The Battle of Red Lion Square -- 15th June 1974

 By Caroline Colebrook

THIS COMING Sunday will be the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Red Lion Square – an important event in the history of anti-fascism in Britain in which Kevin Gately, a young anti-fascist student, was killed and many others anti-fascists were injured during what was effectively a police riot.

At the time the main fascist enemy on the streets was the National Front, notorious for its violence and its policy, put forward by Martin Webster, of “kicking its way into the headlines”.

It was winning some support on its strongly anti-immigration platform but not far beneath the surface, its hard core centre was solidly neo-Nazi – not only racist but out-and-out fascist.

The NF booked a meeting for 15th June at London’s Conway Hall. This was run by the South Place Ethical Society which had at the time a policy of free speech for all which allowed the extreme right wing a platform on the theory that spouting their poison would show themselves up and be more likely to turn people away from their policies. It was a naïve and mistaken view. Fascists rarely reveal their true nature from a platform; they lie about their real agenda.

Throughout London left-wingers – a diverse array including the Labour Party, the Communist Party of Great Britain and dozens of small groups of Trotskyists, Maoists, anarchists and others – there was an anti-fascist consensus that this NF meeting should be opposed and a march and a counter meeting, which were was organised by Liberation, formerly known as the Movement for Colonial Freedom to begin earlier than the NF meeting.

The plan was to fill the building and its approach so full of anti-fascists that the NF would be peacefully prevented from entering the Conway Hall. And although the event was organised by Liberation it was supported by many groups, including the Trotskyist International Marxist Group (IMG) and the International Socialists (who later became the Socialist Workers’ Party).

Police had other ideas and the counter meeting inside the Conway Hall was banned. As the anti-fascist marchers coming from Clerkenwell along Theobald’s Road turned into Old North Street and into Red Lion Square they were diverted by a huge police cordon, including mounted police and the Special Patrol Group, from turning left towards the Conway Hall.

Instead they were directed right to where the event organisers were setting up a platform for an open air meeting on the north side of the Square. The organisers included veteran campaigners Kay Beauchamp, Tony Gilbert and Labour MP Sid Bidwell.

As the march turned some of the younger Trotskyists and anarchists tried to challenge the police cordon and force a way through to the Conway Hall. They stood no chance. But one or two bottles and other objects were thrown at the police lines. Many suspect they came from police provocateurs.

The NF were not due for another hour or two and most anti-fascists did not see the point of picking a fight with the police at this point and time.

The thrown objects acted as a trigger for the police; the cordon advanced rapidly with mounted police using their truncheons vigorously to clear away all in their path. They did not hesitate to strike the veterans who had been setting up their platform and microphone as previously agreed with the police.

Soon it was mayhem, confusion and bloodshed everywhere. Some demonstrators were forced back up Old North Street; others fled towards Southampton Row.

Police forcibly cleared all demonstrators from the Square, including those who had been preparing peacefully for the open air rally.

Soon after this, word spread among the Liberation demonstrators that the NF were approaching. Many demonstrators regrouped at the junction of Vernon Place and Southampton Row where they were held back by a police cordon on the east side.

The National Front, accompanied by an Orange fife and drum band, marched down Bloomsbury Way to the west side of Southampton Row where another police cordon stopped them. Neither side attempted to breach the cordons that separated them.

After a few minutes mounted police came up Southampton Row from Red Lion Square and moved straight into the Liberation crowd without warning. Supported by foot police, they used truncheons indiscriminately on demonstrators.

Another police cordon behind the crowd effectively prevented their escape and a large number of arrests were made.

A large number of demonstrators were arrested. Photos show that many who were arrested had their hair pulled or were otherwise treated with what appeared to be excessive force by police. Some had faces covered in blood after being hit on the head by truncheons.

While this was happening the National Front were allowed to turn right into Southampton Row and escorted round the south side of Red Lion Square into Conway Hall.

Kevin Gately, a 21-year-old student from Warwick University, was not a member of any political group and this was his first attendance at a political event. He came with a group of friends attached to an IMG contingent and was caught up in the first clash in Red Lion Square.

