Millie Collins
THE FASCIST Tommy Robinson, former leader of the English Defence League, has called a demonstration in London on 27 July, under the slogan ‘take our country back’. It has been organised for the same day as the Trans Pride demonstration, announced six months earlier. Trans people have become the favourite new target of fascists and far right culture warriors, like Suella Braverman and Nigel Farage.
While their bigoted hatred of Trans people is beyond doubt, the Gaza genocide which has provoked an increased visibility of Muslim demonstrators, and the so-called ‘small boats crisis’ have seen the far right turn their attention to immigrants.
An earlier demonstration on 1 June saw thousands of far right protestors descend on Whitehall after Suella Braverman issued an appeal for people to ‘defend our monuments’. Disorder erupted as the right-wing nationalists fought with police around the Cenotaph.
The Gaza protest wave and direct action by groups such as Palestine Action have led to him calling, along with the right wing media, for tougher police violence against pro-Palestinian protestors.
Robinson held an organising meeting on 10 July with several other arch-reactionaries attending including Katy Hopkins and Laurence Fox. He claims this is the start of a new movement ‘for British people by British people’.
While it’s unclear what they’re planning, posters proclaiming ‘sovereignty of the people’ were displayed around the room including the conspiracy theories, racist tropes, and climate denialist themes of the modern far right.
The demonstration is being organised by ‘Urban Scoop’, a media company set up to spew Robinson’s toxic bile. He has released several documentaries, which have had more than 40,000 views, on such topics as the ‘totalitarian police state’ we live in and ‘Muslim grooming gangs’, a common racist trope. Robinson has recently completed a media tour of America and Canada, including an interview with Jordan Peterson.
For several years Robinson and other British fascists have exploited the survivors of sexual assault to incite violence against Muslims. Robinson and his ilk completely ignore that vast majority of perpetrators of sexual violence and the systemic nature of women’s oppression. Helped by a media panic whipped up by the racist press, the fascists try to tar all Muslims as sexual predators.
Farage in the wings In the light of the election results, with Reform UK getting 14.4% of the vote and five seats in Parliament, the threat of a new fascist street movement has emerged. Farage claimed he would be an ‘opposition on the streets’. Robinson has even called him out directly, challenging him to appear at the 27 July demo.
Fascism feeds off the discontent of lower middle classes and nationalist workers. It grows stronger in times of capitalist crisis and degeneration such as the present. There is a clear attempt to draw a big crowd of racists on July 27, with coaches booked from cities and towns around the country, and therefore the real threat of big fascist mobilisation against the trans community.
It is essential for all class conscious workers to mobilise in force and defend our trans, Muslim and migrant brothers and sisters. But we must sound a note of caution. Previous anti-fascist demonstrations called by Stand Up to Racism, the main labour movement-backed antiracist campaign, have been pitifully small. It is vital that we mobilise within our trade unions, Labour Party branches, workplaces and communities for the biggest possible mobilisation. On the day antifascists need to organise disciplined stewarding to protect our demonstration from police and fascist violence.
Against the rise of the far right, the best alternative is to rebuild a powerful working class movement, which can demonstrate that the real way to deliver change is by fighting for an end to the capitalist system and the racism, war and poverty it generates. Such a movement must take up at the earliest possible opportunity the need to organise self-defence for the labour movement and Black and migrant communities against any rise in fascist violence.
