Auschwitz asks Britain for help to preserve decaying death camp

'There is only one thing worse than Auschwitz itself...and that is if the world forgets there was such a place.'

Henry Appel, Auschwitz survivor

The guard towers of Auschwitz are splintering, the barracks are waterlogged: the concentration camp where one million Jews were slaughtered is decaying so fast that conservationists have called on Britain to help to save it. The theft last month of its distinctive, sinister sign, Arbeit macht frei (work sets you free) has underlined the vulnerability of the Nazi death camp, stretching over 20 hectares (50 acres) of southern Poland.

“Nobody could have imagined such a horrific act of vandalism,” Jacek Kastelaniec, director-general of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, said. “Now try to imagine the public outcry if one of the barracks started to fall down, impossible to restore.”

Auschwitz was built on boggy ground between two rivers; as a result the high groundwater and bad drainage has rotted the foundations. Walls are blistering and starting to lean, roof frames are buckling, plasterwork and wall-paintings are flaking.

Mr Kastelaniec will go to the Cabinet Office tomorrow to press the Government on Gordon Brown’s promise to contribute to a €120million (£110million) endowment fund that will guarantee the preservation of one of the main sites of the Holocaust. Mr Brown visited the camp last April, and, plainly upset by what he had seen, declared: “We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz.” No figure has been suggested publicly for Britain’s possible contribution, but Polish sources say that the conservationists are hoping for about €10million.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, has said that her country would put up half of the costs, but the managers of the Auschwitz museum need other commitments. Mr Kastelaniec will also visit France, Belgium and the United States. The Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has sent an appeal to 40 heads of government.

“The conservationists say we need to start work in the next two years if we are to avert irreparable decay,” Mr Kastelaniec told The Times, “and that will only be possible if the money is paid into the fund now.”

The decay of the camp is politically sensitive. The current trial in Munich of the alleged Sobibor camp guard John Demjanjuk is being seen by the public as the last for Nazi war crimes — the 89-year-old defendant is wheeled into court on a hospital bed. Holocaust survivors are dwindling. “In ten years there will be no witnesses,” Mr Kastelaniec said, “and it will be easier for the crazy people who say nothing happened in the camps.” Only the buildings will remain.

Auschwitz cannot simply have a makeover because that would undermine its claims to authenticity, and open the way for those on the far Right who try to deny or trivialise the Holocaust. The strategic point of the restoration is to use its almost over-powering sense of menace as a clinching counter-argument against anti-Semitism and racism.

The portfolio to be presented to the British Government underlines the vast scale of the camp. The priority is being set on 45 brick barracks. The managers estimate that it will cost up to €890,000 to restore a single barracks building. On top of that come 22 wooden barrack rooms — where inmates were crowded into bunks up to the ceiling. Each will cost €310,000.

Then there are the remains of 210 barrack buildings. Some sheds have collapsed, but there are concrete outlines where floors and chimneys stood. Without some strengthening, these foundation markings will disappear. Cost: €78,000 per barrack room. The 27 wooden guard towers need to be reinforced at an annual cost, for the next 14 years, of €62,000.

Work is under way on conserving the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoriums, but the managers want to extend this to include a provisional gas chamber-bunker, two other crematoriums and the unloading ramp.

Property taken from prisoners before they were gassed, now exhibited in small piles in the museum, is also showing signs of age: 460 artifical limbs, 40kg (90lb) of discarded spectacles, 260 prayer garments and 3,800 suitcases that belonged to people who ended their journey in Auschwitz.

The sluggish response worldwide to the restoration had been down, in part, to the feeling that the main burden should be on Germany. Mr Kastelaniec said: “The breakthrough came when we convinced not only Germany but also other contributors that this was not a project about guilt, but about the future.”

Times Online

Auschwitz

Donations to Auschwitz

What's in a minaret?

A minaret isn't much to get worked up about. It is a tall, ornate tower appended to a mosque, which is sometimes used to broadcast calls to prayer. Yet, in the arguments of those who wished to ban the construction of minarets, thereby singling out Islam for restriction and opprobrium, they amount to a form of 'colonisation'. Whether that 'colonisation' is identified as a threat to conservative or left-wing values depends on the audience. Some members of the Swiss Socialists justified their support for the minaret ban on feminist grounds, and the feminist writer Joan Smith has attempted to lend this appalling stance some respectability. The Lega Nord, meanwhile, calling for a similar move in Italy, justifies the campaign on the grounds that Italy must remain, like Switzerland, Christian and white. Conservative writers like Michael Burleigh claim that it represents a stand against alleged infringements on European 'democracy'.

