On 10 August, Northumbria Police arrested an FRFI supporter at the ‘Stop the far right – unity rally’ organised by Stand Up to Racism (SUTR) in Newcastle in response to the racist riots of the previous week. His crime? Heckling a Labour politician speaking on the SUTR platform. Rally stewards from SUTR and Socialist Workers Party (SWP) had tried to seize the FRFI megaphone to stop FRFI supporters from interrupting Labour Party speakers, and when they failed, they called on the police to help them – and they duly obliged.
The ‘unity rally’ was anything but. It was boycotted by local black and Asian youth who had mobilised in Newcastle’s West End the previous Wednesday to defend their community from the racists and chose to do the same again. The only ‘unity’ on display was that between local politicians, ‘community leaders’ and trade union officials. There was hardly a mention of the Labour government and its brutally racist stance on asylum seekers. A speech by ‘Rob’ from SUTR North-East declared that the riots were down to ‘that nasty little Nazi Tommy Robinson’, and that instead of blaming migrants, ‘we need to blame to Tories’. Labour’s adoption of the racist description of asylum seekers as ‘illegal migrants’ received no comment let alone its plans for militarising Britain’s borders against those fleeing from war and ecological destruction.
One of the official speakers was Labour Party councillor Rebecca Shatwell of Wingrove Ward, although she did not care to mention her political allegiance, and nor did the rally compere. However, the FRFI supporter knew who she was, and began to point out the racist character and record of the Labour Party. This prompted several SUTR stewards to rush over and attempt to steal the megaphone from him. In short order, Simon Hall of the SWP poured a bottle of water over the supporter and his megaphone, four stewards assaulted him and tried to drag him away from the rally, and Liam Tuckwood (also SWP), repeatedly tried to seize the FRFI megaphone. Later, Tuckwood bizarrely referred to a separate FRFI supporter as a ‘genocide denier’ to justify their actions.
Eventually the SUTR organisers and stewards exhausted their attempts at verbal and physical harassment, so the FRFI supporter continued to interrupt Shatwell. At this point, two cops with another steward joined the confrontation. In full view of the cops, five stewards each tried at various points to wrestle, grab, and switch off the megaphone. Alex Snowdon, a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) Executive Committee member, led these attempts to grab the FRFI megaphone. When the supporter eventually told Snowdon to ‘stop touching me and get out of my face’, the cops obliged Snowdon by arresting the supporter for ‘breach of the peace’, holding him until the protest finished.
Heckling is a long-established tradition in working-class democracy. It is especially vital at the tightly controlled demonstrations that the likes of SUTR and PSC hold which exclude open-mics and where criticism of the Labour Party is ruthlessly excluded. While the SWP and others like Snowdon’s Counterfire proclaim their opposition to the Labour Party, on the ground they act as Labour Party enforcers, using physical force to protect Labour politicians and justifying this by a bogus appeal for ‘unity’.
