Eric Segal, Kent and East Sussex Socialist Party
Workers on the ferries, docks, railways, immigration services and border force in the Port of Dover carry out serious and crucial work. Their actual work can be dangerous and they have the right to work in a safe environment. The hate fuelled firebombing attack on a Dover immigration centre in 2022 remains fresh in our minds.
So it was a shock when hundreds of far-right protesters dressed in black and wearing black balaclavas and scarves marched through Dover on Saturday 5 September, blocking the roads leading to the Port of Dover, disrupting travel from Canterbury and Folkestone, demanding an end to immigration by small boats. A video of the event was shared online by far-right agitator Tommy Robinson threatening: “It’s time! Protect our country!.. This is our warning!”
The police locally said that they had been unaware of the action which they classed as ‘spontaneous’. Mike Tapp, the right-wing Labour local MP and a former immigration minister who is from a military intelligence background, said “…in this instance it would appear that the police didn’t know about it”. Contrary to his comments, it appears there was information that a mobilisation of the far right was going to take place in Dover and that this information was shared with the police.
Compare the treatment of the far-right mob by police and authorities with their treatment of peaceful protesters expressing support for Palestine Action, or the use of force and violence to break up climate protests by groups such as Just Stop Oil, for example.
Workers in South East Kent have the capability to defend ourselves from the far right, as we showed in October 1992 when a threatened rally by the Nazi-sympathising group ‘Blood and Honour’ in Folkestone was blocked by a well-organised campaign and demonstration of an estimated 300 trade unionists and people from the local community. That working-class campaign led by trade unions, including the rail unions, drove the fascists out of Folkestone for a significant period.
The trade union and workers’ movement must organise to ensure that our members and communities are protected and defended. Workers in South East Kent have a proud history of fighting the far right, that needs to be built upon and linked with a struggle to defend working-class living standards.
