Stop the Nazi BNP!
 Stopping the BNP in
Tower Hamlets
The only place the BNP have won a council seat before was in Tower
Hamlets, East London, in 1993.
Youth against Racism in Europe played an
important part in defeating the BNP and driving them out of Tower
Hamlets at the time. While the situation we face is different now, many
of the ideas and methods that were used then are just as appropriate and
can be adapted to today's struggle.
This article explains the YRE's role in fighting the BNP in Tower
Hamlets during the 90s.
The YRE was formed in 1992 and its first activity was an
international demonstration against racism and fascism in Brussels.
There were a few of us from Tower Hamlets that went on that
demonstration and in May of 1993 the YRE co-organised an 8,000 strong
demonstration of Black and white youth which marched on the BNP’s
headquarters, following the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
In Tower Hamlets YRE members decided to organise a campaign against
the BNP in our borough, particularly their "paper sale" in
Brick Lane, where the neo-Nazi movement had had a national "paper
sale" on and off for about 20 years.
The reason they targeted Brick Lane, which was in the heart of the
Bengali community in Tower Hamlets and had previously been a largely
Jewish area, was to try to intimidate the local Asian and Black
communities and incite racist tensions and violence.
We spent the whole summer of 1993 campaigning to explain, in
particular to young people, the threat of the BNP, what they represented
and why their activity should be stopped.
We went to the youth clubs, organised open-air estate meetings and
spoke to the young people on the streets. We visited every youth club in
Tower Hamlets, but concentrated our resources on the ones closest to
Brick Lane, which we visited at least once a week throughout the summer
to ensure we were up-to-date with what was going on and speak with the
young people using the clubs about how to organise the campaign against
the BNP.
This campaign of dialogue and explanation was absolutely essential in
building the mass movement that eventually succeeded in driving the BNP
off the streets of Tower Hamlets. While racist attacks were an issue
that young people felt strongly about, most hadn't connected the
presence of the BNP to the number of attacks that were happening. We had
to explain what the BNP were and expose the link between the BNP's
activities and the rise in racist attacks locally.
Stephen Lawrence
The racist murder of Stephen Lawrence in Eltham (near the BNP's
Welling HQ) in April 1993 had a big effect on young people in Tower
Hamlets. There was a general increase in discussions about racist
attacks and the mood shifted: people were beginning to look for reasons
for the attacks that were happening.
YRE members were able to explain that the BNP, who many young people
didn't know much about, was a racist party that believed white people
were a "master race" and stood for deporting all non-white
people from Britain. We also explained that they were also out to smash
any democratic rights and would attack anyone who stood in their way: in
late 1992 BNP supporters had broken into and vandalised a trade union
office in Tower Hamlets, causing thousands of pounds worth of damage.
We constantly went back to discuss new events and how to organise to
drive the BNP out of Tower Hamlets with local young people. We knew
that, while YRE members could help organise the campaign and put forward
a strategy to stop the BNP's "paper sale", the campaign would
only be effective if young people who lived locally were actively
involved.
During the campaign hundreds of young people joined the YRE in Tower
Hamlets, many of whom became YRE organisers in their local areas.
However, by explaining why it was necessary to stop the BNP and
organising the campaign, YRE members were able to mobilise thousands
more young people. This mass involvement is what decisively defeated the
BNP.
During this campaign of explanation we publicised a YRE meeting at
the end of August to discuss what to do next. Due to the increasing
alarm about racist attacks and the hard work we had done, 60 young
people (mostly Bengali) attended. Because of the possibility of attack
from the BNP we organised stewarding to protect the meeting and everyone
who attended it. This impressed many of the new people who attended as
it showed that we were serious about defending ourselves and anyone who
came along to events we organised against attacks from the fascists.
The meeting agreed to organise a demonstration on Brick Lane on
September 19th with the aim of stopping the BNP's activity there.
Quddus Ali Attacked
On 8th September BNP members returning from electioneering on the
Isle of Dogs, another area of Tower Hamlets, carried out a vicious
racist attack against Quddus Ali, a young Bengali student. He sustained
severe injuries and was in a coma for several days afterwards.
At a YRE meeting of 100-150 mainly Bengali youth the day after Quddus
Ali was attacked the decision of the previous meeting to demonstrate
against the BNP’s paper sale on Sunday 19th September was strongly
approved.
Hospital Vigil Attacked
The meeting also agreed to support a vigil outside the hospital in
Whitechapel where Quddus Ali was being treated, which had been called by
the Anti-Nazi League. There was an angry mood on the vigil. Because
there was no properly-organised stewarding, however, the police were
able to provoke the crowd and used the throwing of stickers at them by
some Bengali youth as an excuse to attack the protest and arrest a
number of local young Bengalis.
YRE members agreed that we would stay with the young people on the
vigil and make sure no-one left on their own, and played a big role in
stopping more young people from getting arrested.
