I disapprove of what you say but . • •
It is well-known that a campaign has been started to prevent the National Front from putting out party political broadcasts at the next general election; 'campaign' is Perhaps too delicate word: 'conspiracy' might be better, since what is advocated is the use of unlawful means to suppress a lawful event. This is part of a wider campaign against the NF, mainly organised by the Anti-Nazi League, and against 'Racism in the Media'. Mr Dennis McShane, President of the National Union of Journalists, has produced a pamphlet, 'Black and Front', published by the pawn's Race Relations Sub-Committee, which instructs Journalists as to how they should report racially 'sensitive matters. His pamphlet has been enthusiastically welcomed by the NUJ's official paper Journalist . Itis worth noticing in i Passing that Mr McShane's pamphlet s silly, patronising and ill-written. For that matter, the journalist is a singularly feeble production, even on the most elementary technical level. Mr McShane — who has for some time been unemPloyed — and Mr Ron Knowles, the Editor of the J ournalist, remind us of the new declension of Shaw's dictum: those who can do, those who can't teach, and those who can't even teach become union officials. The Anti-Nazi League and the NUJ campaign are separate but related questions. Although the ANL has a se.ductive name, and is supported by many people of good Will, there are reasons for regarding it with suspicion. No one can be happy at the rise of the National Front in recent Years, though it is gratifying to note the reversal in its fortunes in the past eighteen months. The NF's racialism is repulsive and dangerous. ArgaablY, racialism is not its chief electoral attraction, rather a vague Poujadist resentment (r1 the main parties, but the racialism is there, and very Prominent . How and by whom should it be combated? The _Anti-Nazi League is not dominated by Communists and T rotskyists, but they are prominent in its leadership. Not for the first time a worthy cause is used by unworthy forces. The National Council for Civil Liberties has a name that Should appeal to all people of libertarian instinct, but we now know that in the 1930s it was effectively run by the C 9mmunist Party: a salutary story. The Board of Deputies o British Jews, which has a specific reason for rejecting the ANL, namely the violent anti-Zionism of the Communist and Socialist Workers' Parties, has acted most forthrightly in the matter. The Board's example should be followed.
The call by Mr McShane and others for, in effect, censoring the National Front raises different issues. Those who call for 'No Plugs for Nazi Thugs' do not seem to have recognised an internal contradiction in their argument. On the one hand they endlessly exaggerate the importance and strength of the Front — Mr McShane's pamphlet is a good example. On the other they call for the Front's activities to be treated, in Lord George-Brown's expression, with a total ignoral. It might logically be suggested that if the Left stopped building up the Front it would not be necessary to censor coverage of it. But the plug-pullers know little of logic. For that matter they know little of history. It is repeatedly said that 'irresponsible' journalism helped Hitler in his rise to power. This is not true. There is a lesson to be learned from the National Socialists' victory in Germany and it is relevant to the question we are discussing. There existed in Weimar Germany as there is in England today a symbiotic relationship between far Left and far Right: they need each other. And just as the German Communists cynically exploited the rise of the Nazis and even on occasions collaborated with them, so today the Socialist Workers Party welcomes the National Front for the opportunity of street violence. Honest journalism is not easy and no one should write heedlessly about the NF, or indeed any serious political question. Nor, though, should they fall into the puerile logical errors of the NUJ's left. Mr John Thackara, for instance, writes that Mr Bernard Levin and others 'are more worried that the ANL should oppose nationwide broadcasts by a party of violent racist thugs than they are by racism'. This is an absurd antithesis. Journalists have many things to worry about: making a living, the power of totalitarian political parties, telling the truth, and guarding the hard-won right of freedom of expression. One can perfectly well deplore the NF's racialism while defending the right of free speech under the law. Voltaire died two hundred years ago this year. It is depressing that so many people are still incapable of grasping his principles.
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