No platform for fascists!
Defend UAF leaders against state repression!
The following leaflet was distributed at a demonstration in London on 6 November 2010, organised by Unite Against Fascism.
Martin Smith, a leading figure in both Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and the Socialist Workers Party, has been found guilty of assaulting a cop outside the BBC in October last year when Nick Griffin of the fascist British National Party (BNP) appeared on Question Time. Fellow UAF leaders Weyman Bennett and Rhetta Moran are facing charges following the Bolton protests against the English Defence League (EDL) last March. Other UAF organisers are currently being investigated along with hundreds of anti-fascist activists who have been arrested over the past year. The entire workers’ movement must defend all these victims of state repression.
Drop all charges against anti-fascist protesters! Free Martin Smith now!
The growth of state repression parallels the increasing presence of the EDL. Disappointed by the election results for the BNP in May and fuelled by the economic meltdown, fascist thugs are a growing danger on the streets, staging provocations in cities all over the country, often targeting mosques or areas with a high concentration of racial minorities.
Fascism is a tool of the bourgeoisie in time of crisis to crush the workers’ movement. Although the bosses are not currently feeling any need to resort to this weapon, the growth of the BNP and EDL poses an ever more dangerous threat. They must be crushed by the multi-racial workers movement, and the sooner the better.
State repression against anti-fascists illustrates the self-defeating character of ‘demands’ on the capitalist government to ban EDL marches or prevent television appearances by BNP leaders. State regulation of political activity has always been applied much more vigorously against left-wingers than the right. The deadly fascist threat cannot be defeated by carnivals or musical festivals, nor by pacifist mobilisations where organisers lead anti-fascists into police kettles while the EDL is left to roam at will. As Leon Trotsky observed in 1934: ‘Nothing increases the insolence of the fascists so much as “flabby pacifism” on the part of the workers organisations’.
Fascism is the mortal enemy of the left, the organised workers’ movement and all the oppressed – the fascists must be driven off the streets and not allowed to march, speak in public or distribute propaganda. Meetings, demonstrations and television appearances of the BNP and EDL need to be vigorously ‘no platformed’ through massive united-front mobilisations centred on the trade unions and including organisations representing all the potential victims of fascist terror.
Defend UAF leaders against state repression!
The following leaflet was distributed at a demonstration in London on 6 November 2010, organised by Unite Against Fascism.
Martin Smith, a leading figure in both Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and the Socialist Workers Party, has been found guilty of assaulting a cop outside the BBC in October last year when Nick Griffin of the fascist British National Party (BNP) appeared on Question Time. Fellow UAF leaders Weyman Bennett and Rhetta Moran are facing charges following the Bolton protests against the English Defence League (EDL) last March. Other UAF organisers are currently being investigated along with hundreds of anti-fascist activists who have been arrested over the past year. The entire workers’ movement must defend all these victims of state repression.
Drop all charges against anti-fascist protesters! Free Martin Smith now!
The growth of state repression parallels the increasing presence of the EDL. Disappointed by the election results for the BNP in May and fuelled by the economic meltdown, fascist thugs are a growing danger on the streets, staging provocations in cities all over the country, often targeting mosques or areas with a high concentration of racial minorities.
Fascism is a tool of the bourgeoisie in time of crisis to crush the workers’ movement. Although the bosses are not currently feeling any need to resort to this weapon, the growth of the BNP and EDL poses an ever more dangerous threat. They must be crushed by the multi-racial workers movement, and the sooner the better.
State repression against anti-fascists illustrates the self-defeating character of ‘demands’ on the capitalist government to ban EDL marches or prevent television appearances by BNP leaders. State regulation of political activity has always been applied much more vigorously against left-wingers than the right. The deadly fascist threat cannot be defeated by carnivals or musical festivals, nor by pacifist mobilisations where organisers lead anti-fascists into police kettles while the EDL is left to roam at will. As Leon Trotsky observed in 1934: ‘Nothing increases the insolence of the fascists so much as “flabby pacifism” on the part of the workers organisations’.
Fascism is the mortal enemy of the left, the organised workers’ movement and all the oppressed – the fascists must be driven off the streets and not allowed to march, speak in public or distribute propaganda. Meetings, demonstrations and television appearances of the BNP and EDL need to be vigorously ‘no platformed’ through massive united-front mobilisations centred on the trade unions and including organisations representing all the potential victims of fascist terror.
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