600 protest at Brons

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Mir. ly called by the Anti Nazi students immediately occu- excessive emphasis on unemby Bryan Edmands and Aly ON Wednesday 17 February 600 people marched in protest against the presence of National Front chairperson Andrew Brons as politics lecturer at Harrogate College of Further Eduration in Yorkshire. The protest was the latest part of a so-far unsuccessful campaign launched nearly two years 320.

A day after protecting Snipe's bully boy scabs at Laurence Scotts in Manchester. the police were zain out in force. A heavy police presence, including mounted police, were there to protect the fifty mainly young fascists from the antifascist demonstrators.

The demonstration, jointly called by the Anti Nazi League and local student bodies, was badly organised. After a lengthy delay the march proceeded to a rally before returning to the college.

At the rally, Peter Alexander, SWP member and national organiser of the ANL, appealed to the college authorities to establish a formal inquiry into the employment of an NF member at the college (yet similar "actions" over the last two years have failed to get rid of Brons). A far more positive contribution was made by a black woman student attending Hammersmith College in London. She said that a racist lecturer there in the past hadn't lasted for more students immediately occupied his classroom and nacernam forcibly drove him out.

Peter Alexander repeatedly stressed the need for a peaceful demo. Before the march he had told a TV interviewer that he "was not interested in violence" • Yet such a passive and submissive approach could not stop the fascists from stabbing one anti-fascist making his way to the march.

Excessive

Alexander claimed that if the young fascists had jobs they wouldn't be on the streets. In this way Alexander stressed his view that the SWP's Right 1o Work Campaign was the solution However, the SWP's excessive emphasis on unemployment totally avoids, for example, the problem of the work-place racism of some employed workers, and evades the socialist task of confronting racism which exists regardless of unemployment (e.g. state racism, the police and immigration controls).

The low level of antifascist activity (recognised by i recent editorial in Searchlight) and the influence of ANL-type politics amongst the remaining antifascist activists. makes the socialist lask of arguing for a working class position painst all forms of racism and fascism all the more vital. the views of constituency parties and trade union branches about the suggestion that I should stand for the NEC.

We've got together a peter Tatchell

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