The language of 'colonization' is very important in the racist right's lexicon. These Lega Nord posters remind people that 'immigration' to the Americas resulted in Native Americans living in reservations - seriously implying, therefore, that white Europeans might become the victims of a genocide. It is also a language that the BNP is given to use, and of course, it was dramatically pictorialised in the icons of the anti-minaret campaign in Switzerland, with minarets depicted as black missile-like objects covering a Swiss flag, with an ominous looking woman wearing a burqa in the foreground. One cannot help but notice the 'bad faith' involved here. Muslims tend to be so targeted precisely because where they are least likely to be assertive, most isolated, and least in a position to defend themselves. They are targeted as a minority, with poor resources for mobilising on their own behalf, not as a colonial power. While we're about it, might we also notice the militarist implications of such a language? For if Europe is supposedly being colonised, in a way that threatens a fate akin to that of the injuns, then a war of liberation is surely the implied solution. The thugs marching on mosques across Britain, and the fascists who think they don't go far enough, understand this perfectly well.

A corollary implication is that those who do not rally to the war against 'Islamic colonisation', 'Islamic imperialism' or the 'Islamification of Europe', as it is variously called, are traitors. Now you might think that such language is the preserve of fascists and nutters, ultra-reactionaries, racists, EDL thugs, the BNP, etc. You would be wrong. For example, The Express, expostulating about its phoney 'revealations' about government funding for "fanatics who want to kill us", takes the logical step from its fabrications and fulminates: "It does not take a brilliant detective to work out what is going on here, just an ordinarily observant person: Britain's cultural identity is being systematically dismantled by a government of traitors." It is true that the Express takes the most extreme racist line toward Muslims of any of the tabloids, but this is an unabashed plagiarism from the pages of the British Nationalist. As it happens, the charge against New Labour is not only wrong on the facts, but it is politically perverse. No mainstream party has done more to capitulate to racist ideology than the one presently in command. Gordon Brown's dog-whistling about 'local houses for local people', following his tremendously successful 'British Jobs for British Workers' gambit, has been followed by more 'tough but fair' language and promises of concrete measures to deal with immigration. Brown is particularly concerned, after all, about 'Britishness' and 'British values'. Nothing saddens him more than the idea that we can't take some pride in the achievements of the empire, and of Anglo-Saxon culture in general. The allegation that this government is insensible of "Britain's cultural identity" (which appears to consist of being white, Christian, bigoted, ignorant, full of shit, and proud of it) is nonsense.

The main thing that vexes the Islamophobes, supposedly, is violence. If pressed, some of them will readily concede that any violence by Muslims is practised by a negligible minority and by no means incriminates the majority. (Do not even bother asking them to weigh it against the colossal violence of Anglo-American imperialism, which has incited such relatively miniscule violence as has taken place on the European continent.) The majority, though, will insist that such violence, even if practised by a minority, is driven by their commitment to doctrines that are mainstream in Islam. Thus: 'we are not against Islam, just extremism - but then, isn't Islam itself extreme'? Their attention to violent 'extremism', though, and that of the media and political class in general, is severely curtailed by their obsession with Muslims. Tell me if this sounds familiar. A man is found in possession of explosives, guns, ammunition, and other weapons. He is arrested, charged with terrorism offenses, and is convicted. But he is not a Muslim. He is white, and a BNP member, so his case doesn't grab the headlines. No one notices that the BNP has a demonstrated propensity for churning out terrorists. Let's try another one. A pair of students are severely beaten after attempting to defend a woman from a threatening gang. Suppose the gang is a Muslim gang, leering at a white woman, and the students are Ben Sherman wearing Brits on their way to play darts or something equally ridiculous. You would expect headlines from that. Predictably, of course, that isn't the case: the students are Muslims, as is the woman they were defending, and the attackers are white racists who were taunting the woman for wearing a hijab. So, it's not much cop, especially since most newspaper editors have it in their heads that wearing a hijab is itself a culpable and subversive act, which can at best be 'tolerated'. Incidents of both type are increasingly routine, as is their general oblivion in the welter of competing, largely fabricated, stories about the menace of Islam.

Given the pace of reaction across Europe, and the growing hold of this specious, essentialist garbage about Islam, it is unsurprising that an innocuous and sometimes rather beautiful structure can, if the PR is effective, become so suffused with peril and portent for so many. But the minarets are just the start of it. No Islamophobe would be content with what is, at the moment, a symbolic gesture, a super-sized fuck-you. There will be numerous intermediate steps. Sarkozy and his allies may be next with the idea of a ban on the 'veil'. Someone else may take up the original intended issue of the Swiss reactionaries, and try to outlaw halal butchery. But if the intended effect is to intimidate Europe's Muslim population and ultimately reduce their numbers, then it can only be a matter of time before 'peace walls', ghettos, and forcible expulsion are on the agenda - presuming no one lifts a finger to protest in the meantime. Some Swiss anti-racists have already taken to the streets. They are, at the moment, small in number. But they could not possibly be as small in stature, as pathetic, as ridiculous, as paltry in almost every respect, as that majority of Swiss voters who cast such a petty and vindictive vote.

