Monday, August 18, 2008

Divided, they fall

We at NWN heard that only 170 anti's bothered to show. This proves their numbers are dwindling, and when their numbers outrank the minorities they pretend to defend, we know their death is imminent.


Author: Pete Radcliff
Many hundreds of socialists and trade-unionists rallied in Codnor, Derbyshire, on 16 August, to show opposition to the fascist British National Party's "summer festival" being held on a farm near the village.

First, thanks to all comrades who came, especially those who came after recent hectic activity with Climate Camp and the Tube cleaners' solidarity action. We staged a significant demonstration to show that the BNP are not welcome in the area, that they will not go unchallenged; and it was not just an affair of outsiders parading through the streets of Codnor for a couple of hours. The activity to build the demonstration has also helped to build a local anti-BNP network.

As I reported in my speech at the closing rally, we know local residents, living near the farm, who have been subjected to serious harassment by the BNP. Our demonstration showed those residents that they are not alone.

As we had said on the website http://nobnpfestival.wordpress.com before the day, what with the use of the Public Order Act to severely limit our demonstration, it wasn’t what we ideally wanted. Also, lots of people were looking for transport being arranged to Codnor, and there was comparatively little we could point to other than what AWL members across the country had pushed for and managed to get arranged.

Hopefully the agitation for our protest may have galvanised some more activists, and provided a spur to establish active campaigns elsewhere like ours in Notts.

I thought our Notts-organised rally, held pretty continuously from 9:15 was good. A lot of local people are now involved, spoke at our open mike session, came behind the Amber Valley Stop the BNP banner that had been made.

Unite Against Fascism had been reluctant to support the demonstration at all, and when they came ot "support", they seem more concerned to pursue petty competition with, and try to elbow out, the local campaign, than actually to mobilise against the BNP.

They advertised a different assembly time - 11:00 rather than 9:00 - and when their coaches first turned up, kept their people for a while away from the rally already underway organised by Notts Stop The BNP.

In the middle of that rally - in the middle of a speech - they then marched their people away from the rally, without word or warning. Notts Stop The BNP were obliged to try to pull together the rest of the rally and follow the march, on pain of seeing the anti-fascists completely divided and many people confused.

On the march, the UAF indulged in a lot of hysterical and dishonest sloganising. They chanted, for example: "Nazi scum off our streets", often annoying and provoking local youths who may have no relationship at all with the BNP. Some people shouted back at the UAF visitors for the day: "these are our streets, not yours". Fair point, perhaps. And the BNP weren’t even on the streets, they were in a field!

At one point the local Amber Valley anti-BNP campaigners found themselves, and wanted to be, at the head of the march. They thought it would stress the fact that it wasn’t just geographic and political "outsiders". But they were incredibly brusquely and rudely pushed aside by the SWP.

The march went up to a road junction where the police stopped it, half a mile from the BNP site, and we probably didn't have the forces to push through. The UAF then negotiated with the police, without reference to the local campaigners, licence for a "delegation" of 30 people to walk down through the police line towards the BNP site.

We had SWP national secretary Martin Smith standing on the police side of the line, smirking, while marchers pushed and shoved in a vain attempt to break that line.

UAF insisted on its own rally after the march. The local Amber Valley activists didn’t like the speeches, apart from the speech which the UAF had to allow me to make.

Almost all the rally speeches were dollops of triumphalism, smug and inappropriate self-congratulation, and complacency. Mine was the only one to acknowledge that we had not been successful at what we really wanted to do, that the anti-fascist movement is not in a good state; to condemn the use of the Public Order Act. It was the only one to say that we needed greater numbers if the BNP attempt the same thing next year, and that we need a genuine local and national campaign.

Please note that we are calling a follow-on conference on Saturday 27 September at Queens Walk Community Centre, Nottingham. Please try and get people to come and come yourselves if possible.


http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2008/08/18/we-challenged-bnp-next-year-we-must-stop-them

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

It couldn't happen to a nastier bunch of people. I really do hope the British are waking up, and realising, that their union dues go on sending their jobs abroad and supporting minorities who conspire against them.



