Alex Smith, Liverpool and district Socialist Party
Socialist Party members have a history of combating right wing ideas in Knowsley, including standing in elections — under the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition banner — against the governing pro-austerity Labour Party in the area.
The decades-long refusal of Knowsley Labour council to defy anti-working class central government diktats and cuts has created conditions of hopelessness and anger among many local working-class youth. For example, as the Socialist has previously reported, A-level provision no longer exists in Knowsley due to Tory cuts implemented by the local Labour Party.
The feeling among many local young people, that they have limited future prospects, has created a reservoir of anger. A small number of far-right protesters recently tapped into and exploited this reservoir by organising a demonstration against a hotel in the area housing refugees.
Following this, Socialist Party members felt it necessary that we maintain and build on the campaigning work we do in Knowsley. At our usual campaigning stall in Kirkby town centre, this week we raised slogans to cut across the anti-refugee poison spread by the far right.
We raised the need to fight against racism alongside the need for a united fight for a mass council house building programme, more social facilities, and decent jobs for all. We pointed out that there is enough wealth in society to achieve these goals and to help refugees at the same time — we just have to take the wealth from the real enemy: the capitalist class, and to do that we need a new trade union-backed mass workers’ party, armed with a socialist programme.
Lewis Rees, Liverpool and district Socialist Party
On 18 February, campaigners, trade unions and Liverpool Trades Council, joined together in solidarity to organise the ‘Merseyside anti-racists unite’ demonstration against the racism and division spread by the far right and on display at the demonstration in Kirkby on 10 February. (see ‘Far-right attack Kirkby migrant hotel – build united workers’ movement against racism’).
Over 500 people attended the demonstration compared to a small group of around ten far-right demonstrators who gathered.
The support from trade unions including the Fire Brigades Union and UCU, show the importance of the workers’ movement in the fight against racism and the conditions that allow racist ideas to gain support.
Throughout the demonstration, calls for a political alternative were raised. Jeremy Corbyn spoke at the event after earlier in the week Keir Starmer made clear he would not be standing as a Labour MP (see pages 1-3). Socialist Party members put forward a programme of jobs, homes and services for all, no to racism and to build a new mass workers’ party to fight for this.
South Yorkshire protest against far right
Simon Jenkins, Sheffield South East Socialist Party.
On 18 February, a far-right group called ‘Yorkshire Rose’ called a protest outside a Holiday Inn in Manvers, Rotherham, against the housing of asylum seekers in the hotel.
After the events in Knowsley, a campaign was organised by Sheffield Trades Council to show opposition to this protest.
Three coaches went up from nearby Sheffield. On arrival, the police had plans for us and kept us in one part of the main car park and had sectioned off another for the so-called ‘grassroots’ Yorkshire Rose so we could stare at each other across the driveway.
There were around 350 of us in opposition to racist division, compared to around 50-80 on the far right’s side.
As for the event, it was passed by exchanging ‘pleasantries’ with the far right through the fences, singing songs and chanting solidarity. There were some touching moments when asylum seekers waved to us through the window. We left after about three hours when the far right, with ever depleting numbers, gave up.
While it was good to see the low turnout of the far right, their banners used the Tory rhetoric of “small boats” and “invasion” showing the demands of the far right are reflected to some extent in the Tory government.
As the Labour Party has decided to move to the right to satisfy the bosses, and moved away from a party for the working class, there is a yawning chasm which the far right can step in to fill. This further proves the need for a mass party that will draw together the working class to rise above the divide-and-rule tactics of the establishment.