Lenin's Tomb

Gordon Brown wants Jack Straw to take on BNP on Question Time

Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, is being touted behind the scenes in the Labour Party as the man to take on Nick Griffin, the unsavoury leader of the British National Party, on Question Time after the BBC decided to allow him the oxygen of publicity on the programme.

Officially, Labour is now "reviewing" its policy of never fielding members to debate with representatives of the racist party. Gordon Brown is, I am told, taking a personal interest in the issue and favours Straw, a lawyer by training, as the man to take on Griffin.

"We have to put up a heavyweight, otherwise we will be accused of giving Griffin too easy a time of it," whispers my man at Labour Party headquarters.

Still, there is a danger that Griffin may throw back at Straw the comments he made about Islamic veils in 2006. The Blackburn MP described them as a "visible statement of separation and difference" and called on women to cease wearing them. This allegedly led to ugly instances of yobs pulling veils off Muslim women in streets.

He doesn't seem to find it too hard to outwit Gordon Brown, but David Cameron apparently failed to dazzle one of his tutors at Eton. Last week, a large group of Old Etonians honoured a retired beak, Michael Kidson, on his 80th birthday with a dinner at White's and were regaled with a special tribute from the Tory leader.

The letter from Cameron that was read out disclosed that he had written to Kidson to thank him after he was awarded an A grade in his history A-level. The teacher said he had greeted the news of Cameron's achievement as "amongst the most inexplicable events in modern history".

Telegraph

Wilders strikes first blow for European extremists

Fears that low turnout and gains by far right will be repeated across the EU

The first killer punch of the European election campaign was struck yesterday by the maverick Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, who scooped 17 per cent of the vote and almost a fifth of his country's seats in the European Parliament running on a populist, anti-immigrant, law and order agenda.

The Dutch result, released two days early – before most Europeans had even cast their votes – sent jitters around a continent fearful that a miserably low turnout will help extremists on both the left and right.

Mr Wilders, refused access to Britain as a rabble-rouser earlier this year, has perfected a form of tolerant intolerance with his Freedom Party and its smartly-suited, middle-class, anti-Islamic and "pro-liberal" values. While the Christian Democrats of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende managed to keep hold of the largest share of the votes (albeit with the loss of two seats and a mere three-point lead), the Freedom Party romped home in second.

The platinum-blond maverick shot to international prominence for branding the Koran a "fascist book" and releasing a film, Fitna, which depicted Islam as inherently violent. "This is fantastic, a great day for the people who crave another Netherlands, another Europe," declared a triumphant Mr Wilders who won four of the 25 seats up fro grabs. Having beaten the Labour party, the other main bloc in the Prime Minister's coalition, into third place, he claimed the government no longer had a mandate. "The cabinet should step down, the sooner the better," he told Dutch television, although analysts said that was wishful thinking.

In another worrying sign from this founding EU member, turnout in the Netherlands was reported to be down to 36.5 per cent for Thursday's poll, three points lower than the 2004 elections. With that in mind and with the majority of the 27 member states still to vote this weekend, European leaders urged people to the polls. "Everyone must understand that Europe is very important to daily lives," the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, pleaded.

At European Commission headquarters in Brussels there was anger that the Dutch, in clear breach of the rules, released their results before most of the continent was able to vote. It did "not comply with the spirit" of the EU vote, said spokesman Amadeo Altafaj Tardio. But the low turnout and the resurgence of extreme parties are expected to be familiar themes when the official results start coming in from the rest of the continent tomorrow night.

With the exception of Britain, Ireland and Spain – where those in power are expected to get particularly bloody noses – most ruling parties can expect to follow the Dutch pattern, seeing their support siphoned off by the extreme flanks but managing to eke out a limp endorsement from the electorate.

Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany, President Sarkozy in France and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy will escape the battering which seems certain for Gordon Brown and the Irish PM, Brian Cowen.

Europe-wide trends towards the left and right, pro or anti-Europe, will be difficult to discern. Most national campaigns, in so far as they have stirred popular or media interest at all, have been fought on national themes. Even the low turnout has no Europe-wide explanation. In some countries, such as Poland, it reflects a vague contentment with the EU; in other countries, such as Greece or the Netherlands, there's growing disenchantment.

Here is the great European paradox. European voters complain that the EU is too distant and too abstract; the more power their elected representatives in Brussels and Strasbourg are given, the more the voters shun the European elections. In 1979, turnout was nearly 62 per cent. In 2004, it was 45 per cent. Yet the European Parliament has acquired considerable new powers to amend European legislation. The newly elected assembly will – unless Irish voters reject the Lisbon Treaty again – become virtual co-legislators with governments across the spectrum of EU policy and law-making.

