Billy, it’s a great pleasure to talk to you for OLAS. We know some of your music heroes and legends - like Woodie Guthrie, the Rolling Stones, and the Faces, but who have been your West Ham legends?
I guess I’m pretty old school. My American company, which gathers in the revenue from my gigs out there, is called Moore, Hurst & Peters, Inc. The Yanks have no idea of the significance, but the guy who oversees my US record contracts, ex-pat, massive Hammers fan, gets a kick out of it.
Growing up in Barking what part did West Ham play in your life?
My first football memory is seeing them bring the FA Cup up the Barking Road in 1964. Next year they won the European Cup Winners Cup and the year after that, they won the World Cup. What other club can claim such a run?
What about now? How attached do you feel to West Ham the football club, and Barking the place?
I’m very attached to Barking. My family still live in the house I grew up in and I’m often over there. By contrast, it’s been a long time since I was last at Upton Park, but being a Hammer is a cross that I willingly bear.
I know that you are currently very concerned about Barking for reasons other than football - what are those concerns?
I am worried what might happen to the town if the BNP are successful in the coming elections. Nick Griffin, their leader is standing for MP and the party are hoping to win a majority on Barking & Dagenham Council.
Why have people in a traditional Labour-voting working class area been turning to the BNP?
I think that part of the problem has been that New Labour has taken the working class vote for granted, believing that places like Barking & Dagenham will always vote for their candidates, no matter what. New Labour’s strategy for the past 13 years has been to target ‘Middle England’ at the expense of its traditional heartlands. When you couple that to the general distrust of politicians that has arisen because of the expenses scandal, then people begin to feel betrayed.
In the 1930s Oswald Mosley built up support among East Londoners, who felt neglected, by blaming all their problems on an immigrant minority who were just as poor. Is something similar happening in Barking & Dagenham?
Something very similar. The BNP have simplistic answers to complex problems. When I left school, Fords employed 35,000 making cars in the area. Those jobs are gone now and nothing has yet come to take their place. House prices in the borough are the lowest in London. Can the BNP bring back the jobs and make the house prices rise to levels comparable with Ilford and Romford? If the BNP were to win control of the local council with its £250m budget, the damage they could inflict on the town would be enormous. Teachers and doctors would leave the borough, prospective business start-ups would look elsewhere, and house prices would fall even further.
What is your message for West Ham fans who can vote in Barking/Dagenham?
Nick Griffin was elected as an MEP in the North West Region last year, although his personal vote went down. Why? Because people in that region didn’t bother to get out and vote. The BNP can be stopped, but only if people are willing to go out and vote against them.
West Ham were among the first teams to have black players in their team – John Charles in the 1960s, Clyde Best and Ade Coker in the 1970s – and football unites communities. How can fans square that with support for a racist party?
I don’t think that they can. Our team were pioneers of fielding great foreign players. Even our manager is an economic migrant!
The BNP boast of being proud of their country but how supportive can they be of England’s national football team which is so multi-racial?
The BNP hate the idea of a multi-racial England team because it reflects our society as it actually is – united, no matter what colour we are. Anyway, it would be impossible for the BNP to field a team that matched their ideals - they would all want to play on the far right wing.
I know you are involved in a new project about identity– a drama called Pressure Drop. Can you tell us a bit about that
It’s a play about how racism can not only pit communities against one another, but families as well. I’m supplying the songs. We didn’t realise when we were putting it together that the run would coincide with the election, nor that Nick Griffin would be standing in Barking.
It is going to be a testing time in May both for West Ham fans and for local campaigners against the BNP. What results are you hoping for and how can we bring those results about?
The stakes are pretty high. I’d like to see the BNP soundly defeated in Barking & Dagenham and the Hammers pull clear of the bottom six. How can we do that? Solid team-work, a belief that we work better as a community and as a team when we work together.
Pressure Drop - a drama of passion and prejudice about English identity, written by Mick Gordon with songs written for the play and performed live by Billy Bragg and his band – will run at the Wellcome Collection on Euston Road most nights between 19th April and 12th May. Tickets are £20/£15. Phone 0844 412 4318 or visit:
http://www.wellcomecollection.org/whats-on/the-identity-project/play-pressure-drop/tickets.aspx
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