Fighting the Nazi Threat Today

UNITY demonstration: 60,000 fight back

‘The real message from last Saturday is that tens of thousands of people are prepared to stand up to the Nazis and their racism. This is only the start of a mass movement which will stop the growth of the far right in Britain.’
JULIE WATERSON, chief steward, UNITY demo, and PAUL HOLBOROW, ANL Steering Committee, in letter to the Guardian, 20 October 1993

A wave of anger swept the country as the significance of the BNP’s election victory sank in. The Anti Nazi League, along with Youth Against Racism in Europe, Searchlight and the Indian Workers’ Association and other groups, had already agreed to hold a UNITY demonstration on 16 October. This had been called to protest against the continuing presence of the BNP headquarters in Welling, despite the racist murders in the area--most recently that of Stephen Lawrence. The demonstration now became the major focus for anti-racists and anti-fascists all over the country. Over 550 coaches were organised; thousands more demonstrators came by train. Bengalis and anti-racists from Tower Hamlets filled 30 coaches alone.

Rally and march

The route of the march, past the BNP headquarters, had been agreed and presented to the police in June; however, five days before, the police decided to change this. The march assembled peacefully on Winn’s Common and listened intently to many speakers including Bernie Grant MP, Richard Adams, the father of murdered schoolboy Rolan Adams, and Holocaust survivors Esther Brunstein and Leon Greenman. When the march reached the crossroads where the march was to be diverted Leon asked that it be allowed to pass. The police refused, and a two minutes silence was observed for the victims of racist murders.

‘A police riot’

In the meantime lines of police blocked all routes, creating a Hillsborough style crush. Small scuffles were breaking out, and Julie Waterson, the chief steward, appealed for calm. Instead she was batoned from behind by a truncheon, and police horses rode into the crowd, followed by police in riot gear. A wall collapsed under pressure and people were left frightened and angry.

Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, claimed, ‘They must have known exactly what would happen today, and they provided an opportunity for it to happen. Again in London we have seen a cowardly mob of extremists turning up ... to cause disorder, violence and damage.’ In fact the police broke their own rules by charging the crowd, and over 60 demonstrators had hospital treatment for head wounds. Steve Platt of the New Statesman and Society, whose thumb was broken by a police riot shield, declared, ‘If the police had wanted to stage a riot in South London last Saturday they couldn’t have planned it better.’ Following a massive operation which employed two police officers for two years, over 25 people were acquitted of violence or riot. However, 14 men were imprisoned, some for up to three years. The effort put into this contrasted sharply with the police’s total failure to film the most obvious suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder case. The Anti Nazi League is proud of the support it mobilised for the demonstration.

Holocaust survivor Leon Greenman at the 60,000 strong UNITY march October 1993, appealing to the police to allow protesters to march past the BNP HQ

‘ ... when the fighting broke out and the mounted police began charging, up and down, it looked as if we were being deliberately penned in, and thousands of peaceful demonstrators were left with no choice but to try and resist the baton wielding riot police that were attacking them.’
Singer BILLY BRAGG, in letter to the Guardian, 23 October 1993

After Beackon’s victory in the by-election in Millwall in September 1993 it was clear that the BNP and other Nazi organisations would use that victory as a springboard to seek wider electoral success in the local and European elections in May and June 1994. Between them the BNP, the NF and the Third Way, a small neo-Nazi grouping, put up 68 candidates, 22 in London and 46 in the rest of the country, mainly in the Midlands and the North. There were eight candidates in Tower Hamlets, including Derek Beackon who was defending his seat in Millwall.

The Anti Nazi League launched a major Don’t Vote Nazi campaign. An £80,000 appeal raised money for leaflets, stickers and posters, and everywhere the Nazis stood, local Anti Nazi League groups organised leafleting, canvassing and flyposting on a daily basis, with stickers and posters everywhere, mobilising huge numbers of people. 200 people were campaigning on the Isle of Dogs alone the Sunday before the local council elections.

Election day

Following the intimidation that had taken place the previous September the civil rights group Liberty had observers at polling stations on the Isle of Dogs. The Anti Nazi League and local churches and community groups organised observers and transport, and the result was an atmosphere which allowed people to vote free from intimidation. Everywhere anti-racists were out in force. The results were a triumph for the Anti Nazi League and everyone in communities who turned out to vote against the Nazis. Beackon lost his seat decisively, and the Labour candidate had a majority of over 1,500.

A warning to us all

Although Beackon lost his seat, he actually increased the number of votes he received. Elsewhere in Tower Hamlets and East London, Nazi candidates averaged 25 percent of the vote, and in the Midlands several candidates received 8-10 percent of the vote. In these circumstances candidates in further elections were inevitable, and the dangers of racist attacks and violence were still there. Since 1994 BNP and NF candidates have stood in local council elections all round the country, as well in the 1997 general election, where they gained 16,000 votes across East and South East London. Most recently they stood candidates in the May 1998, though their results declined. Despite their poor showing, the conditions that allowed them to triumph in Millwall in 1993 have not gone away, as one of their leading and most violent figures Tony Lecomber explained:

‘The BNP will almost certainly make its next breakthrough, as it did at Millwall, in a run down working class area. The people who have been abandoned by Labour and have never been represented by the Tories will, in their desperation, turn to us. This is unlikely to happen next May [1998], since people will still be giving Tory Blair’s Labour Party the chance to show what they can do. After that, though, disappointment will set in. More specifically, the BNP will probably win its next council by-election in London’s East End, South East London or in one of the North’s former cotton towns.’

He added, ‘Going on the doorstep, canvassing and presenting a better image to people, talking to them about their problems and advancing popular solutions is real politics and it is better politics.’

It is important that we continue to campaign whenever the Nazis stand in elections.

No Platform for Nazis

Racists and Nazis use the guise of democracy in order to deny people their most basic democratic rights. In Nazi Germany books were burned, meetings smashed up and democracy crushed as the Nazis banned any organisation they considered a threat. They were then free to impose their rule and carry out vicious oppression of the Jews and other opponents, a process which culminated in the Holocaust.

To allow modern Nazis a platform is to allow them to crush the rights of Jews, lesbians and gays, blacks and Asians, women, disabled people, trade unionists, socialists and many others.

At Edinburgh University in 1997 students refused to be taught by the psychology lecturer Christopher Brand who boasted,: ‘I am perfectly proud to be a racist in the scientific sense.’ A mass campaign, including a rally with anti-racist scientist Steven Rose, got him sacked (a copy of Rose’s speech is available from the ANL).

Every time a racist speaks it gives confidence to the thugs who attack and murder blacks and Asians. This is why we say ‘No Platform for Nazis’. It is why we oppose the BBC and other TV stations showing BNP election broadcasts. It is not harmless or a defence of free speech to let a Nazi speak out. It is disastrous.

Quddus Ali (centre), the victim of a vicious racist attack in the East End during Beackon’s election campaign, joins a family being intimidated by the NF candidate in 1998’s election

Leafleting in East London against the Nazis