Ginny Bayliss, Swansea Socialist Party
On 13 August, members of Cardiff and Swansea Socialist Party branches united with other left-wing groups from across the area to counterprotest demonstrators, including the far right, outside a drag queen story hour for children and parents at Cardiff Central Library.
Despite calling the protest, alt-right group Patriotic Front did not show, which left a handful of poorly organised, local agitators to be dwarfed four or five to one by counter-protesters.
Though the protesters screamed homophobic and transphobic abuse through megaphones, the significantly larger numbers of counter-protesters allowed it to be drowned out, and the morale and numbers of anti-drag protesters fell yet further.
South Wales Police, true to form, coddled the protesters while threatening counter-protesters with arrest. Ultimately, though, the event was able to go ahead without incident.
Although this was an emphatic win for the counter-protests, the fact that these events are necessary shows that the far right continues to try to use queerphobia as a rallying point.
Sections of the increasingly unpopular and divided Tory government will also use anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. But Starmer’s Labour does not have a programme to significantly improve LGBTQ+ rights.
True queer liberation demands the creation of a new workers’ party that fights for the rights and well-being of the whole working class and for socialism, rather than manufacturing culture wars to distract from our ever-growing list of capitalist crises.