Country by country: How battle shapes up

• Germany: Like Gordon Brown, Chancellor Angela Merkel has campaigned as a "safe pair of hands" for hard times – only she has succeeded. Interest in the election has been low, but Ms Merkel's coalition is forecast to win up to 39 per cent of the vote, despite severe recession and a German habit of turning left, or to extremes, in times of difficulty.
• France: President Nicolas Sarkozy's centre-right UMP will top the poll with about 25 per cent, after stressing law-and-order issues and opposition to Turkish membership. However, the widely forecast meltdown of the divided main opposition party, the Socialists, has failed to materialise. The great winner may be Daniel Cohn Bendit, the student leader in the May protests of 1968, whose ecological, pro-European list may sneak into third place.
• Italy: Despite revelations about his friendship with a teenage girl, and a very public "no" vote from his wife, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will probably top the poll. The centre-left Democrats, founded only two years ago, have failed to impress, even with the recession.
• Poland: The centre-right party of the Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, (Civic Platform) is expected to take over 40 per cent. The Eurosceptic Law and Justice party of the President, Lech Kaczynski, and his twin-brother Jaroslaw, the ex-prime minister, is forecast to score only 30 per cent. The great paradox will be the turnout. More than 80 per cent of Poles say they are content with EU membership; less than 20 per cent may bother to vote to prove it.

Independent

BNP members should be fired from Civil Service, says union

British National Party (BNP) members in the Civil Service should be fired, union officials have said.

At the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) annual conference in Brighton, delegates applauded the demand by Mark Serwotka, PCS general secretary, that government employees who were also members of the BNP should be sacked immediately.

"The government should sack all members of the BNP that work in the Civil Service," Serwotka said. "There is no place for the division sewn by the BNP and their xenophobic cry of "British jobs for British workers" given to us by Gordon Brown."

The comments come as a series of wildcat strikes by workers at refineries and power plants have begun in a row over a Welsh employer's breach of an agreement to employ local labour.

Serwotka also backed the refusal by postal workers to deliver BNP election leaflets due to fear of a public backlash.

However, a BNP spokesman told Personnel Today that Serwotka was hypocritical and "out of line". "This is coming from a man who says we're totalitarian and tyrannical, it's out of line and decries belief," he said. "He needs to lay down on a couch and get his head checked."

Currently, only the police and Prison Service prohibit membership of the BNP by its staff.

Personnel Today

UK promises to help fund upkeep of Auschwitz

Gordon Brown responds to plea from Poland for help with the conservation of the former extermination camp

The British government is to fund crucial maintenance work at Auschwitz-Birkenau to help halt the deterioration of the crumbling former concentration camp. Gordon Brown is responding to a plea made by the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, for the international community to help with the conservation of the camp, which is nearly 70 years old.

In February Tusk wrote to European leaders calling for the creation of a €120m pot to pay for the upkeep of the site. Today Brown was making his first visit to the two sites of Auschwitz and Birkenau.

In a book of condolence at Auschwitz, Brown was expected to write: "In this place of desolation I reaffirm my belief that we all have a duty. Each and every one of us, not to stand by but to stand up against discrimination."

Auschwitz was built as a Polish army barracks in 1940 but adapted to become a concentration camp shortly afterwards. Birkenau was established 3km away as a death camp, and it is thought that more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed there. The two camps were merged in 1942 becoming the Nazi's largest camp.

At the moment the Polish government shoulders the burden of the funding for site maintenance and the running of its museums, directly funding half the required 20 million zloty (£4m) with unreliable tourism revenue making up the rest. In the immediate aftermath of the second world war the museum was involved in repairing buildings. These had been destroyed by the Nazis in an attempt to remove incriminating evidence in the face of Red Army advances.

Though Brown said today the UK will provide funding for this site, government aides were unable to say how much or when. Speaking ahead of his visit to Auschwitz, Brown told a press conference: "We will join with other countries in supporting the maintenance and retention of the memorial at Auschwitz."

As chancellor in 2005 Brown made funding available to send two teenagers from every British secondary school to visit Auschwitz annually. The funding for this has now been extended to 2011. Future government plans include the creation of a new award to recognise those Britons who helped protect Jews during the second world war.

Guardian

Recession swings politics right

The threat of political nationalism as a result of the economic crisis

Last month The Economist warned that the world recession was leading to a new wave of economic nationalism. It claimed that countries were rejecting global solutions and free trade, and turning inwards, trying to protect their own financial systems, markets and jobs. The USA had initially inserted a “Buy America” clause into its stimulus package, the French and British governments were trying to force banks to lend to the home markets, which in turn would result in the repatriation of cash, and the Chinese were accused of manipulating their currency for their own economic interests.

