In recent years Glasgow has seen thousands turn out to protest racist attacks from the state and the far right alike. In 2021, Kenmure street became a symbol of resistance to immigration raids when a whole community surrounded an immigration enforcement van and prevented two Indian men from being taken away and deported. Similarly, in June this year, over a thousand turned out to outnumber and face down the far right who had rampaged through Glasgow, attacking migrants and Muslims. Yet this potential opportunity to build an anti-racist movement that confronts state racism as a central to defeating the far right, is being squandered. Glasgow Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) has continuously sought to demobilise any sign of a mass movement that would meaningfully challenge the British state.
This was clear on Saturday 12 September when SUTR called an event to oppose the Glasgow branch of the ‘Pink Ladies’, a self-proclaimed ‘anti mass immigration’ group. Upon arrival FRFI comrades could see that SUTR was working with the police to contain the protest into a pen with only one exit. SUTR ensured it set up on the other side of the park from the street racists, to maintain tight control over the protest. Refusing to run an open mic, SUTR blared out music in between their pre-selected list of speakers who gave no mention of the Labour Party and the 80,000 migrants it proudly states it has deported.
Providing an alternative to this blatant opportunism, FRFI placed our stall outside of the pen and ran a democratic open mic, calling out SUTR’s demobilising tactics. We began to give speeches, opposing the racist Labour party as well as the street racists, encouraging protestors not to kettle themselves in the boundaries that SUTR had set out for them.
In a bid to control the politics of the event, SUTR’s stewards attempted to shut down FRFI’s stall, throwing baseless accusations of ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’ against us. This desperate attempt at using identity politics to undermine FRFI should come as no surprise from a group that refuses to say Zionism is Racism and which for years allowed the Zionist Glasgow friends of Israel to join their national anti-racist marches.
Suddenly SUTR shut its own demo down, working in conjunction with the police to tell everyone to leave. Mobilising others who wanted to continue to take action, we moved to confront the street racists, continuing with an open mic and constant chanting until the racists eventually left.
The actions of SUTR on this day perfectly represent its demobilisation of the anti-racist movement. Whether it be hemming anti racists in a police pen, avoiding any mention of state racism, making speeches with no material analysis of racism or using identity politics in an attempt to shut down dissent, we must recognise that these opportunists are not interested in challenging the root of street racism – British imperialism and the racist British state.
SUTR seeks to rehabilitate the credibility of the Labour left, the SNP and the Greens, painting these pro-imperialist parties as ‘radical’. We don’t need electoralism and the empty promise of kinder, less racist capitalism. We need revolution! The anti-racist movement that is needed must be democratic and must place opposition to the imperialist British state and its racist immigration apparatus at the centre of the struggle.
