Stand Up to Racism is NOT that movement – it is a recruiting vehicle for the SWP & a cosy alliance with the Trade Union Bureaucracy
Tony Greenstein's speech at Palestine solidarity rally in Liverpool 4 August 2024
Last Sunday I spoke at a Palestine solidarity rally in Liverpool. There was going to be a demonstration first and then a rally but fears of fascist attacks led to the demonstration being cancelled (although there was an impromptu one after the rally).
On the previous evening the fascists had
rallied outside a mosque and burnt
down the Spellow Library and Community Hub library, a 'one stop shop for one of the most deprived'. This story has been
repeated throughout the country.
A remarkable achievement for fascist goons in Liverpool - they burnt down a local library and advice hub
Al Jazeera Rioting in Liverpool
Unfortunately Skwawkbox’s report
did not tell the whole story about what happened in Liverpool. The previous day a thousand fascists had mobilised at the Pier Head, the traditional rallying
place of the Labour Movement and just six anti-fascists were present. Although
they were unable to attack the mosque in Walton the fascists did considerable damage.
Locals in Liverpool do the country proud tonight by surrounding and protecting a mosque from the threat of far-right knuckle-draggers. pic.twitter.com/2TqGPdLdK9
— t/a Underscores Rn’t Us (@AndyPlumb4) August 2, 2024
If anyone bears responsibility for the riots today it is the disgusting coconut Suella Braverman. The irony is that she is the child of immigrants.
Although the catalyst was the murder of 3
young girls in Southport a week ago, the months and years of demonisation of refugees
and Muslims have taken their toll. Sunak and Braverman, who were so voluble
about ‘hate
marches’ against genocide in Palestine and who were so concerned
about ‘anti-Semitism’ have had nothing to say about the violent attacks on
Black and Asian people and Mosques. Their indignation about racism is reserved
exclusively for Jewish supporters of Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.
If anyone bears responsibility for playing the same theme tune as Farage its Yvette Cooper - instead of changing the racist discourse she continued where Braverman left off - this is where bourgeois feminism has ended up
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is asked why the govt hasn't used the term 'Islamophobic". In her answer Cooper (finally) uses the word.
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) August 5, 2024
As for husband interviewing wife, how does #GMB think this is tenable? pic.twitter.com/jjtnjdECnp
Those who talked about ‘swarms’ of migrants
(David Cameron) and an ‘invasion’ of
refugeees (Braverman) bear the responsibility for what has happened
today. So does Yvette Cooper who only a week ago was proudly boasting about how
she would wage
war on refugees earning a crust washing cars. What a terrible crime it is
to want to work!
Instead of attacking the obvious anti-Black and Islamaphobic racism of the rioters Starmer and Cooper frame what is happening in terms of thuggery and violence.
We should not accept this . The violence
and thuggery is a consequence of the politics of racism and scapegoatism and
both Starmer and Cooper are equally guilty of creating the conditions in which
it took place. The answer is NOT more legislation restricting the right to
protest. The irony of restricting the right to protest against genocide in Gaza has been lost on these hypocrites.
As it is dozens of peace activists and
protesters are in gaol, some with lengthy sentences, because direct action to
prevent climate catastrophe is considered more dangerous than whipping up race
hatred.
Starmer and his Zionist supporters went on
about ‘anti-Semitism’ repeatedly although no Jewish synagogues were attacked
nor were Jewish people. But when Mosques are attacked NOTHING IS SAID.
Cooper talked
of the ‘billions’ the asylum backlog is costing us which is a
straightforward lie. Asylum seekers want to work and house themselves. It is
the immigration rules that prevent this that is costing money.
Greater Manchester Police Attack Victim of Race Attack
Scapegoating refugees is so much easier than tackling the real criminals such as Boris Johnson and Sunak who handed out billions of pounds of COVID contracts to their corrupt cronies - something the Met is refusing to investigate
What has cost us an estimated
£15 billion is the COVID
Contract frauds perpetrated by the last government when they established a
VIP track to allow their friends and cronies, such as Baroness
Mone, to secure lucrative contracts to provide Personal Protective Equipment,
much of which was defective and never used.
Mone and her company Medpro was given
over £200 million pounds for PPE that was unfit to use. The whole scheme was
later judged
illegal but the CPS and Metropolitan Police have not prosecuted anyone. Over
£40 million was handed
to Matt Hancock’s pub landlord, Matt Bourne, who had never before manufactured PPE.
