than simply providing a haven for racists), they appear to be promoting a sort of small-scale grass-roots protectionist socialism, with forays into a sort of nationalist anarchism. And there are much more peculiar variations around the fringes of nationalism - "radical traditionalist" are particularly curious, and are often much more in a sort of post-Benoist "Nouvelle Droite" model than any obviously fascist arrangement.

A lot of people find this approach overly detailed, and prefer the "smash the Nazis!!!1!" attitude. I find that completely counter-productive for numerous reasons, not least that one aspect of far-right paranoia is that they a) aren't allowed to speak freely and b) have their views consistently misrepresented in the grossest of ways, and overtly playing into that only confirms those fears, and aids recruiting among groups of people who often are genuinely disenfranchised in one way or another, or at any rate feel it.

The trouble is that sometimes the opposite of No-platform sometimes means that organizations have to keep giving time and energy and space to speakers who oppose everything they stand for, because otherwise it's "censorship". That's sort of obviously ridiculous, but it's amazing how often people seem to argue that way, when the org is devoted to improving the position of marginalized people, and the opposing speaker wants to take the current status quo and unbalance it even more towards the powerful group.

I think it depends entirely on what the organisation is, and what its aims, resources, etc, consist of. I think, for example, that calling for the BBC to ban Nick Griffin from speaking (and, indeed, throwing eggs at him) was not only misguided but morally wrong. (There's a whole separate series of interesting discussions about the BBC's manifesto commitments to "balance", and the ways in which they can in fact constitute propaganda in their own right - John Pilger wrote an excellent article about this in the '80s, have you read it? I think it's in "Heroes".) A tiny voluntary organisation? Not so much. I do still think it's a very good idea to allow those views to be aired in a setting where they can be challenged, though. We do have to believe in the superiority of our ideas, I think - I don't at all like arguments which imply that people are so hopelessly suggestible that they have to be protected from dangerous concepts.

I think it was the NUS who started the whole No-platform thing, right? In that case, one could well argue that they had more of an obligation to protect their black and minority ethnic students from hatred, than to the abstract principle of free speech.

*snort*

Once I see the fucking NUS give a shit about the actual concerns of their members, I might give a stuff. Grandstanding about the Nazis is easy; deciding you can't be arsed to represent the majority view of your members who oppose tuition fees because all the 3 main political parties like them, and you don't want to spoil your chances of turning your student role into a proper political career, is a bit more subtle.