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From Militant, No. 686, 10 February 1984, p. 3.
Transcribed by Iain Dalton.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
LAST MONDAY Panorama presented some very well documented evidence of some of the fascist scum that has floated into the main sewer of the Tory party.
One named in the programme was Neil Hamilton MP who, Panorama stated, once dressed up as a Nazi in his student days.
Hamilton, now MP for Tatton, was a student in University College Aberystwyth in the late 1960s. I was a student there at the same time and can confirm the correctness of Panorama’s statement.
In an interview at the end of the film Tory chairman, Gummer, bleated that Hamilton had not dressed up as a Nazi, but as an “Italian ice cream seller”. Either Gummer is a liar or someone has really pulled the wool over his eyes.
Perhaps Mr Gummer will reject my memory of events, but he can hardly challenge the report of the official student union newspaper, Courier. Writing in 1972 of the hustings for student union presidency for 1971, the paper says:
“The highlight of the evening was as usual Neil Hamilton’s entrance; lights off, music playing, slide of a swastika on the screen, and the arrival of Mr Hamilton in full Nazi regalia” (my emphasis).
The fact that the student editors found this somewhat amusing speaks volumes for their middle class flippancy. The relatives of the six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis or the workers who died in the “war against fascism” will not share the joke.
The labour movement should not treat Hamilton, Proctor and the other Tory racist sympathisers as a joke either. The demagogic appeals to the base and filthy sentiment of racism stands as a cover behind which they will seek to develop a movement mainly based on the middle class, but involving demoralised sections of the working class to smash the trade union movement and democratic rights.
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Last updated: 14 November 2016