Just imagine this corrupt pair, including Tory Peer Lady Mone, trousered over £200m & a profit of over £100m for PPE that was useless. The Met has done fuck all - however this is not newsworthy for the BBC
BBC describe them as a "Pro-British March."
— Pileus Media (@thepileus) August 4, 2024
This is not journalism.
pic.twitter.com/CwKVd1p53G
But the thugs and idiots who have run rampage
in the last week know nothing of this because we have a ‘Labour’ government which
is as much in hock to the rich and privileged as the last Tory government. Far
better to attack refugees and Muslims than those who are really to blame.
Starmer’s Labour has pledge to continue with austerity with Rachel Reeves removing
the winter heating allowance from most pensioners.
Sussex Police actively tried their best to prevent the launch of my book on fighting fascism in Brighton - the Quakers of Friends Meeting House literally quaked, giving in to Police threats that they would provide no protection - the eventual EDL picket was barely enough to fill a phone box
Twice the Independent Police Complaints Commission upheld my complaint about Sussex Police trying to prevent an anti-fascist book launch - we should never think that the Police are neutral when it comes to racism or fascism
Sussex Police did their best to obstruct attendance at my book launch - their sympathy for the fascists was all too clear
The EDL picket of my book launch then moved to Churchill Square where they tried to attack the Palestine stall and got the shock of their lives as hundreds of shoppers turned on them - they had to seek police protection in the end - Tony Greenstein is speaking with the megaphone
According to @BBCNews just now we have GOT to distinguish between the peaceful far-right protests and the violent far-right protests.
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) August 5, 2024
Our public service broadcaster is LITERALLY toeing Nigel Farage's line, unquestioningly. This is how we got her. Normalising racism #FarageRiots pic.twitter.com/znMRCqBtc9
The BBC have actively promoted the charlatan Farage and his racist agenda - and there are still those who call themselves anti-racists who pay the BBC licence fee
The attacks we have witnessed have political roots
which have been exploited by charlatans like City money man, Nigel Farage, who the BBC have shamelessly
promoted for years. We have to set our own agenda and the labour movement
has been pitifully weak at doing this or combating the growth of the far-right.
The answer @FigureSpeech is not to pay the BBC Licence Fee
National Front march 1976 Bradford
I was active in the 1970’s in fighting fascism
when the National Front was talked about as the third major party after having come third
in the 1973 parliamentary by-election in West Bromwich with 16%, securing 18% of the vote in Leicester council elections and over 100,000 votes in
the Greater
London Council elections. But despite this I can't remember a fascist
rally when the Left was outnumbered by the fascists. This is what is different
this time around.
Oswald Moseley speaking at the Brighton Dome in 1936 - canny electricians wired up the speaker system that gave the assembled fascists a chance to listen to the Internationale!
At the EDL
demonstration in London on 27 July there were approximately 15,000 fascists
and just 5,000 anti-fascists. This is
something we have to reverse. Of course times have changed. 40 years ago the
labour movement was strong with a closed shop in the docks, cars and mines.
There were major industrial battles between the working class and the government.
Today the working class is atomised and depoliticised. Production has been transferred
to the Global South and what used to be referred to as the proletariat has been
dispersed. Today it is doctors not dockers who go on strike.
South Yorkshire which was at the heart of the
mining industry and an incredibly political working class now sees the effect
of deindustrialisation as lumpen youth turn their attention to easy scapegoats
such as refugees and Black people.
In sleepy Lewes the NF tried to hold an election meeting in the 1979 General Election but it was surrounded by hundreds of anti-fascist protesters
We need to make our arguments based on class
not the liberal diversity agenda which ends up with the Sunaks, Bravermans and
Priti Patels of this world. Yorkshire was made an industrial desert by Thatcher
and neo-liberal economics. It wasn’t migrants who closed the mines and the
docks but those who own the billionaire
press and their friends.
A good letter from the 5 independent MPs but where were the useless Campaign Group of MPs like Abbot and McDonnell
When the rioters say they ‘want their country back’ the obvious
question is when did you ever own it? Those who own the wealth of
this country don’t have a moment’s hesitation in transferring their money abroad or moving their factories to India or South Korea.
