Standing up to racism and fascism

by New Worker correspondent

Anti-fascists rallied to hear Labour leaders and anti-racist campaigners call for a new movement to roll back the rise of the far right at a conference last weekend. Over 1,400 activists, including representatives from similar movements in Europe, Brazil and Canada, took part in the day-long meeting at the Quakers’ Friends Meeting House in London’s Euston Road.

The conference, organised by the Unite Against Fascism movement and the Stand Up to Racism campaign, was supported by activists from all over the country. Labour was well represented with two leading members of the Corbyn team, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, giving key-note interventions during the discussions on how we can defeat the rise of fascism and racism.

At the close of conference a racist ‘football lads’ gang tried to barge their way into the building but the robust response of the stewards speedily dealt with the degenerates who beat a hasty retreat.

No War in Korea!

Tariq Ali speaking

by Theo Russell

 About 90 people attended a meeting at Friends House in central London last Tuesday called by the Stop the War Coalition, with writer and film-maker Tariq Ali, CND General Secretary Kate Hudson, Stop the War convenor Lindsey German, and Owen Miller, a Lecturer in Korean Studies at the School of African and Oriental Studies, on the panel.

All of the speakers condemned the warmongering history and recent actions by the USA and NATO, and recalled in great detail the crimes committed by the US-led forces in the Korean War. The platform also showed how the history of the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Korean peninsula, the failure of attempts to negotiate any agreements because of US sabotage, and the recent history of wars and regime change, all explained why the DPRK had embarked on its nuclear and missile development programmes. The peace and anti-THAAD [Terminal High Altitude Area Defence; an American anti-ballistic missile defence system] movements in south Korea, and solidarity with them and with the DPRK, were also discussed. Tariq Ali summed up the feeling of the meeting when he said that thanks to its strong defences “North Korea is one of very few  genuinely sovereign states left in the world.”