This weekend sees a Carnival in Hackney’s Victoria Park in aid of the Move Music Hate Racism campaign which aims to be a neo-Rock Against Racism. Details of Sunday’s fun and games is here. Latest Comment is Free piece by me on the legacy of the original 30 years ago this weekend is here. Organisers want a big turnout but it’s the turnout (of non BNP voters) on May 1st that really needs to be a biggie to stop us finding out this time next week that a BNP assembly member (possiby more) has been elected to City Hall.
See you in the moshpit?
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April 25, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Malcolm Clark
Rupa, you make a good point in your Guardian article (and in your posting here) that it is turnout on 1 May that is the most important thing we can do to fight the BNP. We need to make sure not only that people turn up to their polling stations and vote, but that they vote on the 3rd ballot paper - the one for electing London Assembly city-wide members. That is the one which will determine whether the BNP gain any seats or not. I set up the Londoners’ Votes Count initiative http://www.londonersvotescount.org.uk partly to spread the word about how to vote, and how people can make best use of their vote (to tackle extremism). Plenty on the site about the threat from the Far Right. We’ll be in Victoria Park on Sunday handing out leaflets with this info on too. Malcolm.
April 27, 2008 at 8:28 pm
ac256
A great, nuanced piece on CIF.
I want to go to something LIKE today’s carnival, but gave the Victoria Park event a miss because it is dominated by left wing politics which I don’t share and really only addresses one form of racism when there are more than one that need urgent address.
I think it shows your true commitment to anti fascism that you point out the Tories are as good as any other vote for beating the BNP. I know too many left wingers who are still pedalling the myth that anyone right of spectrum must somehow be a racist/BNP sympathiser when this is simply not true.
The BNP are an extremist party in the same way that the Jamaati elements of (what’s left of) Respect are extremist.
The real scandal of this Thursday will be if the BNP get a seat because reasonable discussions around race and immigration have been abandoned by mainstream parties for fear of being branded… racist.