"Submitted by david kirk on 18 August, 2008 - 20:58.
I thought the demo was one of the most inspiring, disappointing and illimunating days I have spent in the AWL.

Echoing what Gemma and Heather said, Pete, Liam, Tom and others has been tireless in their work on this and we should look to the Notts campaign as how anti fascist campaigns can be organised as a democratic workers movement campaign. As Heather says AWL comrades and others from the Socialist Party were at the literal vanguard of the demo during the confrontation with police. Many of the younger comrades and myself had never been on a demo of this nature and so I was not sure what to expect and how we would act. I think the comrades showed acted in a responsible,level headed but implacable way in the struggle with the police. This was shown when on the march back the police snatched robin and others from the crowd. We turned round got the march to stop and refused to be moved until they were released. The police quickly did this after they realised we wouldnt move on, but I think if we hadn't acted like this they would have started snatched more and arrested people. They did not repeat the snatchings.

The behavior of UAF in this entire saga shows the SWP actively acting in the capitalist camp and as an opponent of prolertarian anti fascism. We should expose UAF for what it is in the labour movement and not give a penny more of union dues. Many SWP contacts and even members on the march seemed disgusted by the behavior of the UAF stewards and at Weyman Bennett acting in collusion with the police. UAF lost control of many of their marchers who joined us arm in arm at the police line. We need to speak to these genuine class struggle socialists and tell them which side of the lines UAF is on. I do not think this is sectarian, it is necessary if we are going to halt the rise of the BNP to destroy UAFs corrupt strangle-hold on the labour movements anti-fascist work."

Anonymous said...

True, if the efnicks care so much, why don't they march with the antifa? Just a bunch of Liberal students living off their mums and dads, and buying Che T shirts manufactured in Chinese sweatshops.

Anonymous said...

This from SF, what a numpty, who is this person? Doesn't he realise that we need the Labour Party to win, its the Tories we have to destroy.



"Everyone who reads this should be already aware of what the brave "protesters" got up to and also what they had threatened against the families who dared to attend the BNP's Red White and Blue festival.
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/reciprocation-515246.html
I am not at all happy with what happened and what was planned by the imps and I will be working towards handing out proper punishment to everyone involved. I hope you will join me.

The protesters and those who pull their strings would like us all to believe that a number of different groups protested on Saturday. I ask you is this really the case?
When i look into who gives money to each of the supposed groups i always find myself in the same place. When i look into where members of those supposed groups have come from, i once again always find myself in the same place. With this considered can we really take the view that these protesters came from different groups? The answer is that we cannot. A fairer view would be that they are all the same but some are a little more violently inclined than others. Every single one of them supports the use of violence but only a few are willing to act on that support and use it.

We are better than that.

The actions and threats have filled me with a new level of vigour. I have not felt this determined for quite some time and i suspect many of you also feel the same. We need to channel this newly found energy into something. We need to punish those who would see us harmed. We need to target the people who are behind the attacks and threats but before we can do that we must identify them and discover what will be the most effective way of dealing with them.

At this point it would be very easy to try and identify some of those people who are physically responsible but that would be a waste of time and effort for they are only the pawns in the chess game. Only a fool plays to win the chess game by taking their opponents pawns, we need to target the higher pieces and when we do so properly, victory will be ours.

Our target should be the Labour Party, our goal should be the total destruction of public support for them. This goal is achievable and when we channel our newly found vigour into that end we will be walking a path to success.

Let's make this happen, forget about searchlight, UAF, Antifa, and all the rest of the pawns whose sole function is to distract us from electoral success.

Now is the time to get involved, now is the time to put the past behind us and now is the time to work towards making a real difference, a difference which will be for the betterment of Britain!

When we have done, Labour will be on the political scrap heap. Labours MP's, Councillors and other riders of the governmental gravy train will have nothing. I can think of no better punishment for them."

