unite against fascism bulletin

unite against fascism
email bulletin, 26 October 2009 – www.uaf.org.uk – unite@ucu.org.uk

In this issue

– Stop the racist English Defence League in Leeds
– Anti-fascists turn out to oppose Griffin on Question Time
– Reactions in the media to Griffin's Question Time appearance
– Order your Leon Kuhn postcards today
– Join UAF and help build the anti-Nazi movement

DATE FOR YOUR DIARY: UAF national conference, central London, 13 February 2010


Stop the racist English Defence League in Leeds

The racist English Defence League is planning to descend on Leeds this Saturday 31 October. Initial reports suggest that they are building heavily for this event to make-up for a poor showing in Swansea earlier this month and a complete no-show in Newport last weekend. On both occasions Unite Against Fascism organised successful counter demonstrations to show that the EDL and their affiliates are not wanted in Wales.

We need to get as many people as possible to Leeds on Saturday to send a clear message to the EDL that their brand of noxious racism has no place in Yorkshire either. Every UAF supporter in the North of England should try to get to Leeds with their friends, family and workmates. On every previous occasion where the EDL has tried to march it has been blocked by a much larger contigent of anti-racists. The presence of a multi-racial crowd standing in solidarity with Muslims against the EDL is the most powerful force stopping them from growing further.

UAF protest against the racist EDL
assemble 12 noon, Saturday 31 October
Leeds Art Gallery, The Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AA


Anti-fascists turn out to oppose Griffin on Question Time

Up to 2,000 anti-fascist demonstrators turned out on the streets of west London last Thursday to protest outside the BBC Centre against BNP leader Nick Griffin being invited on to the BBC's flagship Question Time programme. The crowd was young, lively and multi-racial – a manifestation of the society that Griffin and his gang of Nazi thugs would like to see crushed.

The Unite Against Fascism demonstration spilled out into the road, bringing traffic to a standstill and delaying the start of the filming of Question Time. The size of protest led Griffin to refuse to use the main gate to the BBC. He was smuggled in through a back entrance instead. Across the country protesters held local anti-fascist pickets outside their BBC offices that evening.

A rally in the streets at the London demo heard from speakers including Andy Slaughter MP, Jeremy Corbyn MP and Jerry Dammers, founder of The Specials. Trade union leaders also backed the protest and spoke at the rally, including Jeremy Dear of the NUJ, Gerry Morrissey of Bectu, Christine Blower from the NUT, Steve Hart from Unite and Tony Kearns of the CWU – representing postal workers who started their strike that day.

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of UAF, said: "Today's demonstration was a brilliant example of a fine tradition of mass mobilisation against the Nazis. This is the tradition that has defeated fascism in the past – the Blackshirts in the 1930s and the National Front in the 1970s. In contrast, giving platforms to the fascists simply boosts their profile, as happened to Jean-Marie Le Pen in France in the 1980s.

"We should remember that friends of David Copeland, the London nailbomber, said he was a normal person before he joined the BNP. How many more David Copelands have joined the BNP tonight as a result of the prestigious platform the BBC has granted to Griffin? Griffin's supporters will draw strength from his appearance, and they will use this confidence to get on to the streets and attack ethnic minorities."

LINKS
UAF briefing on Nick Griffin (PDF)
Jim Wolfreys: How Griffin follows Le Pen's lead

Reactions in the media to Griffin's Question Time appearance

Several politicians have spoken out in the wake of Nick Griffin's Question Time appearance to criticise the BBC's to host him and warn of the consequences in terms of boosting the BNP and poisoning mainstream political debate.

Ken Livingstone, former London mayor and chair of Unite Against Fascism, wrote in the Guardian: "Nick Griffin's performance on Question Time was appallingly bad, but that is beside the point. The BBC has been shamed by this circus. Worse, the corporation has now established the principle that Griffin and his party are legitimate participants in the corporation's flagship political debate programme and in politics.

"They have given him a mainstream platform to promote his openly Islamophobic views that will encourage racism towards British Muslim Asians and give succour to violent thugs. It is a further opening of the door to the legitimisation of the BNP."

Writing in the Western Mail, Peter Hain MP said: "The unprecedented profile handed to the BNP by the BBC has seen its membership jump and its followers are ecstatic... The mainstream majority may have seen Griffin successfully exposed for what he always has been on Thursday night. But the party’s constituency would have seen yet another attempt by the establishment to gang up on their leader."

Diane Abbott MP wrote in the Independent contrasting Griffin's appearance with the first time she appeared on the show: "More than 22 years ago, I appeared on Question Time as a young parliamentary candidate. For days afterwards people, black and white, came up and congratulated me. It did not matter what I said. My very appearance on the programme signalled acceptance by the political mainstream in a way that appearing on no other political programme could have achieved. That was why it was wrong to have Nick Griffin on the show."

She added: "It is noticeable that at least half the show was taken up with discussing immigration. And even though the other politicians were aggressive about denouncing Nick Griffin, they were equally aggressive in declaring that there was indeed an immigration 'problem' that only they knew how to solve... So although they were denouncing the man, the debate stayed firmly on territory delineated by the BNP."

Andy Slaughter MP, whose west London seat includes the BBC Centre on Wood Lane, spent most of last Thursday at the protests outside the BNP. He wrote in Fulham Chronicle: "I was not surprised to be asked whether, having seen his [Griffin's] cringing and inarticulate performance, I had changed my mind. I wish I could say yes. But I am afraid that whatever happened the event was always going to be a boost for the BNP... Certainly the experience has emboldened him – the next day he was sneering at London as a non-British city and calling the audience a lynch mob."

LINKS
Ken Livingstone: The BBC's gift to the BNP
Peter Hain: Griffin’s BBC appearance was an awful mistake
Diane Abbott: Dark times for the debate on immigration
Andy Slaughter: Britain’s leading neo-Nazi is now a household name

Order your Leon Kuhn postcards today

One of the abiding images from the protests against Griffin has been cartoonist Leon Kuhn's brilliant caricature of Nick Griffin as Hitler. Leon has teamed up with UAF to produce postcards with this image on them. You can order them in bulk to sell on stalls to raise money for your local UAF group, or to use as general anti-BNP propaganda. Email your orders to unite@ucu.org.uk. Postcards cost £10 for a packet of 50 - use our Nochex secure payments facility to make your payment.


Join UAF and help build the anti-Nazi movement

It is vital that the anti-fascist movement steps up in response to meet the challenges of the Nazi BNP and its racist fellow travellers in the English Defence League. Unite Against Fascism has shown that we can be a rallying point for anyone who wants to take a stand against the Nazis and racists. That's why we're appealing for people to do two things:

– Join UAF today for £10 and help build the resistance needed to stop the BNP and EDL in their tracks.
– Forward this email and help recruit 5 others to join UAF too.

To join UAF today, or to make a one-off donation, use our Nochex secure online payment facility below. Put "membership" or "donation" in the message box as appropriate.
Please download copies of our appeal document and distribute them to your friends, family and workmates. If you are in a trade union, please contact the UAF office for details on how to affiliate your branch to UAF.

LINKS
UAF emergency financial appeal (PDF)
Nochex secure payment facility: http://www.tinyurl.com/uafdonate

Please distribute this email bulletin as widely as possible, especially in workplaces and trade union networks. Apologies in advance for any cross posting. If you have any comments or suggestions, email them to unite@ucu.org.uk or call the UAF office on 020 7801 2782