On 14 February, Newcastle comrades and supporters attended a rally called by the Together Alliance, the latest manifestation of opportunist forces involving Stand Up To Racism, Socialist Workers Party, Show Racism the Red Card, and various trade unions. Around 200-250 people attended, and the political level of the event was appallingly low, with speaker after speaker offering nothing but empty platitudes against racism about love, hope, and unity.
Despite almost 60,000 deportations by the current Labour government, despite the crushing of peaceful protest by migrants in detention centres on 14 January by riot police with tear gas and dogs, despite increasing repression of refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants, not one word was uttered about state racism. By refusing to speak out on state racism, Together Alliance is exposed as an effort to launder the Labour party’s increasingly toxic image. Instead, it was pleaded that migrants are needed to prop up key systems like the NHS, suggesting that this layer of highly exploited migrant workers matter only insofar as they allow the better-off sections of the working class to maintain their high standard of living.
Like at the London Together Alliance rally, we were expecting a Labour representative to speak on the platform, but none showed their face. We heckled and challenged the platform in between speakers on the silence regarding state racism under the Labour government. They couldn’t scrape together a response. The only figures that were called out by the Together Alliance platform were Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Tommy Robinson. These rallies strip away completely the class character of anti-racism, reducing it to an issue that can simply be wished away if we’re all nice enough. Refusing to analyse the root cause of racism in Britain, which is imperialism, ensures that no serious challenge is ever posed to the British state, which is the main driver of racism in Britain, not Trump, Farage or Robinson. While the platform spoke in support of those fighting against violence from ICE in the US, no parallels were drawn whatsoever to the similar conditions of violence and repression faced by migrants here in Britain by the Border Force and Immigration Enforcement.
The vast majority of the crowd that we spoke to agreed that the political level was on the floor, and that it was shocking that the Labour party had been allowed to speak on the platform at the London event. People are fed up with the ineffectual, liberal mainstream anti-racist movement, a more radical one must take its place. We must look to those in Minneapolis as a shining example, who are banding together to protect their neighbours and communities from the depraved, racist state violence. Every migrant has the right, here to stay, here to fight!