The article warned that the mistakes of the 1930s could potentially be made again. “Economic nationalism – the urge to keep jobs and capital at home – is both turning the economic crisis into a political one and threatening the world with depression,” the magazine noted.

“If it is not buried again forthwith, the consequences will be dire.”

But political nationalism is already emerging as a consequence of our economic downturn. Thousands of people, backed by the majority of the public and large swathes of the national press, backed construction workers in the power industry who protested against foreign labour.

The dispute flared up in response to the use of foreign labour on construction projects at oil refineries and power stations. What began at Lindsay Oil Refinery soon spread to almost 20 other plants where similar issues had emerged.

The unions were quick to distance themselves from a nationalist approach. “We are not against Italian or Spanish workers working over here but we just want a level playing field,” said Dave Smeeton, a Unite branch secretary at Staythorpe power station. “We actually want to work alongside them, just as we work in Spain and Italy. But we are not being given the chance.”

Dave was one of 50 people who had gathered outside the power station last month in protest at the use of exclusively foreign labour on a new power station being built.

For Dave and others at the protest this is a problem that has been brewing for some time. They say European workers have been here for a while, often on worse pay and conditions, but this changed over time as they interacted with unionised British workers. They say that the decision to refuse to employ any British workers can only be because hiring from abroad is cheaper (i.e. they are cutting corners on pay and conditions) and/or so they can’t interact with British workers who might be able to unionise them.

With many workers using Gordon Brown’s slogan of British jobs for British workers against him, the BNP saw an opportunity. It quickly produced downloadable leaflets, a Wildcats website and short online videos explaining how this was the consequence of membership of the EU, mass immigration and a Labour government that no longer cared about the white working class.

There was little sign however that the BNP made any impact amongst the protesters. At Lindsay Oil Refinery BNP members from Wakefield tried to leaflet the pickets but were quickly told they were not welcome. There was a similar hostile reaction to the BNP at Staythorpe.

While the BNP appears to have made little headway in winning support from union activists it is bound to be more successful among the wider population. Recent council by-elections have shown a surge in support for the BNP, helped in no small part by a daily diet of incendiary headlines from the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star.

The BNP won a council by-election in Swanley well ahead of the other candidates and it is now predicting successes in the European election.

European unrest

Britain is not alone in experiencing unrest. In France, more than one million people marched for jobs and wages, while 350,000 marched in Dublin. Riot police were used in Greece to quell protests by farmers demanding more assistance, and in Bulgaria windows were smashed and shops attacked after demonstrations calling for economic and social reform. Latvian farmers blocked roads in the capital and laid siege to the Agricultural Ministry, while in Lithuania 80 people were arrested and 20 injured after protesters pelted the parliament building in anger over spending cuts. In Russia there have been demonstrations in almost every city against the government’s handling of the economic crisis.

And the situation is only likely to get worse as the recession deepens and economic insecurity grows. This will play out differently in each country but nationalism is likely to be a major winner.

Britain has escaped the rise in the far right that has been experienced by many other western European countries over the past decade, but this could well change this summer. The BNP poses a serious threat in three regions in the European election and a more moderate threat in a further three. The nationalist tone under which the elections will be contested, again fuelled by Eurosceptic media, will benefit the BNP.

In countries such as France the leftwing parties will attract a substantial proportion of the disgruntled working-class vote, but in Britain, without such an option, the BNP could benefit by positioning itself to the left of Labour on some issues and to the right of the Conservatives on others.

“The BNP has been steadily growing over the last few years during a period of benign economic conditions,” Jon Cruddas MP noted recently. “Now the economy is going into recession we are really going to face some problems.”

The question is how we respond to these threats. Part of the answer will be to challenge the nationalist responses to the recession, particularly exploding the myth of the British jobs for British workers approach. The slogan might be a catchy sound bite but it is no political solution. Over 300 of the largest 800 companies in the UK are foreign owned and hundreds of thousands of other UK jobs are reliant on foreign contracts.

If the BNP and the rightwing media support a British jobs for British workers approach then they must logically support a US jobs for US workers line, even if that means companies such as Rolls Royce and British Aerospace lose contracts to US firms.

It is also vital that we stand up for the rights of migrant workers and prevent one group being pitted against another. What is needed is to improve workers’ rights and conditions throughout Europe, including full rights for temporary and agency workers and paying the right rate for the job in the country where the work is undertaken. By doing this we can reduce the exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers, reduce the likelihood of unscrupulous employers using foreign workers to undercut their UK counterparts and so hopefully reduce the friction between groups of workers.

We must also stand in defence of immigration, particularly at a time when immigrants are under such attack. Just as we should remember the contribution foreign-born workers have made to the UK economy we should also think about the 5.5 million Britons who work and live abroad.

