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.