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Labour List on the appointment of David Evans says he’s the guy that beat the BNP in Barking back in 2010. This is complete bollocks. Hodge’s campaign was tired, patronising and pandered to the very racists Labour claimed to oppose. https://labourlist.org/2020/05/david-evans-named-labours-new-general-secretary/
Anti fascists - communists, socialists, anarchists - travelled to Barking in our fucking droves. We pushed a strong “don’t vote Nazi” message, which didn’t explicitly say ‘vote Labour’, but in reality that’s what people did. WE won Barking, not Labour.
Christ the HOURS spent on the overground to Barking. The complicated planning we all did to keep people safe from the very real threat of fascist violence. That gorgeous restaurant that fed us for free. WE did it, not them, I will never ever stop correcting this bollocks.
And what’s worse is this people had no idea - literally, not a single fucking clue - how to build roots outside their shitty CLP. We argued with them about leafleting the mosques - not just shoving leaflets in people’s hands but talking to people and respecting them.
Not just asking people “are you voting Labour” and then leaving it alone when they said no but having hard arguments about exactly how badly their community had been let down by Blair, about Iraq and about fascism. Fucking hell its the hardest thing I’ve ever done politically.
I don’t regret it and I’m proud of what we did. Wiping the smiles of the faces of the fascists was a delight and I’d do it all again in a heartbeat - including the bit where I got punched. But I will never, ever let these people take the credit for what WE did.
We knocked on doors & pounded pavements not *for* Hodge but *against* fascists. We won coz we persuaded people to vote to keep fascism out of their community, not because Hodge had any positive contribution to make to their lives. People didn’t need us to tell them she’s shit.
And still these terrible, terrible arseholes want to pretend it was all them? Fuck OFF. It was working class Londoners seeing a threat & responding to it. Hodge and her ilk should be ashamed they’ve clearly forgotten that & forgotten she won coz she was the ‘least worst’ option.
Final point - in all the time I spent in Barking (a lot, not as much as others) I didn’t meet even one person who had *anything* positive to say about Hodge. By 2010 she’d been their MP for six years. People I met barely knew who she was & those who did were deeply unimpressed.