Can you imagine the nationalist outrage from the BNP and rightwing press if hundreds of thousands of British migrant workers working across Europe or in the Middle East were ordered out?

It is this sort of hypocrisy that needs to be exposed.

The BNP also needs to be taken on politically, not just morally. Over recent weeks Searchlight has been approached by representatives of all three major political parties wanting to know our assessment of the BNP threat and how they can get involved in the campaign against them. Our answer to them all has been simple. Bland and empty rhetoric about BNP extremism is at best ineffectual and at worst counter-productive. A political party needs to say more than don’t vote BNP because they racist – it needs to offer a political reason why people should vote for it rather than the BNP.

Simply moralising, particularly at a time of such economic problems, will be seen as political bankruptcy.

Over the next year we are likely to see growing social unrest. Unless the political parties, the trade unions and anti-fascists develop a more combative approach to dealing with the BNP – based on issues – then we are going to face a really difficult time. The Economist warned of a return to the failed protectionist remedies of the 1930s. We should equally be very wary of a retreat into political nationalism.

Searchlight

Don't play BNP's game, warns peer

Government told it must defend foreign workers

Politicians must start defending foreign workers to prevent extremist parties gaining sway during the recession, Britain's new European commissioner says today, in what will be seen as a veiled warning to the British government not to whip up nationalist sentiment.

Lady Ashton, who was until last autumn leader of the Lords under Gordon Brown, acknowledged in an interview with the Observer that there was a risk of significant advances in this spring's European elections for extremists in the present economic climate. She said mainstream politicians must be careful not to fan the flames: "In any kind of economic downturn, it is incumbent on us all to be putting across exactly the same message about the value and importance of having... diversity in communities; about the value and benefit of people from different countries coming and creating wealth.

"There are reasons we have to support that and not to get trapped into what the extremists would like, which would be to take their simplistic approach and fit it into a very complicated situation. So I hope that people will just reject as nonsense the idea that the solution lies in some kind of xenophobic attitude to people who live, work, study or travel in our country, because they bring the economy far more than they take out. The extremists have always relied on economic downturns ... as a way of recruiting people to what can be seen as a simple message, but actually is just hatred."

Her intervention comes amid warnings that the British National party could snatch a seat in the European parliament in June's elections, when Labour MEPs are privately predicting losses of up to three or four seats as voters respond angrily to job losses. The BNP took a council seat in Swanley, Kent, last week from Labour in a shock victory, suggesting it has begun to penetrate the southern English counties. It could profit in June both from a collapsing Labour vote in working-class areas hit by unemployment and the implosion of the hard-right Ukip, which took 16% of the vote at the last EU election.

Brown has been accused of fanning tensions by talking of "British jobs for British workers", a slogan promptly adopted by the BNP, despite the UK's obligation as an EU member to allow EU citizens free access to Britain to work.

The home secretary is expected to announce next week a reduction in permits for non-EU citizens to work in the UK. Brown's approach has caused private distaste in Brussels, but Ashton insisted it had been taken out of context and her former boss had been misunderstood. But in a warning to leaders tempted to pull up the drawbridge in a bid to protect jobs, she said Britain had traditionally benefited from bringing in workers to fill skill shortages, from Caribbean immigrants in the 1950s to Polish plumbers in the last decade.

Governing parties across Europe are braced for a backlash in June because of the economic crisis, and Labour MPs are concerned that in the UK the campaign for the local and European elections - being overseen by Harriet Harman, the deputy leader - needs a tougher strategy to combat attempts by the BNP to capitalise on the new nationalistic sentiment.

Yesterday the former cabinet minister Peter Hain warned that rising unemployment was a "heaven-made" scenario for extremists.

Observer

Labour rebels warn Brown he risks boosting far-right groups

Gordon Brown last night faced a growing Labour revolt over his handling of the wildcat strikes, which MPs warned could fuel far-right groups such as the British National party.

The protests have touched a nerve in the labour movement. The strikers' appropriation of Mr Brown's slogan of "British jobs for British workers" has been hailed by the BNP as a victory for its brand of nationalism.

Union leaders sought to distance the walkouts from the far right yesterday, saying the construction workers were shunning BNP support. "The unofficial action taking place across the UK is not about race or immigration," said Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite. "It's about class. It's about employers who exploit workers regardless of their nationality."

But Labour MPs warned that ministers' apparent dismissal of fears about jobs going to overseas workers risked exacerbating a wider failure to address concerns of the white working class.

They highlighted Peter Mandelson's exhortation in the Lords to "keep focusing not on the politics of xenophobia but the economics of this recession".

Jon Cruddas, the unofficial leader of the Labour left MPs, warned: "If we're simply caricaturing this [dispute] as being about protectionism and xenophobia, we're completely ignoring some material issues in this and, in doing so, we hand over what this is about to more pernicious forces."

