On Saturday 8 August FRFI supporters took part in the Newcastle March for NHS Pay Justice. They joined the demonstration as part of an Equalities Bloc organised by North East Against Racism.
Also represented was the Anti-Racism Protest Defence Campaign (ARP-DC). The ARP-DC is resisting a major police assault on democratic rights following the large Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the city. FRFI supporters are centrally involved and the crucial importance of such a campaign was illustrated by events on the day – the police and opportunists combining to ensure this was a march to nowhere.
In recent weeks Northumbria Police have used the Public Order and Anti-Social Behaviour Acts to banish political events from any place visible to the public. The March for NHS Pay Justice was no exception, forced to reroute to an isolated square away from the heart of the city. On our count, this is the seventh such police proscription on left-wing assembly in Newcastle since mid-June. Incredible. Almost as incredible was the careful refusal of the ‘organisers’ to acknowledge this. More than that, they even claimed it was their decision to reroute the march away from the city centre in order to ‘maintain social distancing’. Utter rubbish.
But who were these people – the self-declared organisers – at pains to cover up for Northumbria Police? None other than Britain’s ‘Trotskyist revolutionaries’ of course: North East Against Racism (NEAR) the latest split from the Socialist Worker Party. Having wormed their way into the leadership of the event, they – through their strongman leader, professional barrister and amateur thug Yunus Bakhsh – proceeded to purge it of any socialist content. The RCG, the Socialist Party, the ARP-DC – all were summarily denied speaking rights at the final rally. Indeed, when the mic slipped into the hand of an FRFI supporter who began to speak on the vital work of the defence campaign, Mr Bakhsh called the event to a premature end, scuttling around the crowd insisting people disperse immediately. Why? By order of Northumbria Police, he claimed. What diligent police work.
Uniformed officers returned the favour, singling out the ARP-DC contingent on the day, insisting that anti-racist banners were not permitted at this event. When ARP-DC stated their intention to ignore all such police proscriptions, the officer explained that this was not a police proscription but a demand of “the organiser, Yunus Bakhsh”, and the police were simply delivering the message!
In its few weeks of existence NEAR has quickly proved it will be no different from Newcastle Unites, Stand Up To Racism, Unite Against Fascism, or any other of the opportunist fronts that went before it. It exists to contain and to smother any movement that might confront the state – and Bakhsh’s role as chief enforcer remains unchanged; he has made attacking communists his life’s work.
This is not surprising. The desperate petty bourgeois layer from which such groups emerge is wholly reliant on the state to guarantee a privileged existence. They require the thuggish antics of Bakhsh and his ilk precisely because their politics are so reactionary and therefore cannot risk any challenge. When they cannot prevent this themselves, they fall back on the police.
The RCG is working to build a movement that will really defend wages and conditions by fighting for socialism. We will continue to do so whether racist cops and their pals like it or not. Join us.
ARP-DC on social media
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ARPdefencecampaign/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/neantiracismprotestdefence/?hl=en