Unfortunately the most basic arguments for socialism have been abandoned by a Labour
Party which wraps itself in the Union Jack to hide its political bankruptcy.
What we need is to create a mass anti-fascist and
anti-racist movement in Britain which can challenge the racist ideas in the
heads of young white kids who, lacking any future, target vulnerable
minorities. Most of those taking part in the riots are not fascists or neo-Nazis
but they are easily recruitable fodder for those who are.
Thousands of anti-fascists came out to prevent an NF march in Wood Green in London
The 1970’s saw major pitched battles between
fascists and anti-fascists such as that at Wood
Green in April 1977 (where Corbyn earned his spurs) and at Lewisham
in August 1977 where the riot police made their first appearance on the
mainland. The SWP led the physical force mobilisation on the afternoon of the
National Front march. In the morning Mervyn Stockwood, the Bishop of Southwark
led a march of liberals and other worthies anxious to avoid any confrontation.
The Metropolitan Police did their best to
baton their way through for the National Front as a rain of bricks and missiles
landed on them from the local Black youth. After completing just one-third of
the route the police gave up. That is the spirit we have to rekindle. Physical
force opposition to fascist groups is based on the idea that if you allow
fascists and their supporters to control the streets you will lose the battle.
Brighton Anti-Fascist Mobilisation 1981 Against NF March - The Level
In 1976 Brighton & Hove Anti-Fascist Committee was created, based on
the labour movement and a year later the Anti-Nazi League was created.
It became, along with Rock
Against Racism (which came into being after Eric Clapton gave his support
to Enoch Powell) a mass movement. The only mass movement that the SWP has ever
initiated.
When Brighton ANL was created we had mass
meetings every month in the old Resource Centre in North Road (where Brighthelm
is now) of 400-500. In April 1978 the ANL and RAR organised a massive
carnival in London of over 100,000 people which gathered in Trafalgar Square
to march the 6 miles to Victoria Park in Brixton. Bands like the Clash and Tom
Robinson played. There were a number of other carnivals. The political cultural
aspect of the struggle rather than paper selling knocked the stuffing out of
the white and old, stale and male National Front. NF stood for No Fun.
Brighton Anti-Fascist Mobilisation Against the NF early 80s
After
the General Election of 1979 when Thatcher came to power and the NF got a
derisory 0.6% of the vote the NF took to thuggery and street violence. As
Secretary of Brighton ANL at the time I helped organise the anti-fascist response
which drove them from the streets of Brighton although not before there had
been 3 fascist demonstrations. I record these events in my book in 2012 The Fight
Against Fascism in Brighton and the South Coast.
Today’s Stand Up To Racism is a pale shadow of
the ANL at its height. It is not only an SWP recruiting vehicle it has effectively
become the subcontractor for the trade union bureaucracy allowing them to hive
off anti-racism to SUTR whilst actually doing nothing to combat
racism amongst their own members.
National Front and British Movement members give the Hitler salute at the 1981 demonstration in Brighton at which I was arrested (& acquitted)!
We urgently need to recreate a mass anti-fascist
and anti-racist movement that involves both the labour movement and Black and
Asian communities. At the moment Asian communities themselves are heavily split
on communal lines, not only between Hindutva supporters and Muslims but between
Sunni and Shi'ite. It is worth reading an
article on The
Muslim Vote by Craig Murray about the Muslim vote in Blackburn where he was
a Workers Party candidate.
George Galloway on the Boat People and the Royal Navy
It also means that there is a responsibility on
those like George Galloway not
to echo and amplify the message of the racists. If refugees stay
in hotels it is because they are not allowed to work not because they wish to
do so.
The far-right have established themselves all
over Europe in countries where social democracy once reigned, such as Sweden and the Netherlands. We have a duty to ensure that this does not happen here and
that means there is no room for left sectarianism and using anti-racism as a
party building exercise. Nor is there room for the kind of communalism that
Craig Murray experienced. Black is a political not a physical colour. The fact
that the murderer of the girls in Southport was a Christian fundamentalist did
not affect in the slightest the belief that ‘the Muslims’ were responsible.
