“Tommy Robinson put over 5000 racists on the streets of London and is hoping to build a bigger rally on the 27th July. If he is able to do this unopposed, it will give confidence to every racist and fascist across the UK to think they can do the same in their town or city.”
By Ameen Hadi
Tommy Robinson, the infamous Nazi, says he wants to “take back London” with a mass rally in Trafalgar Square. He is a fascist who hates trade unions, muslims, LGBT+, refugees and migrants and thinks that on the back of the hostile environment, with the growth of the far right across the world, he can create a street movement in the UK. We must, with the support of the trade union movement, unite to stop him!
On the 1st of June, Tommy Robinson put over 5000 racists on the streets of London and is hoping to build a bigger rally on the 27th July. If he is able to do this unopposed, it will give confidence to every racist and fascist across the UK to think they can do the same in their town or city. As a child in the 70s I remember the levels of violence and intimidation Black and Asian communities suffered and know that we cannot let this happen again.
With the growth of fascist parties across Europe, Milei in Argentina and the potential re-election of Donald Trump we see the return to the politics of the gutter that rose in the 1930s. Although Le Pen’s fascist RA party was temporarily stopped in France, their MPs grew from 88 to 143. In the UK, we see the racist Reform Party now has five MPs in Parliament, accumulating over 4 million votes. Farage is aligned with Trump in the US and he hopes to make open racism respectable in the UK.
We can not let these forces feed off each other and grow, as they have, across Europe. We must again show that those who unite against racism and bigotry are far bigger than the those who peddle hate.
Mass mobilisation to confront the fascists is a proud part of our history from Cable street in 1936 to Lewisham in 1977. It was a mass campaign that defeated the BNP and it was the constant challenging of Tommy Robinson’s EDL in every town they went to that led to their demise.
In the European elections in 2019 we humiliated “Tommy 2%” who ended up in tears. This was done by a mass campaign of the socialist and trade union movement labelling him a “Nazi”, delivering thousands of leaflets and hounding or should I say milkshaked him where he tried to have public meetings.
We must never allow fascists to have a public platform without opposing them. By doing so we deny them the respectability they crave to grow.
Fascists, like Tommy Robinson, hate trade unions because we uphold the interests of working people. We know it is only through us uniting ALL OUR MEMBERS we can fight against ongoing cuts to our pay and conditions. That is why we need to have a sea of trades union banners and support others who wish to attend, if we want to stop Robinson’s project on 27th of July.
- Ameen Hadi is the Equalities Officer of Salford City Unison, the Secretary of the North West Unison Black Members Committee and Chair of the North West TUC Black Workers Committee.
- The Unite Against Fascist Tommy Robinson demonstration takes place on Saturday, July 27th from 12PM, assembling in Russell Square, London, WC1B 5EH.
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