Mr Cruddas told the FT: "Trite comments about protectionism or xenophobia do not address the whole question of equality [for British workers] before the law. If the Labour party can't grasp this and articulate that, then other forces will."

The motion "deplores" the use of foreign workers and calls for additional power stations to be "built by companies employing primarily British labour". Political opponents have attacked Mr Brown for indulging in populist "British jobs" rhetoric.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, last week accused the prime minister of championing globalisation on one hand while "on the other, he borrows this slogan from the BNP".

But some Labour MPs believe the problem lies less in the slogan than in the fact that the government has not implemented it. "Failure to deliver British jobs to British workers could wipe Labour out," said Frank Field, the maverick former minister. Labour must get a grip now, otherwise their actions will feed the BNP."

Mr Field's warning reflects a party concern that the government's failure to engage with the poorest white voters is creating a vacuum for the far-right to fill. Hazel Blears, the communities secretary, last year urged the Labour party to "recognise that where the BNP wins votes, it is often a result of local political failure".

MPs fear that European elections in June could hand the BNP its first seat in the European Parliament, potentially from a region including Ms Blears's constituency.

But polling experts caution that such fears should be seen in the context of the fringe parties' failure to make inroads into mainstream politics. John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said that the BNP and UK Independent Party have been "there for . . years but it's not obvious that their position now is any stronger than it has been before".

FT

Far right tries to hijack dispute

Striking energy workers were last night warned to be vigilant against far right groups looking to hijack their protest.

The TUC issued the advice after evidence came to light that groups such as the British National Party had approached unemployed construction workers protesting against a contract awarded to an Italian firm. But Scottish union representatives insisted the campaign was a fight for jobs rather than an attack on the foreign workers.

Contract workers across the UK are demonstrating against the practice by foreign companies of undercutting British firms by bidding for contracts below agreed prices. The protest originated at the Lindsey Oil Refinery, in North Lincolnshire, on Wednesday after a major contract was awarded to Italian firm IREM, which plans to staff the job with Italian and Portuguese workers.

Some unemployed workers took the opportunity to challenge Prime Minister Gordon Brown's 2007 promise of "British jobs for British workers".

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber spoke out against attempts to hijack the action, after evidence emerged that activists from the BNP and other far-right factions attempted to influence strikers around the country. He said: "Unions are clear that the anger should be directed at employers, not the Italian workers. No doubt some of the more distasteful elements in our towns and cities will try to use the fears of workers to stir up hatred and xenophobia.

"But I am confident that union members will direct their anger at the employers who have caused this dispute with their apparent attempt to undercut the wages, conditions and union representation of existing staff."

Bobby Buirds is regional officer for Unite trade union in Grangemouth, where some workers have staged wildcat strikes in sympathy with the Lindsey workers. He said: "The argument is not against foreign workers, it's against foreign companies discriminating against British labour. This is a fight for work. It is not a racist argument at all."

Writing on the BNP website, Nick Griffin said that Unite's claims that this was not a racist issue were "ridiculous".

The Scotsman

Archbishop of Canterbury warns recession Britain must learn lessons from Nazi Germany

The Archbishop of Canterbury warns today that Britain must learn the lessons of Nazi Germany in dealing with the effects of the recession

Dr Rowan Williams risks causing a new controversy by inviting a comparison between Gordon Brown's response to the economic downturn and the Third Reich. In an article for The Daily Telegraph, he claims Germany in the 1930s pursued a "principle" that worked consistently but only on the basis that "quite a lot of people that you might have thought mattered as human beings actually didn't".

Dr Williams, the most senior cleric in the Church of England, then appears to draw a parallel between the Nazis and the UK Government's policies for tackling the downturn, which he says fails to take account of the "particular human costs" to the most vulnerable in society.

"What about the unique concerns and crises of the pensioner whose savings have disappeared, the Woolworth's employee, the hopeful young executive, let alone the helpless producer of goods in some Third-world environment where prices are determined thousands of miles away?" he asks.

In an apparent reference to the Prime Minister, who has claimed to be guided by a moral compass, the Archbishop also observes "without these anxieties about the specific costs, we've lost the essential moral compass". It follows a disagreement with the Prime Minister last week in which the Archbishop likened Government policy on spending to "an addict returning to a drug". This prompted Mr Brown to allude to the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan by claiming he could not "walk by on the other side" as people suffered.

The Prime Minister has pledged to spend his way out of the economic downturn, increasing public borrowing to a record £200m a day. The Government has pledged £500billion of taxpayers' money to bail out the banking system, and cut VAT by 2.5 per cent to get consumers spending again. But unemployment is predicted to top 2 million by the New Year as high street names such as Woolworths and MFI go under. Thousands have fallen into negative equity as the property market has fallen by 15 per cent. Millions of prudent savers are also suffering as interest rates have been cut to 2 per cent.