Photos show Gately moving through the crowd, possibly trying to escape from the tight press of bodies during the pushing at the police cordon.

His unconscious body was found by police after the crowd was driven back and taken in an ambulance to University College Hospital.

Gately's fellow students only realised that he was missing when they met after the demonstration ended. A student who enquired at University College Hospital was shown Gately's body and asked to identify him.

A coroner's inquest at St Pancras Coroner's Court concluded that Gately's death was the result of a blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Many suspect this was a police truncheon. Police later claimed that Gately was found to have an unusually thin skull at certain points and that his death was a tragic accident.

Kevin Gately was the first demonstrator to be killed in Britain for 55 years.

The next Saturday, 22nd June 1974, a silent march retraced the route of the Liberation counter-demonstration from the embankment to Red Lion Square. The march was led by personal friends of Kevin Gately, followed by University of Warwick students and then by students from many other universities and colleges as well as contingents from many of the left wing groups that had taken part in the original march.

The Inquest into Kevin Gately's death was followed by a public inquiry headed by Lord Scarman, which considered a wide range of evidence from police and marchers. The IMG leaders on 15th June – Brian Heron and David Bailey – initially denied charging the first police cordon but later admitted doing so to the Scarman tribunal.

The sabbatical officers of University of Warwick Students' Union commissioned a Kevin Gately memorial painting which still hangs in the student union building. It was restored in 2004.

Tony Gilbert went on to write a book about the police riot, Only One Died: An Account of the Scarman Inquiry into the Events of 15th June 1974, in Red Lion Square, when Kevin Gately Died Opposing Racism and Fascism, published in London by Kay Beauchamp, 1975.

The Agenda for the Working Class

Andy Brooks, Lesley Larkum and Michael Chant

By New Worker correspondent

Communists met in central London last weekend  to consider the role of the working class in the current crisis and pave the way for a new theoretical journal to take the movement forward.  And many took part in the discussions that followed the talks given by comrades from the New Communist Party of Britain and the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (ML) that kicked off the discussion around the theme of the Agenda for the Working Class.

The joint seminar was organised by the NCP and the RCPB (ML) whose members and supporters came from all parts of the country to take part in the meeting.

Both parties called for papers on crucial topics which, in the opinion of the organisers, need to be taken up for solution by the communist and workers' movement. And the first objective of the seminar was to facilitate discussion and expand the space for communism, with the aim of building ideological and political unity in the movement.

            Chaired by Lesley Larkum four comrades from both parties including Michael Chant from the RPCB (ML) and Andy Brooks and Daphne Liddle from the NCP opened  on topics ranging from Party Building to Lead the Proletarian Front, the United Front in the Modern Era, The Importance of the Anti-Fascist Struggle and For a New Direction for the Economy and Society.

            Future seminars are being planned and all the documents will eventually be published in a new journal that both parties are going to publish to broaden the discussion and encourage the development of communist theory and practice in Britain.

The role of Kim Jong Il in building Juché theory

Thae Yongho addressing the meeting

by New Worker correspendent

THE JUCHÉ Idea Study group of England last Saturday gathered in north London to mark the 50^th anniversary of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il starting work at the central committee of the Workers' Party of Korea. This was a great landmark in the Korean revolution.

The meeting was addressed by Comrade Thae Yongho from the embassy of the Democratic Republic of Korea who gave an account of the vital role of Kim Jong Il in developing Songun politics and the Juché idea starting at a time when Khrushchov had not long made his 20^th CPSU attack on Stalin and communists throughout the world were in turmoil.

The Juché path gave a way forward for communists to go forward on the basis of developing their own independent policies based on the realities of their own situation while respecting and maintaining good terms with others.

Comrade Theo Russell also addressed the meeting on behalf of the New Communist Party and spoke of the history of Juché and Kim Jong Il’s role in developing it.

There was discussion from the floor, including a discussion on the damaging effect of the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s and 70s, especially in the Third World where communists became engaged in fighting each other instead of working together to develop a path to socialism appropriate to their own concrete circumstances.

