A far-right rogues gallery came to Newcastle on Saturday 27 September. A pitiful band of racists congregated behind police lines. And yes, racists is the correct term. Or fascists.
Nick Tenconi led the UKIP march calling for mass deportations and spreading conspiracy theories. They teamed up with Advance UK, which sounds like an enterprise zone, but is a proto-fascist party. This was, in their own words, a “national mobilisation”. They’d been promoting it for three months.
But the Geordies weren’t having it. A coalition of anti-racists groups, community and religious organisations, trade unions, and political organisations like Majority and the Green Party mobilised. Northern Stage Theatre and the Magic Hat Café posted that they would be safe havens for the day for any anti-racist protesters who felt unsafe.
Far-right racists in Newcastle: Geordies come out against fascism
Just 150 fascists met on Newcastle’s Quayside. Less than a mile away a rally of 2,500 anti-racists occupied the Monument, the symbolic centre of Newcastle. We sang. We chanted. Some of us were even invited to make speeches. A firefighter spoke of last year’s riots in Middlesbrough, where a car was driven into an migrant family’s front window and set on fire. He had to make a judgement call on whether to endanger his crew as racists threw missiles. He’s glad he did.
The home-made signs and flags waved. The crowd was diverse. Given my history in Newcastle politics, it’s not surprising I knew hundreds in the crowd. The comperes, both Geordies with strong Geordie accents, of Bangladeshi descent. Czech, Croatian, Italian, Spanish and Scandinavian migrants. Jewish friends, one wearing a watermelon Kippah as a sign of Palestinian solidarity. Vicars and Imams. Even Sunderland supporters.
Half a mile away, between the two assemblies, stood another 400 anti-racists, on ‘The Side’, the road between the Monument and the Quayside. They were preventing the fascists from marching through our city, blocking the route from the fascist assembly point to the Newbridge hotel, which houses asylum seekers.
Cops kettling anti-fascist protesters while escorting fascist hate marchers
Police were stopping anyone who looked “left wing” – one officer’s words – from crossing the city. One lad, sporting a pride flag as a cape, was blocked. His Mam was with him, and said to the officer, “I’ll look after him, it’ll be okay. And I think you’re doing a great job keeping us safe”. The officer smiled let them through – as they should, to protest peacefully against hate marches. It would have been funnier if he’d said, “Are you stopping me because of my sexuality?”
By the time I got there, the police had kettled these protesters, with riot vans blocking the road. It was peaceful, but tense. I spoke to a police officer who was in good humour, just as three more riot vans came tearing down the hill with blues and twos flashing. Police jumped out and marched swiftly to the crowd.
Word came that the police were escorting the fascists by a back route – easily enough, given their tiny numbers. I know these roads inside out. This is the ward I was councillor for, and will be again come May. Anti-racists marched back up the hill to intercept.
By the time I reached the square outside the hotel the police had set up two lines, twenty metres apart. The 150 racists were kettled. Around 1000 anti-racists were between them and the hotel.
Hotel is a misnomer. Hate-mongers weaponise the word ‘hotel’ to conjure images of luxury. But these are hostels, multiple occupants per room. This one is literally scheduled for demolition.
Campaign forces hotel to call off hosting Advance UK conference
The mood was buoyant. Chants rang out. “There are many, many more of us than you!” The photos don’t lie.
After an hour or so, the police marched them away, back down the hill to their conference, to chants of “Bye bye, bye bye!”
We heard months ago that Advance planned a conference in Newcastle, but not where. Good work by anti-racists, including Majority members, deduced the location as the Crowne Plaza Hotel. One of our members feigning to be an attendee bluffed the staff asking for details. With that confirmation, I knew the council owned the shares in the holding company. We launched an email campaign to get the council leader to block public property being used to promote racial hatred, copying in local journalists. The hotel management pulled the event, on health and safety grounds. The fascists were beaten by good intelligence.
Sadly, every Newcastle Labour MP, Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC), and mayor ignored all requests for help. They were all silent when Sir Keir fuelled this fire, calling immigration a “squalid chapter” in Britain’s politics, in his Enoch Powell styled “island of strangers” speech. One staged a photo-op, though.
The fascists switched venues. To a Japanese restaurant. Seriously. A party campaigning for mass deportations and the restoration of white British culture had its inaugural conference in a Japanese restaurant. There’s more. The owners, Gainford Group, also own the Newbridge Hotel where the asylum seekers are housed.
No patriots, just vile racist conspiracy theorists and violent misogynists
They claim to be inspired by Christianity. They carried wooden crosses. Perhaps they should read the parable of the Good Samaritan. A sign amongst the anti-racists at The Side, held by a priest in a dog collar, summed it up, “Jesus was a refugee”.
More of our members, student journalists, spoke to them after they left their conference. They called for “extermination of all the savages in Gaza”. In a dizzying twist they also claimed that “Jewish financiers control the British government”, echoing Nazi propaganda, and the ‘great replacement theory‘. One older woman claimed the United Nations (UN) was secretly preparing to deploy peacekeepers to “wipe out the white race”.
Let’s have no more talk of “legitimate” concerns or “defending women and children.” These people are not patriots. Patriot comes from the word compatriot – fellow countryman. Patriotism is about love and devotion. Citizens who organised to keep ticket offices open are patriots. Campaigners who defended disabled people’s rights to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are patriots. Where were the hotel-shouters then?
41% of last year’s rioters were already known to the police as wife beaters and child abusers. In fact, there’s a long list of convicted paedophiles associated with Yaxley-Lennon’s EDL and other far-right organisations.
Patriotism is about pride. Fascists have been marching through Britain, emboldened. But when the far right came to Newcastle, we stopped them. I’ve never been prouder of my city. In the words of local poet Harry Gallagher:
Ye can keep yer racist hate, well away from Gallowgate.
Ye were outnumbered and outsung, by a full ten to one.
Fer despite all yer desperate invitations to a brawl,
This toon is made of love, son, and that stuff conquers all.
Feature image via the Canary.
This post was originally published on Canary.