After the fascists had attacked a lone Black man in Manchester Greater Manchester Police set upon him, leaving the fascist thugs alone
What we are also witnessing is a coming
together of the Zionists and the far-right. For the fascists the best opponents
of Muslims are Zionists and the Israeli state. Tommy Robinson is an open
admirer of the Israeli state and its wars. Fascist symbols and the Israeli flag
go together very well. Zionism has no problem with holocaust deniers. It's Palestinian
supporters who are their enemies. As Geert Wilders, the leader of the
Netherland’s Freedom Party, which became the largest party at
the 2023 elections said ‘If Jerusalem
falls into the hands of the Muslims, Athens and Rome will be next.’
SUTR has consistently refused to
take up the issue of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism. That was why Brighton
& Hove PSC disaffiliated from them locally. In Scotland they have marched
for 5 years with Glasgow Friends of Israel. SUTR seems
unable to understand that Israeli Apartheid is racist and worse even than its South
Africa counterpart was 30 years ago.
The SWP is still cowed by ‘anti-Semitism’.
Like dinosaurs, they are incapable of understanding that the patterns of
racism change. Jews were once the victims of racism. Today they are mostly the supporters of racism in the form of the Israeli state.
Of course not all Jews are Zionists. Those who
are anti-Zionists are not deterred by the mention of Palestine. So
it is Zionist Jews that SUTR are directly appeasing. They don't understand that Zionists have no interest in fighting fascism. When the Board of Deputies organised a march against ‘anti-Semitism’
recently Tommy Robinson went along to join
it.
Support for the Palestinians and opposition to Israeli Apartheid must be central to any anti-racist and anti-fascist movement today. There is no room for the participation of Zionists and supporters of Jewish Supremacy.
"Ruth Smeeth (strictly protect)".
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) December 9, 2022
Smeeth after being exposed by Wikileaks: "I would not consider myself to be a source for the US government."
The US embassy thought differently: https://t.co/j5cOleuMZl https://t.co/x8zyvyptMM pic.twitter.com/tR7FTOtZmM
Joe Solo responds to HOPE not hate controversy – Not The Andrew Marr Show
That is why anti-fascists should have absolutely nothing to do with the Zionist HatenotHope group run by Nick Lowles. It is an anti-left Zionist organisation and its former Deputy Director and Company Secretary, ex-Labour MP Ruth Smeeth (now Baroness Anderson) led the false ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign.
In
particular she targeted
for expulsion Marc Wadsworth, the veteran Black anti-racist activist after
making false allegations of anti-Semitism. She was also a member of the Jewish
Labour Movement .
You can't support Israeli Apartheid & Zionism @hopenothate & then say u oppose fascism here
— Tony Greenstein tonygreenstein.com (@TonyGreenstein) August 6, 2024
Lady Ruth Smeeth who attacked @jeremycorbyn & @Marcwads as antisemitic was your Company Secretary & Deputy Director
Anti-fascists should have nothing to do with this MI5 Cutout https://t.co/JtMf0SSoe0 pic.twitter.com/G6xv5jeIKE
HnH led
the attacks on Chris Williamson and even withdrew
a ‘Hero Award’ from Jo Solo, a socialist musician, when they learnt
that he was also a supporter of Chris Williamson, the former Labour MP.
Such was
the backlash to what they had done, that they later rescinded their decision
and decided after all to give him the £5,000 which he had all along intended to
give to other organisations anyway. A crowdfunder for Jo had raised double that
so Jo was in a good position to say ‘no thank you’. Egg on HnH’s faces all round.
Lady
Smeeth was named in a Wikileaks US Embassy Cable as a ‘strictly protect asset’. In other words she was an intelligence asset.
Lowles came from Gerry Gable’s Searchlight Magazine which was well known for
trading information on fascists in exchange for handing over information on
left activists and anarchists.
HnH is
clearly an MI5/Mossad Intelligence Cutout and should be avoided like the plague.
Tony
Greenstein
See The BBC condemns the riots and sanitises the far right in the same breath
Thanks Tony, much to agree with in your analysis of the situation. Labour don't want to take responsibility for the fact it's their party where a lot of the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment originates. To help justify their imperialist wars, Labour indoctrinated the country against Muslims and Arabs.
ReplyDeleteIt might sound conspiratorial, but could it be possible that Laxley-Lennon/Robinson replaced Griffin as the preferred reactionary because the latter was starting to get friendly with Assad, ?