Around 250 trade union activists and local residents attended the
Peterborough Trade Union Council organised ‘March and Rally for Unity’
on Saturday 11th December, organised in response to the English Defence
League march in Peterborough.
Around 250 trade union activists and local residents attended the Peterborough Trade Union Council organised ‘March and Rally for Unity’ on Saturday 11th December, organised in response to the English Defence League march in Peterborough.
The ‘March and Rally for Unity’ saw delegates from PCS, UNISON, Unite, NUT, CWU, GMB, Cambridge and District Trades Council, and Huntingdon and St. Neots Trades Council partcipate in a community event to show that Peterborough is a united city despite attempts by the racists from the EDL to sow division and spread their message of hate.
There was a heavy police presence with officers drafted in from around the country, including the Met, who were fresh from their recent operation in London on the 9th November, where clashes with students have led to accusations of police brutality.
Counter to their claims that they would have 4,500 in support of their divisive rally, the EDL could barely muster a paltry 350 to their march, with 500 attending the rally. There they were able to hear hate filled speeches, including those attacking students and an offer to protect the police at any future student demonstrations.
The council and community faith leaders had tried their hardest to keep people away from the counter demonstration, telling people that the best way to beat the EDL was to stay indoors and ignore them. They had instead organised a ‘candleit vigil’ on Sunday 12th December, the day after the EDL protest. As Ron Graves, President of PTUC pointed out in an address to the rally, candlelit vigils would not have stopped Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet and any of the other facsists that came to power. Graves went on to say that the unprecedented cuts to services and attacks on jobs, pay, pensions create the conditions where the poisonous ideas of the EDL gain their oxygen. This crisis is a crisis of capitalism and it is ordinary, working class people that are paying the price as they have done time and time again.
Labour MEP for the Eastern Region Richard Howett explained to the rally that he sits in the European Parliament where unfortunately there sit far-right MEPs including those from Jobbik, who following their election, arrived in the chambers dressed in fascist military uniform. He attributed the rise of the EDL to the fact that the labour movement have mobilised in defeating the BNP electorally, notably in Barking and Dagenham where they lost all of their sitting councillors to Labour.
Speaking of the threats that had reportedly been made by the EDL to those speaking at the PTUC rally, Adrian Clarke, Regional Secretary of the FBU said that his members risk their lives on a daily basis serving the public and if the EDL thought that they would frighten him then they could think again, saying that he refused to be intimidated.
The rally was joined by around 100 Asian youth who entered the car park where the PTUC demonstration was being held to cheers and applause. It transpired that many had been up until 4am discussing how they could best support the demonstration against the EDL. They had spent most of the day trying to join up with the PTUC march and rally, however, they had been prevented from doing so by the police who had kettled them at various points in the city.
Any myths that the EDL had come to hold a peaceful rally were dispelled when a group of around 40 of them broke away from the dregs that were leaving under police escort and attacked the PTUC rally. It is believed to be the first time that the EDL have attacked a trade union organised event and underlines the fact that they are anti-working class and offer nothing to ordinary people other than racism and hatred. A number of supporters from the PTUC demo, including the local Asian youth, confronted the EDL and they were soon sent packing, a few of them with bloody noses and bruises. The police intervened and turned the horses to face the anti-racists, rather than the EDL, before kettling the PTUC rally in the car park, apparently for our own protection!
The next planned action by the EDL is a demonstration in Luton on February 5th where their supporters have reportedly threatened to ‘burn down the mosque’. Despite their failure to muster anywhere near the support they hoped for in Peterborough, they will be met by the organised labour movement, anti-fascists, and Luton residents. The fight against the EDL is part of a wider struggle against the cuts and the capitalist system that creates them – the fight for socialism.