London news round-up

Mark Harding not guilty

MARK Hardy, the London Underground RMT branch official facing charges of threatening behaviour on a picket line, was found not guilty on Monday at Hammersmith Magistrates Court.

The charges were brought under section 241 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 as amended by Schedules seven and 17 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 during the last phase of tube strike action.

The charge arose after Harding spoke briefly to a worker asking him not to cross the picket line. The exchange between them was friendly but a junior manager who witnessed it lodged a complaint of threatening behaviour.

On Monday Harding was acquitted on the grounds of lack of evidence but not before an anti-union warning rant from the magistrates.

Mick Cash, RMT acting general secretary, said “This is an important victory, not just for RMT but for the whole trade union movement, and has significant implications for every single trade unionist taking action and seeking to picket effectively at the workplace.

“RMT always said that this prosecution was politically motivated and was just another attempt to tighten the noose of the anti-trade union laws around the necks of those sections of the working class prepared to stand up and fight.

“It shouldn’t be forgotten that this prosecution arose from the dispute on London Underground over savage cuts to jobs, services and safety and that fight continues.”

The union had been considering strike action if Harding did not get a fair trial.

Campaigning against attacks on disabled people

 

PAUL NOWAK, the TUC assistant general secretary, last week addressed the TUC’s annual disabled workers’ conference in London and called for unions and disability organisations to come together to campaign against Government attacks on state welfare.

Speaking at the event in Congress House he said: “The past four years have been tough for disabled people in Britain. Cuts have devastated the NHS, social care and mental health services.

“Welfare reforms have shattered incomes and lifelines, and shameless propaganda about scroungers and spongers has fuelled prejudice, discrimination and hate.

“Sadly this torrent of right-wing vitriol has begun to strike a chord with the British public. As polling shows, attitudes towards the welfare state have really hardened.

“But behind the cuts and the benefit changes are real people.

“People like 24-year-old Amy Jones who has cerebral palsy. Paralysed in her left arm, Amy has deformities in her legs that make walking painful and incredibly tiring.

“Yet she’s just been told she may lose her Employment Support Allowance as an Atos assessment said her condition was expected to improve.

“Or 28-year-old Kelly Marie Lennon who is blind and unable to walk or talk, and relies on a spare room as storage for her wheelchair and as a sensory haven. But her mother Dawn is now being asked to stump up £570 a year because of a bedroom tax that she simply cannot afford.

“It is a scandal that shames modern Britain and ministers should hang their heads in shame. The picture is grim – and for as long as austerity continues, it will continue to be grim for disabled people who need any kind of support.

Communists stand by Ukraine

By New Worker correspondent

Andy Brooks and Michael Chant

NEW WORKER supporters heard the views of two leading communists on the Ukrainian crisis at a meeting in central London last week.

New Communist Party leader Andy Brooks and Michael Chant, the general secretary of the RCPB (ML) opened the discussion at Euston’s Cock Tavern, a regular haunt for New Worker forums over the past few years, that was chaired by Theo Russell from the NCP London District.

Michael spoke about the right of the peoples of Ukraine to self-determination and role of imperialism in the crisis and Andy talked about the solid support of the communist movements in Ukraine and Russia for the anti-fascist struggle against the imperialists and their local puppets. And both stressed the need to step up the solidarity work in Britain to halt the drive to another imperialist war in Europe.

This was, naturally, taken up by the comrades in the audience during the discussion which broadened to cover the general threat to world peace from US-led imperialism.

 The meeting, organised by the NCP’s London District, was the third of this year’s series of talks for New Worker readers and supporters to discuss contemporary issues.  

• The West's Obsession with a Greater Ukraine

Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine

 

Eddie Dempsey  (RMT) speaking

By New Worker correspondent

MORE THAN 150 people packed a lecture room in central London last Monday for the launch of a broad based campaign, Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine.