Dr Williams' comments may be perceived as a further attack on Mr Brown's efforts to boost the economy, and risk damaging the relationship between Lambeth Palace and Downing Street. It threatens a return to the 1980s, when the Conservative Government came under fierce attack from the Church over its social policies which were said to exclude the poor deliberately.

This summer, the Archbishop invited the Prime Minister to speak at a rally by Anglian bishops and hailed his commitment to ending world poverty. But after the collapse of banks around the world in September, Dr Williams called for governments to increase regulation of the financial sector and claimed Karl Marx had been right in his analysis of the dangers of capitalism.

Last week, the Archbishop admitted it would not be "the end of the world" if the Church's links with the state were severed, as it would no longer have to rely on ministers' approval for changes to canon law. He also claimed he did not take account of MPs' opinions before making public pronouncements, saying: "While there might be many reasons for watching what I say, being a nuisance to the people across the river [Thames] is not a big consideration."

He then denounced Mr Brown's plans to increase debt, saying: "I worry about that because it seems a little bit like the addict returning to the drug. When the Bible uses the word 'repentance', it doesn't just mean beating your breast, it means getting a new perspective, and that is perhaps what we are shrinking away from."

In response, the Prime Minister defended his "fiscal stimulus" policies by alluding to the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. Mr Brown said: "I think the Archbishop would also agree with me that every time someone becomes unemployed or loses their home or a small business fails it is our duty to act and we should not walk by on the other side when people are facing problems."

However, Dr Williams has continued his criticisms of current economic policy in this newspaper. In his article he warns of the dangers of "unconditional loyalty to a system" that turned into a "nightmare" in Germany under Hitler, in which only certain groups and ideas were valued, while others were deemed dispensable and suffering was ignored.

He cites the lectures given by Karl Barth, a theologian who was driven into exile by Hitler, who had claimed that one of the benefits of Christianity is that believers are able to live without the "principles" that drive politics.

The Archbishop concedes some of the "principles" now being put forward are not as destructive as the 20th century ideologies of Fascism or Communism. But he goes on to suggest that some "principled" defences of the economy "block out actual human faces and stories", and defends the right of religious leaders to raise questions about the social implications of financial plans.

Dr Williams concludes that the message of the Christmas story is one of unconditional love, and the idea that every human life must be valued.

Meanwhile, a member of his staff has been sacked for making an offensive comment about a senior bishop in an official document that was sent to 10 Downing Street as well as other clergy. The obscene word was written next to the name of the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, in a confidential job application sent from Lambeth Palace.

Telegraph

Magic bus - last stop against racism

After 14 days, 1,700 miles and greeting thousands of supporters, the Daily Mirror's Hope not Hate bus pulled into its final destination yesterday.

The double decker roared into Glasgow's city centre and was met by Gordon Brown and Big Brother's Jermaine Jackson - who are backing our anti-racism message. In a speech made from the top deck, the Chancellor praised the Mirror's campaign to cheers from the crowd of hundreds below.

He said: "Glasgow is saying there is no place for racism in our society. "There is no place for discrimination and there is no place for prejudice. There is no place for bigotry."

The Mirror has had a huge amount of support from local communities on our two-week journey from Dagenham, through to the opening of a Sheffield mosque, a visit to Leicester's Golden Mile and a food festival in Birmingham. The bus also visited shopping centres, deprived estates, cathedrals, football grounds and white, black and Asian communities. It was welcomed everywhere it has gone.

Yesterday Jermaine Jackson added his voice to the campaign. From the top of the bus he thanked Mirror readers for standing up against the racist bullying in the Celebrity Big Brother house, where he was a contestant earlier this year. He applauded our campaign that celebrates all that is great about Britain's diversity.

Jermaine said: "I'm proud to support it because racism has been bred in the hearts and minds of so many people in the past, and it's important to look to the future and promote hope. The younger generation have got it right on target. We've got to get the message out there that we are all God's children, and there are many different cultures in this world."

After listening to Jermaine owners of traditional clothing shop, Slanj, gave the star a plain black isle kilt and sporran. He joked: "I won't be a traditional Scotsman because my mother told me I should always wear underwear."

Celebrities who supported the campaign include Kelly Holmes, Corinne Bailey Rae, Rio Ferdinand, the Sugababes, UB40, Amir Khan, Shilpa Shetty and Ms Dynamite.

Nick Lowles, from Searchlight, co-organisers of the bus, said: "As the BNP prepares to stand in more council seats than ever before, with a record number of council candidates, the Hope not Hate bus has brought a vital message of hope to communities across the country."

Mirror