Tom Baldwin, Bristol Socialist Party
Groups like Bristol Patriots have managed to capture the anger of some workers by diverting justifiable rage about falling living standards away from our billionaire exploiters, and towards scapegoating others workers, especially immigrants and Muslims.
They tried to march through the city on 7 March. This follows two separate incidents of masked far-right thugs trying to attack anti-fascist and left-wing events in recent weeks, as well as attempts to intimidate anti-war protests
Only about 40 ‘patriots’ turned up. Whereas Bristolians came out in their hundreds to block them.
Police
The overwhelming superiority of numbers from our counter-protest meant the event would have been over before it started, had the police not tried with might and main to enable the far right to march. Violent police tactics, which have been used to help the far right previously, were escalated on this occasion.
Police claim they want to facilitate peaceful protest by all groups. But socialists and trade unionists in Bristol know how selectively this is applied.
The far right threaten immigrant communities. And their politics create dangerous divides in the working class that hurts all of us, making it harder to challenge Keir Starmer’s Labour government. Collective mass united action by workers terrifies the ruling class.
Anti-racist counter protesters were on the sharp end of police violence on 7 March. We were pepper sprayed and beaten with sticks simply for peacefully standing our ground. Police vans were driven at us and we were charged with horses.
In the event, however, even these violent police tactics were only partially successful. The racist march was repeatedly blocked by anti-racist counter protesters, taking hours to walk only part of their route.
At Cabot Circus shopping centre, we formed a resolute wall, resisting violent attempts by the police to clear a path for the far right. The police were left with no choice but to turn the march around, and take them back the way they’d come.
The working class of Bristol has shown, once again, that the far right are a tiny minority. But there can be no complacency.
What next?
Organisations like Bristol Patriots cannot be allowed to mobilise without challenge from the workers’ movement. Nor are they the only ones to peddle divisive politics. Reform top the polls, while Labour and other capitalist parties echo their anti-immigrant division.
The workers’ movement can’t just fight the symptoms. We must fight the cause of austerity and falling living standards, and offer a socialist alternative that turns people’s anger against the real cause of our problems – the billionaires and their capitalist system.
