The Anti Fascist Movement In Crisis

Out with the old, In with the new.

James from Liverpool reports on an anti-fascist demonstration with real potential to force the BNP off the streets – if it wasn't for the treachery of anti-fascist leaders

Saturday 22 November saw the BNP mobilise twelve of their thugs from across the north-west to hand out the vile ‘racism cuts both ways’ pamphlet on Church Street in the centre of Liverpool. Eager to clear their name after having at least one officer exposed as a member of the fascist organisation Merseyside Police swooped in and arrested them.

The following week saw BNP outrage at the arrests, with articles on their website referring to the police as the Merseyside KGB, and more worryingly their call for a demonstration on the streets of Liverpool on November 29th. Despite short notice, Liverpool anti-fascist activists acted quickly and spent the intervening week organising a counter-demonstration to begin at 10am that morning, an hour before the BNP planned to arrive.

On arrival we were informed by Merseyside Coalition Against Racism and Fascism (MCARF) spokesperson, Alec McFadden, that earlier in the morning the Attorney General had, unsurprisingly, intervened to overturn the charges against the BNP members. Crowds continued to gather around the sound system that had been set up at the bottom of Bold Street. We listened to several speakers talking about the need to keep Merseyside free of fascists before it was announced by McFadden (shortly after 11am) that the BNP had not come to town and we could claim ‘victory’. It quickly became clear that this information had been supplied by the police to mislead us, and stupidly was passed on to the crowd by McFadden and Weyman Bennett, a leader of Unite Against Fascism and the Socialist Workers Party.

The announcement directly conflicted with information from those activists who had been walking around watching out for the fascists. It was clear from the police presence that the BNP were indeed still in town, and sure enough at 11.30am a group of us spotted around 50 of them marching (with a police escort of course!) from St. Georges Gardens to Church St. Immediately it became clear that we had been followed by the police, and as soon as we reached for our phones we were stopped and harassed.

Despite this setback, those thirty to forty activists who had remained after the premature declaration of victory managed to regroup and confront the fascists, who had by now begun leafleting. The police quickly and forcefully separated us and began reinforcing their lines between us and the fascists. Within half an hour the crowd confronting the BNP had swelled to between 200 and 250, most of whom were members of the public. As the crowd grew it became clear that the police were organising to break up our demonstration, whilst at the same time giving BNP photographers (among them known fascist psychopath Joe Owens) free reign to picture and video us. However, despite intimidation from the police and the fascists the crowd continued to grow in size and militancy, chanting "We know where you live! We know where you live!" and "One, two, one two three, how many cops in the BNP!" Alongside the standard battle-cry of "nazi-scum, off our streets!"

At this point Weyman Bennett returned, megaphone aloft (having conspicuously disappeared once it became clear a confrontation was on the cards) to do the police’s job for them. In a combined display of misjudged machismo, blatant opportunism and treacherous collaboration, Bennett assured the crowd "I’m a man who normally likes to settle things with his fists" before warning us that if we didn’t leave in five minutes we would all be arrested. Despite meeting vocal opposition from the crowd, Bennett continued to try and split us, telling the clique of UAF sycophants who had patronisingly hushed the crowd to turn their backs on the other demonstrators and do what the police told them. As he led people away a new unit of cops were moved in at the front of the three further lines that had been formed, and they began to forcefully disperse us.

After ten minutes of trying to hold off the police offensive, they managed to isolate those who had been agitating for us to hold our ground, we were read a section of the Public Order Act before being frog marched to where Bennett had obediently reassembled the demonstration (nearly a kilometre from the fascists) and released. At this point the crowd (now numbering around one hundred) had been completely hemmed in by the police, whilst the BNP marched back across town and held a rally on the steps of St. George’s Hall, declaring the they had "reclaimed the streets of Liverpool."

What we saw on Saturday was defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. At all points we outnumbered the fascists, there were many among us prepared to confront them and physically drive them off the streets of Liverpool, and we won the support of many members of the public. However, the incompetence of Alec McFadden and the treachery of Weyman Bennett left an isolated group of activists (including many young first-timers) to be brutally attacked by the police whilst bravely upholding the principle of No Platform.

This is a story we hear time and time again about the "leaders" of the anti-fascist movement who limit their no-platform policies and radical rhetoric to reliance on the racist police and courts of law. The reason is simple - their strategy is to limit action to what is acceptable to trade union leaders, Labour and even Tory MPs. REVOLUTION fights both within and outside of groups like MCARF, UAF and Searchlight for a community and working class anti-fascist organisation. We put forward our strategy to a demonstration in Leeds with enormous success – proving in practice the kind of anti-fascist movement we must build."

Three arrested after city marches

Three men have been arrested for public order offences during marches held by British National Party members and anti-racism supporters in Liverpool.

The men are aged 20, 22 and 32 years, and from Prenton, Wallasey and Liverpool, Merseyside police said.

About 100 people from each campaign group were kept apart by police as they marched through the city centre.

Extra officers had been drafted in to cover the events, a police spokesman said.

Ch Supt Tony Doherty said: "The force liaised with both groups earlier in the week in a bid to minimise disruption to members of the public and to ensure that congestion was avoided where possible.

"Extra officers were brought in to ensure that everything ran smoothly and to reassure the public through highly visible policing."

STOP THE FASCIST BNP: GO KETLON GO

Ketlon Osowski runs the blog site Lancaster Unity.
Ketlon and his blog site are responsible for the massive TV and Media explosion currently benefiting the BNP as a result of the leaked membership list.

