Ban on Vic
Socialist Press1980 1980-08-13Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 12 →
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Far from being an effective response to the fascist menace, the 3 month ban on demonstrations in Sandwell imposed byw. Midlands Chief: Constable Sir Philip Knight represents a blow against the workers' movement.
Under the pretext of banning the National Front march scheduled for West Bromwich next Sunday, Knight has in fact acted to defuse the mobilisation of anti-fascists against the NF, and at the same time to ban important demonstrations planned by the local labour movement.
The NF march-to be held Iranian students in Britain ended their hunger strike as some of them were being transferred to prison hospitals.
In the United States, the students vere released from jail as an embarrassed government struggled to avoid charges of holding their own hostages. under the jingoistic slogan of "British jobs for British workers" was obviously blatant provocation-with route chosen to pass through areas of high unemployment and high concentrations of immigrant workers.
Public Order Act
But it was not this which prompted Knight to call on Sandwell's Labour Council to invoke the Public Order Act of 1936 and impose a three-month ban on demonstrations.
Rather Knight recognised that the scale of the opposition to the NF march made it doubtful if he could protect the fascists from angry workers and youth.
As a result of the ban, the NF will be free to march unannounced elsewhere in the West Midlands, and the chances of an effective counter mobilisation have been drastically reduced.
Yet many Labour Party members, together with IwA leader Arder Jehaul and the Anti Nazi League spokesman, SWP member Paul Holborrow, declared the ban to be an important "victory" , and stated as much to a meeting of 90 people in Smethwick last week.
The Communist Party has also described the ban as a "victory" for the anti-fascists.
What they find harder to celebrate is the fact that the ban now prevents a march planned by workers from Birmid Qualcast protesting against the closure of the DAC No. 2 foundry.
And another casualty of Knight's ban is a demonstration through Tipton on unemployment planned by West Bromwich Labour Party.
Obviously the local labour movement should defy the ban and insist upon the right to demonstrate.
It must be understood that the NF thugs and their fascist agitation will be defeated not by state bans and the actions of suppposedly "democratic" police chiefs, but by the full-scale mobilisation of the labour movement to drive them from the streets.