Unite Against Fascism
The local elections of 2003 saw the number of BNP councillors in the UK increase to 17 – at that time, the highest in British history. While a determined campaign by anti-fascists slowed the fascists’ momentum in the 2004 local and European elections, the Nazis still increased their councillors to 21, and more alarmingly still conned their way to 800,000 votes nationwide. In the 2005 general election the BNP again met determined opposition but still got credible votes of up to 17 percent in places like Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.
The racism that feeds this electoral success has if anything increased still further in recent months. The BNP’s support has largely been built by propagating racist myths about asylum seekers and Muslims, but this has also stirred up racism against anyone who isn’t white. This was underlined in July 2005, when A-level student Anthony Walker was murdered in Liverpool in an unprovoked racist attack. The United Nations has recently said that it is “deeply concerned” about race relations in the United Kingdom and, since the London bombings of 7 July 2005, racist attacks have gone through the roof.
Many of these attacks happen in areas where the BNP is active. This isn’t a coincidence. The Nazis love race hatred and encourage racist attacks. Many leading BNP members have criminal convictions for violent assaults on black people, gays and lesbians, or Jews.
In 1999 David Copeland planted three nail bombs in London, one of which killed three people. Copeland was a Nazi and a BNP member. “My aim was political. It was to cause a racial war in this country,” he said. “There would be a backlash from ethnic communities, then all the white people would go out and vote BNP.”
Love Music Hate Racism works closely with Unite Against Fascism (UAF), the umbrella organisation chaired by Ken Livingstone designed to bring together all of the UK’s anti-racist and anti-fascist groups into a single unified campaign, forming a “rainbow alliance” which includes faith and community groups, trade unions, actors, musicians and celebrities, as well as groups opposed to homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Affiliates to UAF include the TUC and 19 national trade unions, the Muslim Association of Britain, Stonewall, the Union of Jewish Students, Operation Black Vote, the National Union of Students and many more.
We challenge increasing racism with events that emphasise what we all have in common, by celebrating our multicultural and multiracial society through our music scene, and by getting support from some of the country’s biggest acts. This gets our message of unity across, exposes what the BNP really stands for to a wide audience, and helps create a positive anti-racist atmosphere in areas threatened with racist division and violence.