His site continues to hand out free publicity on a plate to the fascist BNP and others despite the fact that the anti fascist movement has agreed a no platform policy for the Nazi BNP.

He clearly is promoting the Nutzies and it's time to say GO KETLON GO.

We would like Ketlon Osowski removed from the anti fascist Movement before he does anymore damage to it.

We must not let the Fascists infiltrate Anti-Fascism.

You can sign our petition HERE

Loud Mouth Ketlon Osowski and Lancaster Unity throw the BNP a lifeline

Once again the loudmouth at Lancaster Unity, Ketlon Osowski, has thrown all our hard work down the toilet.

The fascists in an obvious publicity stunt look set to benefit by Osowski's incompetence.

Manchester UAF say Go Ketlon and go now.

You are nothing but an asset to Griffin and you've embarressed our movement greatly.

93% of Britain Wants A Black Prime Minister

With the election of Barack Obama as the first Black President of the United States of America, all eyes have turned to see whether his success could be replicated in the UK.

In a recent poll carried out by theological think tank Theos, an overwhelming majority of the British population stated that they would vote for a Black Prime Minister. The survey findings report that ninety three per cent of voters said they would back a Black candidate.

The survey also showed that only five per cent of British voters would refuse to vote for a Black leader on principle - a similar proportion to that in the United States.

Speaking to a reporter at the recent Operation Black Vote ‘Obama Celebration’ party, Trevor Phillips stated: "This is the first time that a Black person has seriously had an opportunity. It is not that you couldn't identify with John F. Kennedy or Bill Clinton, but for most of my lifetime there has not been a possibility for a Black politician to be anything other than an insurgent."

He also stated that the public in this country would, embrace a Black leader; however he believes that the system would prevent it from happening.

Phillips commented: "Here, the problem is not the electorate, the problem is the machine. It was no coincidence that there are only 15 ethnic-minority MPs. The parties and the unions and the think-tanks are all very happy to sign up to the general idea of advancing the cause of minorities but in practice they would like somebody else to do the business. It's institutional racism. Here it's more about class. It is about culture, a different way of life and speaking,” he further added.

Operation Black Vote research suggests that, at the current rate, it would take over 100 years for Parliament to reflect Britain's ethnic mix. There are 13 Labour and two Conservative MPs who are Black or Asian, but no Liberal Democrat MPs. That number would have to rise from 15 MPs to 60 out of 646 to be representative of the number of non-whites in the population.

However, the Labour-affiliated Fabians Society predicts that the number of non-white MPs could rise to 25 after the next election, as the Labour and Conservative Parties pick more ethnic minority candidates. This would mean that fairer representation could be achieved much more quickly than previously thought.

’Speakers Conference’, a special cross party parliamentary inquiry was launched last week at the Houses of Commons. Chaired by the Speaker of the House of Commons Michael Martin, the year long inquiry will look at how Parliament can be more reflective of the communities it serves.

Let in more immigrants: we need them and they will enrich us all

It is more than a generation since a member of a British government said anything positive about the contribution that higher immigration could make to this country, so Barbara Roche's speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research deserves a warm welcome - even if she was the minister who distastefully described the begging technique of asylum seekers as "vile". Launching what she billed as a "grown-up debate', Ms Roche indicated that a modest liberalisation of the immigration rules for the highly skilled is on the cards. Against the background of the very juvenile debate being conducted in some quarters about "bogus" asylum seekers and "floods" of immigrants, it is perhaps understandable that the

Government should want to move cautiously. But what the British economy needs is a far bolder step.

There are widespread shortages of workers with certain skills: teachers, doctors, computer programmers and would-be entrepreneurs. Yet to focus on narrow definitions of skill is a mistake. A long Whitehall list of the computer skills in short supply - available on the DfEE website - reveals the sheer Soviet-style absurdity of having civil servants estimate how many employees of certain types are needed by British businesses. The employers themselves do not know who they will need in six months' time. Nor does any official know what qualities a would-be immigrant, or their children, will turn out to have. Some of the greatest contributions to the

British economy and culture have come from people who landed on these shores without either formal qualifications or assets, but with a determination to work hard.

What's more, in the tightest labour market for 20 years, there are shortages of all along the skill scale. The booming economy would have forced the Bank of England to put up interest rates further and faster were it not for the large numbers of foreign-born workers, legal and illegal, in London. The shortages are worst in the public sector, where pay has lagged behind for a decade. Hospitals need care assistants, porters and skilled doctors and nurses. More immigration, without qualification, will be needed to sustain public services.

All the evidence is that immigrants bring their host countries economic benefits. The fear that one more job for a foreigner is one less for a Briton is false. An improved labour supply allows faster growth and generates more jobs. Of course we should seek to improve the skills and qualifications of Britons struggling in the labour market. But the more available workers and the higher their skill levels, the better it is for everyone.

Nor do immigrants, contrary to popular myth, scrounge off the state. Few are entitled to benefits, few want to claim them, and because a high proportion of them are of working age, on balance, they pay more in taxes than they consume in public services.

Perhaps most important in a modern economy is the contribution that foreign workers can make to the generation of new ideas. Innovation demands surprising juxtapositions and connections. A greater variety of people can have a big economic pay-off, a fact recognised by the 73 per cent of businesses in a recent London Chamber of Commerce survey that reckoned the capital's cultural diversity was its main advantage as a location. The businessmen got to the bottom line ahead of the politicians and the public. More immigration will make us all the richer in many ways.