ON Monday evening, there was a well attended meeting called by Harlow Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) about how to mobilise support against the threats of racism and fascism.

This came two days after anti racists remembered the Battle of Cable Street in which Jews, Communists and Socialists stood together against Oswald Moseley’s fascists on 4 October 1936.

A speaker from Care4Calais spoke about the way in which politicians’s rhetoric has encouraged people to point the finger of blame at migrants for their problems rather than at the years of austerity imposed by those politicians on ordinary people.

She described how those seeking asylum, arriving terrified and wet on the Kent beaches were met with hostility and abuse from the far right. She made the point that slogans like “Stop the boats” and “Smash the gangs” only stir this hatred and that there would be no gangs or small boats if safe routes were provided for those fleeing war, oppression and persecution. There were also speeches from the Labour and Green Parties and a trans speaker who raised the issue of the way in which the far right were using LGBTQ+ rights to sow division.

Samira Ali, national organiser for SUTR both introduced and ended the meeting with a call to action, in particular, to be on the streets of London on 26 October to march against the call by Steven Yaxley Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson) to ‘take over the streets’.

The lone racist who gave a Nazi salute when Harlow anti racists gathered in solidarity and in numbers at the Obelisk in the town centre following the far right riots which including attempts to set fire to hotels housing migrants, was exactly that; an unpleasant individual who was led away by police. We need to stand up and be counted. We are many, they are few.

Join us on 26 October. For details of transport see below

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/national-demonstration-stop-tommy-robinson-stop-the-far-right-tickets-1021563232127