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CAMPAIGNS: ANTI-FASCISM AND ANTI-RACISM
Protest against the BNP's 'Red, white and blue' festival, Codnor, Derbyshire. Saturday 15 August
Barnet trades council is supporting the protest against the BNP's 'family festival' held at a farm in Derbyshire.
We have booked a coach for transport. Pick-up points will be Finchley Central and Edgware tube stations. Price of travel (subsidised) is £8 per person. For more details or to book places on the coach please email: info@barnettuc.org.uk
The protest has been organised by anti-fascist campaigns local to Codnor, and is supported by Midlands TUC and Unite Against Fascism.
Download the poster.
Opposing the BNP's so-called family festival, 16 August 2008
On 16 August, members of Barnet TUC travelled on a coach organised by the RMT union to the protest against the BNP's 'Red, white and blue festival'. This was the second year that the BNP had held this event on farmland in Denby, Derbyshire owned by one of their members.
In all, there were about 500 marchers - we rallied in the village of Codnor before marching up the hill to Denby where a police line barred the road to the farm. We heard more speeches and a small contingent went down to the farm with a police escort. We will post pictures of the protest on the site soon.
We then marched back down to Codnor for some more speeches and music organised by Unite Against Fascism who supported the protest.
This protest should be bigger next year. We succeeded this year in organising a disciplined protest which will help the local campaigners from Notts Stop the BNP and Amber Valley Stop the BNP, many of them active trade unionists, to build the opposition in the area to the festival, but in order to persuade the BNP that their festival should move elsewhere - ideally nowhere! - we need to put this protest in the diary of all anti-fascists now.
Among the marchers were families and elderly people - none of us went there with the intention of fighting the fascists - although, to judge by the behaviour of the few fascists that came to look at us and jeer, the BNP would have liked nothing better. We went there to oppose the violent, racist, anti-working class, and undemocratic policies and actions of the fascists in the name of a peaceful, democratic alternative. Trade unions need to be at the forefront of the fight against the BNP and other fascist and racist organisations. |
