"if people believe they are not welcome as in they have to cross a big "folksingers against fascism" banner you will never have a chance to interact."

First of all, the name of the organisation is "folk against fascism" - and it was formed because of the specific political agenda of the BNP to co-opt folk CULTURE - music, dance, song, customs and traditions - into their little right-wing package of Englishness.

If people who have recorded music do NOT want that music sold and marketed in any way as benefiting or representing a political party which they find abhorrent, they have a right to say so. If people take part in traditional customs, or morris dancing, or ceilidh dancing, or informal sessions, and they do not want these things branded, by extension, as representations of a far-right ideology, they have the right to say so.

I am far more concerned about losing our folk culture to the manipulative influences of the far right than I am about offending a few fascists. If someone self-defines as a fascist, I am not particularly interested in interacting with him, or in fact with apologists for fascists. If you want to have tea parties with fascists in Maryland or wherever, off you go. But in the UK, FAF was a specific response to a specific set of problems. Some people will agree with it and some won't, but I am far more concerned with engaging the politically ambiguous or "apolitical" members of the folk community, and getting them to understand what FAF is all about, than I am in arguing with fascists. Life's too short.

Right - off to a FAF meeting. Hoefully see many of you on 2 May at the South Bank Centre for the FAF Village Fete.