Anti-Racism

Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sisters spoke to Martin Thomas from Solidarity about the controversy over the Government’s rejection of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) definition of “Islamophobia”.

Despite the rain and it being a weekday, roughly 100 people gathered at Leicester’s clock tower to protest the ridiculous state visit laid on for Donald Trump. There was a buoyant atmosphere and a diverse crowd — much like the previous Trump actions in Leicester, just a little smaller.

An ITV report has revealed the Tory party is investigating over a hundred cases of alleged anti-Muslim bigotry and racism within its ranks, including people claiming to be party members alleging Islam is “being allowed to take over our country”, and that Muslims are “aliens” whose “plan is to turn this country into an Islamic state.” Other commenters said, “we don’t have a politician strong enough in the UK to lead us away from this infestation”, and that Muslims “cause mayhem wherever they decide to invade.”

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims has proposed a definition of "Islamophobia", and the Government has rejected it.

The definition is here

Against the definition

Chris Sloggett, a spokesperson for the National Secular Society, told us:

While workers were angry and willing to fight, too often their anger was aimed at fellow workers of a different colour rather than at the employers and authorities responsible for their exploitation and poverty. Sometimes this occurred in the absence of socialist political leadership, but on occasion, labour movement misleadership played a poisonous role.

George Hoare, Peter Ramsay, Lee Jones, Anshu Srivastava and Danny Nicol respond to criticisms of the London Full Brexit event from some on the left. We reply to this article here.

After Clive Lewis MP publicly criticised RMT activist Eddie Dempsey for his statements at the 26 March “Full Brexit” rally, he was challenged on Twitter by Marcus Barnett of the Morning Star. What follows is a note Clive then wrote to Barnett – and gave us to publish.

On 27 March, the anti-Brexit campaigning group Labour for a Socialist Europe, which Solidarity supports, published this open letter to pro-Brexit left-wingers Costas Lapavitsas and Grace Blakeley, calling on them to dissociate from Eddie Dempsey, an RMT rail union activist who had spoken with them at a “Full Brexit” event on 26 March and presented the pro-Brexit case as one of standing up for “the working class” against “left liberals” who ally with “ethnic minorities”.

Comrades Lapavitsas and Blakeley,

Right-wing politicians always have great difficulty trying to get support from anyone with artistic integrity. In the Thatcher era, when numerous talented musicians sang up for the Labour cause under the banner of Red Wedge, all the Tories could cobble together were talentless tosh like Vince Hill, Jim Davidson and Mrs Mopp. Similarly, the Trump Presidency from the world of showbiz have been decidedly threadbare.

The UN anti-racism demonstration in Glasgow this year, as last year, faced a counter-demonstration by would-be left groups which refused to join it unless the Glasgow Friends of Israel were excluded from the march.

The pro-Israel group was about the same size as last year, 20-odd people. It carried no Israeli flags. It is unclear whether that was unintentional or by design. One argument last year was: they wave Israeli flags; Israel is a racist state; therefore, they should not be on the demo.