Revolutionary Communist Group

Strathclyde police are stepping up harassment against Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! supporters in the Govanhill area of Glasgow. On Saturday 7 August the police once again intervened, seizing political material and cautioning and charging a supporter of FRFI for selling the newspaper. He is now the third FRFI supporter to be charged with this alleged offence following a similar attack on 13 July. These charges come at a time of increased harassment and threats of violence, including death threats emanating from local loyalists and racists, who have also increased their attacks on FRFI in recent weeks in the area.

These latest events demonstrate that Strathclyde police are preparing the ground for further attacks on democratic rights in preparation for wider attacks on living standards among the wider Govanhill community as the economic crisis develops. The majority of officers involved in the harassment are part of the Southside Central Community Policing Team based in the New Gorbals Police Office. The police are using legislation from the Civic Government Scotland Act, which in part regulates street trading in Scotland. Section 39 (3) (a) of that act is very clear; it states that no licence is required for the sale of newspapers only. The police are arguing that Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is not a newspaper.

Read more: Oppose political policing in Govanhill

On Saturday 17 July, 500 members of the English Defence League (EDL) rampaged through Dudley in the West Midlands, attacking Muslim and Hindu residents.  The EDL is fast developing in the direction of a new organised and violent fascist street movement, which offers a focal point to sections of the working class who support Britain’s wars in the Middle East and are prepared to physically confront public opposition to those wars.

The EDL represents a popular reflection of government strategy. Its rhetoric focuses on Islam, in a context in which Britain’s wars in the Middle East, Israel’s occupation of Palestine, and attacks on Muslims in Britain are all depicted as part of a battle against ‘Islamic extremism’. The EDL first developed out of a violent response to an anti-war demonstration by a small group of Muslims in Luton in March 2009.  In the months before this thousands had come out on the streets to protest against the Israeli massacre in Gaza, with sections of Muslim youth playing a leading role. This was not the first time, with predominantly working class Asian youth playing a leading militant role in the anti-war and Palestine demonstrations during the early anti-war movement in 2000-2002.

Read more: Build an anti-imperialist movement against racism and fascism!

On 13 July Conservative Home Secretary Theresa May announced the government’s plans to conduct an ‘urgent review’ of counter-terrorism and security powers and the dismantling of the Labour government’s ‘Prevent strategy’.  The Preventing Violent Extremism Programme (known simply as Prevent) provided funding for surveillance, intelligence and counter-terrorism against Muslims in Britain, with specific focus on a number of areas, including mosques, community centres, prisons and universities.  Whether the change in government will in practice signal a reduction in such activity remains to be seen.

At University College London (UCL), the Provost, Malcolm Grant, is currently heading a new university-wide commission on how to ‘best protect academic freedom while taking appropriate action to prevent violent extremism’. Following the failed Christmas Day bombing allegedly involving former UCL student Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the UCL student union handed over the details of over 800 members of the Islamic Society and Medical Islamic Society to the Metropolitan Police. This information will now be shared with international intelligence agencies. This means that innocent citizens have been placed on watch lists and no-fly lists.

Read more: Spies on Campus

On 10 July, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! organised a lively and well attended dayschool in Glasgow city centre under the title ‘Voices of resistance: fighting imperialism across the world’. The meeting saw over 60 people attend throughout the day, with FRFI members and supporters from Glasgow, Dundee, Newcastle, Sunderland and Manchester. There were also representatives from various Irish republican organisations, people from the Basque country and individuals from as far a field as Germany and Latvia as well as many local people met on the streets of Govanhill and elsewhere. Members of Republican Sinn Fein provided security in the wake of loyalist threats against comrades leafleting in the run-up to the meeting.

The meeting was introduced by a local FRFI member who stated that “there should be no doubt that voices of resistance today need to be heard.” Recent weeks in Glasgow had seen Armed Forces Day and mass orange walks celebrate the worst traditions of British imperialism and triumphalism. “The fact that these two events were given free reign of the city, while progressive political activism is being attacked, is a reminder that those in power are clear as to who serves their interests.” This was confirmed subsequent to the meeting, on 13 July, when police in Govanhill illegally confiscated a stall and copies of FRFI from activists on the streets. The dayschool was organised as an open reminder that anti-imperialist and class struggle politics are still very much alive. As the working-class faces savage cuts, the choice now is between anger or resignation, resistance or acceptance.

Read more: Voices of Resistance, 10 July 2010, Glasgow

So said women in Deptford in south east London interviewed by the BBC after the coalition government’s 22 June emergency budget. ‘An admirably tough-minded statement of intent,’ said The Economist, noting that sterling and gilts had strengthened, demonstrating the City’s approval of the attack on public spending and on the working class (26 June 2010).

‘Overall, everyone will pay something, but the people at the bottom of the income scale will pay proportionately less than the people at the top. It is a progressive budget,’ claimed Chancellor George Osborne.  This brazen lie was quickly exposed even by the ruling class’s own Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Financial Times. The emergency budget will cost £113 billion by 2014-15, that is £4,300 a year on average for every household in the country. But the cost will not be borne equally; the incomes of the poorest fifth of the population will decline by approximately 8%, those of the middle fifth by 4% and the richest fifth by less than 3%. We are not all in this together: the poorest are being pushed into complete misery to try and maintain the capitalist system. From Latvia to Spain and Portugal, from Germany to Italy, France and Greece welfare benefits and services are being slashed to enhance profits and try and revive capital. Capitalism is in crisis - this is class war.

Read more: ‘This is class war’

On 15 June, Lord Saville finally published his inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972, when British paratroopers shot 26 Irish nationalists at a mass demonstration in Derry against internment, murdering 14 of them. Prime Minister Cameron in the House of Commons apologised on behalf of the British government, stating that the actions of the soldiers were ‘unjustified and unjustifiable’. The Saville Inquiry vindicates the innocence of those who were shot, finding them all to have been unarmed, but also finds no blame attaching to the British government and higher echelons of the British Army for the massacre.

In the immediate aftermath of Bloody Sunday, the British government set up the whitewash Widgery Tribunal, which promptly gave the soldiers the all clear. The victims of state violence were then targets of a vicious propaganda campaign designed to paint them as ‘gunmen and nail bombers’, which Widgery himself endorsed. The British government only agreed to set up a new inquiry when political expediency required a concession to the nationalists as part of the Good Friday peace process

Read more: Bloody Sunday Inquiry: apology is not enough