The speakers were Richard Brenner from the campaign, Lindsey German from Counterfire, Boris Kagarlitsky from the Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements (IGSO), in Moscow who joined via Skype as he had been unable to get a visa, Andrew Murray from the Communist Party of Britain, Alan Woods from Socialist Appeal and the International Marxist Tendency and Sergei Kirichuk from the socialist movement  Borotba (Struggle)  in Ukraine who also spoke over a Skype link.

Richard Brenner opened with the announcement of the most recent air strike by the Kiev junta on Lugansk, resulting in heavy casualties, including many civilians. Air strikes like this have been made on an orphanage and a children’s hospital among other targets.

“But,” Brenner said, “the western media from the BBC to Fox News are promoting the Nato lie that the cause of the problem is a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine.”

He pointed out that most of the population of eastern Ukraine are and always have been Russian speakers.

Many speakers made the point that the recent “elections” run by the junta to give it some legitimacy barred all left parties from standing; the communists have been outlawed, their headquarters seized and burned and one leading member murdered. Other left and moderate parties have come under similar attack.

Nevertheless in those elections the Nazi Svoboda party won only two per cent of the vote. This seemed to appease western commentators that the new regime had now distanced itself from the Nazis. But Nazis do not operate according to democratic principles. They are still there in force and occupy around a third of government seats and they are not shifting.

“The fascist threat is not overstated,” said Brenner. “The fascists are there to enforce the will of the IMF as it imposes its savage austerity programme, through violence and terror on the streets.”

Lindsey German began saying: “We are not supporting Putin; we are supporting real self-determination for the people of the Ukraine. We have to look at what is really happening here.

“Firstly there is Nato trying to get bases in Ukraine and secondly there is the rise of open fascism there.”

She spoke about the double standards that the Kiev junta and the western media are applying. They supported the Maidan Square demonstrators as heroic freedom fighters, even though some of them were using sniper rifles and Molotov Cocktails.

Yet when the anti-fascist resistance in the south and east do the same things against the junta – occupying city centres and public buildings but peacefully – they are denounced as terrorists and Russian invaders and are bombed and burned.

Boris Kagarlitsky, via Skype, spoke of the economic imbalances between west and east Ukraine and the parasitical oligarchs who exploit this and who want to be part of the European Union.

“It is not yet a class rebellion,” he said, “but it is a rebellion of the exploited against the exploiters. It is not just about ideology but against economic liberalism and privatisation.”

Andrew Murray spoke of “Basil Fawlty” section of the left in Britain that does not want to talk about the war and the rise of fascism in Ukraine. “That’s not a left position,” he said, “That’s an ostrich position.”

He said that our enemy is here at home in the form of Nato and our government’s support for the Kiev junta.

Sergei Kirichuk from Borotba spoke, also via Skype, of the background to the coup in Kiev earlier this year. Ukrainian communists had proposed a referendum on joining the EU but that was dismissed.

The right-wing Maidan Square protesters demanded entry into the EU. They told people that anyone can become rich in the EU if only they are intelligent and work hard. The Greeks, they said, had got in a mess because they were “lazy and stupid”.

During the brief question-and-answer session at the end Eddie Dempsey from the RMT Paddington Number One branch who, on behalf of his branch, called for a broad based, democratic campaign, rooted in the labour movement that his branch could affiliate to, and move an emergency resolution to RMT national conference.

This would seek national affiliation in support of the anti-fascist movement in Ukraine and opposed to the EU/US/British backed fascist Kiev junta. It would focus on the neutralisation of British involvement in Nato military operations in Ukraine, British political and financial support of the Kiev junta and seek to publicise accurate information on the situation to counter the western media whitewash of events and the rise of fascism in Ukraine.

At the end of the meeting, the aims of the campaign were approved with an overwhelming vote:

•           We are against the UK and western governments’ backing for the     far-right regime in Kiev.

•           We oppose the planned Nato exercises in Ukraine.

•           We demand that the killers of 42 people at the House of Trade Unions     in Odessa on 2nd May be brought to justice.

•           We are against attacks on democratic rights and the repression of     left-wing organisations.

•           We support the anti-fascist resistance in Ukraine.

• Solidarity with Anti-Fascist Resistance in Ukraine News