Whose streets? Our streets!

by New Worker correspondent

Excellent turnout for the Whitechapel anti-fascist mobilisation last weekend. Thousands march through the East End of London following racist threats to launch a “crusade” in Tower Hamlets on the day as part of a series of events across the country promoted as a “mass deportations tour”. They wanted to parade through the streets bearing wooden crosses to 'reclaim Whitechapel from the Islamists”. But the march, called by UKIP, a racist sect that Nigel Farage abandoned in 2018, was banned by the police as there was a “realistic prospect of serious disorder". Although the fascists were correctly banned from spreading their poison in the area, it was still necessary to turn up and show solidarity with the local community. 
At the rally called by the Stand Up to Racism movement the main speakers were Jeremy Corbyn and the borough mayor, Lutfur Rahman, whose Aspire party leads Tower Hamlets’ council. And the whole community turned out including large numbers of local youths and members of the  Muslim community as well as the maverick Labour MP Apsana Begum and a large bloc of local youths.

UKIP demo flop in London

by New Worker correspondent

anti-fascists on the march

 

Anti-fascists easily outnumbered the rabble that had turned up in central London on Sunday to march behind ‘Tommy Robinson’ to ‘Stop Brexit Betrayal’. Robinson, a well-known racist bigot whose real name in Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was making his debut for UKIP, which recently appointed him as some sort of adviser in a last-ditch effort to halt the decline that followed the departure of their old leader, Nigel Farage.

About 3,000 Kippers, and the usual fascist degenerates who hang around Robinson, marched to Parliament Square with their flags and banners to hurl abuse at the May Government that they claimed had betrayed the Brexit vote.

Thousands more turned up to oppose them. Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) reckoned that around 15,000 responded to the call to confront the racists on the streets. SUTR and others said the message of the counter-demonstration was that Leavers and Remainers alike will not stand for fascists attempting to profit from a crisis; and that we will not stop until the rise of the far-right, and the wave of hate crime that has accompanied it, has been defeated.

At their rally in Whitehall, SUTR’s Weyman Bennett said: “We had a brilliant demonstration against Tommy Robinson – outnumbering and humiliating him. Now we have to redouble our efforts. Robinson and Batten are attempting to normalise and legitimise fascism and we cannot let it happen.

“Tommy Robinson should be locked up. When he made that speech saying that Jamal, a Syrian refugee, deserved to be beaten up, it was a disgrace. That’s what fascists do. They try to divide us and destroy us. Our message is very simple: ‘never again’.

“We face dangerous times and dangerous times mean we need to organise. We need to build in our communities to make sure ‘never again’ is something real.”