Anonymous said...

The 5% compromise is in fact no compromise at all, and I’m convinced that this 5% level was Griffin’s intention all along, because without a membership list it’s totally unachievable, and leaves him in the position of an unchallengeable dictator. Mr Griffin has no political ambition for the BNP at all, to him it’s simply a source of income. For the sake of our nation, and our people, he must be stopped.

We must be honest with ourselves now, the only we can save our nation (from being breed into oblivion) is by getting MP’s elected, then ask youselve under Griffin’s leadership are we ever likely to achieve that? Mr Griffin does not want a serious political party, or even a party that grows much above 6 or 7 thousand members, simple because he’ll lose control of it. Last Sunday there was no opposition to Griffin, despite what people may think they saw at the EGM, all that was just another of Griffin’s clever road show again. Once again can I ask people to be honest and ask themselves if Collett would ever dare speak against Griffin, knowing that be doing so he was risking his position on the BNP’s gravy train? We must all now face the truth: we were all set up!

We need a leader with management skills not a charismatic actor/conman. I’m sorry to be so blunt, but yesterday the BNP took one big step closer to becoming just a Nick Griffin fan club.

Anonymous said...

"This from SF, what a numpty, who is this person? Doesn't he realise that we need the Labour Party to win, its the Tories we have to destroy."

The writer of the quoted Stormfront post is a former candidate for the English Democrats, so his political goals may be different from ours.

You are entirely correct in what you say, anon..

There is no doubt that elements of the Labour Party are involved in violent campaigns against the BNP, but if the party as a whole wished to destroy the party, they would bring down the power of the state upon it.

Anonymous said...

"The writer of the quoted Stormfront post is a former candidate for the English Democrats, so his political goals may be different from ours."

The ED is full of ethnics and Jews. Is the SF poster a Jew? He must be an anti to advocate the destruction of the Labour party. Surely he must know that their Liberal agenda enables us to move forward, while the Tory agenda halts us in our tracks?

Anonymous said...

You now that appeal for £3000 over on the BNP site for the truth in a box, for BNPtv well why werent BNPtv at the RWB broadcasting live as we were told they would be?

They could broadcast live from anywhere we were told. BNPtv hasnt been updated since 29th July and nothing from RWB, not even a rough snippet of unpolished footage.

Anyone else starting to suspect the truth in a box is in fact another scam and the box which Griffin claims to have bought was an old biscuit box he acquired from Morrison's in Welshpool?

What next truth in a powerboat? Let's get the BNP message to all the old salty seadogs and yacht owners as we travel in our powerboat along the sealines around the coast. As more and more Brits are choosing to live in Spain we need a robust ocean going boat so we can tour the marinas along the costas of Spain getting our message of hope and prosperity, er no, er hope and glory, no er faith, hope and charity to the wealthy boat owners. Powerboats like the one we are looking at dont come cheap, but a donation of £50000 will secure a deposit on a tasty Fairline we are thinking about moving into.

"It's a cool half mill but its worth it, I'm worth it" says BNP leader Captain Gri££in.

Anonymous said...

Try joining their unity forum. I got rejected twice. Where are they getting our IP addresses?

Anonymous said...

"Try joining their unity forum. I got rejected twice. Where are they getting our IP addresses?

19 August 2008 23:01"

Stormfront

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know how much entrance to the RWB cost this year. Id know there were no advanced ticket sales.

Anonymous said...

"Does anyone know how much entrance to the RWB cost this year. Id know there were no advanced ticket sales.

20 August 2008 00:33"

£25 single, £40 family

Anonymous said...

Using it's Leftist dupes, the establishment can instantly summon 1,000 rentamob anytime it chooses. The fact that they DON'T bother to do this with the BNP, simply shows that the BNP is not regarded as a threat.

Anonymous said...

JohnJewTree and Gri££in have been feeding information to the Reds for years.