SWP: A pro-fascist party (say Jim Denham and David T)

David T at Harry’s Place has discovered (with the assistance of Jim Denham of the AWL) that “the SWP has become a pro-fascist party” – on the grounds that it “has chosen to ally itself with bigots with slightly brown skins”. (No doubt these bigots also cook strange foods and fail to observe Germanic standards of hygiene.) David T explains: “allying itself with organisations – like the MAB – which are essentially theoconservative, if not theocratic, is pro-fascism”.

Bear in mind that Harry’s Place recently featured in a Tribune list of left-wing blogs. And I suppose in a sense that’s an accurate categorisation, because the views expressed there do represent a section of what passes for the left. Just as the pressure of the Cold War stampeded some socialists into a bloc with right-wing anti-communists, the present rise in anti-Muslim hysteria has resulted in certain self-styled leftists losing their bearings and embracing the ideas and arguments of the Islamophobic right.

Harry’s Place, 15 April 2005