Leicester: the Anl's Cover up

Scan page 4

April 30, 1979 Dear Editor, The Socialist Press report on the ANL demonstration in Leicester was indeed 'special'-a special effort in calumny and fabrication against a national anti-fascist organisation, which is unlikely to do your organisation or your paper much good.

1) The Anti Nazi League did not organise the pacifist and diversionary march away from the National Front, as claimed in para. 10 of your report. In fact, as reported in a rather garbled way in para. 13 of the same article, that march was organised by the "All Leicester Campaign against Racialism" supported by the Leicester branch of the Indian Workers Association. (However other IWA branches followed the lead of the ANL and joined in opposing the NF in the centre of the town with the main body of anti-fascists).

2) 48 hours beforehand, the ANL organised to bring as many of its members and supporters as possible to a central venuethe bus station-instead of the advertised venue of Victoria Park, thus effectively countering the police plans to cordon our demonstrators off from the city It was thanks to this coordinated ANL manoeuvre that the Oxford WSL contingent, travelling on an ANL coach, were able to arrive at the centre of Leicester at the start of the day alongside the Hain Oxford ANL contingent, to meet ANL stewards who directed the anti-fascists thus assembled towards the National Front's assembly point and projected route, a route which our demonstration forced them to abandon.

3) By late morning . this ANL leadership and organisation had succeeded in bringing large numbers of antifascists into the centre of Leicester as intended.

However it was also necessary to bring people from Victoria Park to the city centre, since the change of venue could not possibly have been conveyed to all our supporters in advance. This task was also carried out successfully.

An ANL platform was set up in Victoria Park, and ANL secretary Paul Holborow and other speakers effectively called on people at the Park to go down into the centre of the city to oppose the National Front march, rather than marching off ineffectively away from the Front with the "All Leicester Campaign".

Out of some 1,500 people at the Park, roughly two-thirds were led through and round police cordons to join up with the main body of the demonstration in the city centre. Socialist Press reporters were seen at the Park where these facts were plain for all to see, so why were they not reported correctly?

The fact is that your report was muddied by sectarian malice. That is why you say both that the diversionary march was organised by the ANL and that it was organised by the "unity" forces.

That is why you say both that the ANL called its supporters to Victoria Park, and that 'only about 400 ANL supporters were caught behind the police cordon-the rest had travelled directly to the city And that is why you have to lie that the ANL did not call on its supporters to challenge the National Front's attempt to march through the centre of Leicester, when that is precisely what the Anti Nazi League did, and did successfully.

Rip Bulkeley We admit that our (edited) article in SP 147 left room for misinterpretation. But it is interesting to note the way in which ANL supporters, and in particular members of the Socialist Workers Party, have eagerly seized on this in order to cover up the real position of the ANL.

Firstly we should state clearly that it was the case that the ANL organised in advance to divert contingents from the pre-arranged Victoria Park venue to the city centre in order to confront the fascists.

It was never our intention to deny this.

But the question to be asked is why the ANL in Leicester departed so far from the official pacifist line of the movement nationally, which is not to confront the fascists on the streets but to campaign against them through propaganda and protest stunts.

The answer, spelled out in our feature article on the background to the Leicester events in SP 148 is that national Anti Nazi League spokesman Paul Holborow was voted down 2623 at a meeting of the Leicester Trades Council coordinating committee when he proposed a diversionary march to take place on the other side of Leicester from the NF.

Defeated and in danger of standing completely exposed in Leicester, the ANL on this one occasion opportunistically, but correctly switched its line to one of 'no platform' for the NF fascists-and sent is supporters into the city centre.

The fact remains that this is not a consistent or official policy of the ANL, which not only in general avoids such clashes with the NF but resolutely opposes calls to use its considerable numerical strength to campaign for the building of workers' defence squads in key areas to defend the immigrant communities and the workers' movement against fascist violence.

Indeed only two days later after Asian youth had fought on the streets of Southall to keep the NF out of their town, Peter Hain, leading ANL spokesman made it clear on TV that he was opposed to the use of violence and supported peaceful protest against the NF.

----- pull-quotes -----

PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Wind Dary