Youth Connection
Many local youth were very concerned about their safety going out
onto the streets at night. In the aftermath of the BNP members' racist
attack on Quddus Ali and the police attack on the hospital vigil, many
of the Bengali youth gangs that had been battling with each other
decided to come together to form an alliance to try and change the
situation.
Youth Connection, a Bengali youth organisation, was set up as a
result. YC was set up partly because the elders weren't doing anything
and the youth didn't have any faith in any of the "community
leaders" that they were seeing, but also it was set up because
there had been quite a bit of gang fighting and there had been some
previous meetings to set up a truce. Obviously when the BNP got a
councillor elected these meetings became politicised.
When Youth Connection was set up, YRE and YRE members were encouraged
to take part in their activities and meetings and were seen by the youth
as a very useful ally in the struggle against the BNP and the racism
that was widespread within the borough.
YRE supported Youth Connection from the beginning as an important
step forward in the battle against the BNP. By organising together,
local Bengali youth -- who were most under threat from both the BNP and
police racism and harassment -- were able to unite against these
problems and become stronger.
We were seen as an ally even though many of the Bengali community
elders were keen not to have the involvement of the YRE -- which had
members who were white, Black and from other parts of Asia -- in what
was seen to be a Bengali gangs-only organisation. Opposition to YRE even
reached the extent where the elders attempted to prevent YRE speakers
from participating in some of the meetings that formed Youth Connection.
However this wasn't allowed; the YRE was welcomed by the young people
because of its record and because of the experience YRE members had
developed over a relatively short period of time in organising
successful anti-racist campaigns and demonstrations. Our ideas of mass
action, proper stewarding to ensure protests were disciplined and
peaceful, and our slogan of "jobs & homes not racism",
went down very well.
BNP wins by-election on Isle of Dogs
In the meantime the BNP won a council by-election in Millwall ward on
the Isle of Dogs on Thursday 16th September; their candidate, Derek
Beackon, was elected as a councillor.
The next day council workers on the Isle of Dogs took strike action
against Beackon -- in defence of their own position and to make sure the
BNP didn't intimidate them or the public.
The Isle of Dogs is isolated from the rest of Tower Hamlets
geographically, and is seen as separate from other parts of the borough
by most Islanders and others. Most parts of the Island are less racially
mixed, though there is still a substantial Black and Asian population
living on it.
Derek Beackon’s election was due mostly to a number of specific
local issues, but had a big impact on Tower Hamlets as a whole as BNP
members’ and sympathisers’ new-found confidence spilled over into a
wave of racist attacks and violence and intimidation against
anti-racists.
BNP kicked off Brick Lane
The Sunday after the by-election, YRE arrived at Brick Lane early in
the morning and occupied the site where the BNP normally sold their
newspapers. When the BNP arrived they had to take a more exposed spot on
the other side of the road. Through word of mouth this occupation of the
BNP’s usual site by about 100 anti-fascists and members of the YRE
really quickly became a mass demonstration of local youth 1,000 strong.
This was possible not only because of the mood of anger against the
BNP and the racist attacks they encouraged, but also because of the
campaigning work done throughout the whole summer.
The BNP were hemmed in by the demonstration and soon were pushed off
their second site by the crowd. In following weeks the campaign of mass
demonstrations continued to ensure the BNP didn’t come back. Today,
nine years later, the BNP have still not re-established a regular public
activity anywhere in Britain.
Youth Connection Demo
On the 3rd of October Youth Connection organised a demonstration to
reclaim the streets for young people in the borough back from the BNP
and to prevent the levels of police intimidation and harassment that had
been taking place.
More than 3,000 young people attended the demonstration, which YRE
stewarded jointly with Youth Connection. The successful organisation of
the stewarding ensured the demonstration was confident, noisy and
defiant, and peaceful, as the police were unable to provoke violent
confrontations in the way they had done previously.
This joint demonstration also raised many of the political demands
that were required in the circumstances, in particular many of the YRE's
slogans for example "jobs and homes not racism" echoed through
the streets of Tower Hamlets. This not only gave a lead to the youth,
but also gave a warning to the police that racism wouldn't be tolerated.
It also was used to try and convince local people that racism wasn't
the way forward and that if we were going to struggle to eradicate
racism in the borough we also had to have a struggle against the
unemployment, poverty and appalling housing/living conditions that
ravage Tower Hamlets.
School Students’ Strike
The number of racist attacks locally increased by 300% between Derek
Beackon's election in September 93 and January 94. Many of the victims
of these attacks were school students. In one particularly bad incident
a newspaper delivery driver had slashed one school student with a knife,
racially abused them and then driven off.
YRE members went down to the school where this attack had taken place
and discussed with the school students what to do. At a meeting with
them we agreed to try to organise a school students' strike in Tower
Hamlets against racist attacks.
YRE members and school students leafletted schools across Tower
Hamlets asking students to come to an initial meeting to discuss
organising a school strike. Students from six schools came, and in that
meeting it was agreed that the young people would go out and call for a
one-day strike against racist attacks to take place across Tower Hamlets
schools.
These school students -- from Sir John Cass, Central Foundation,
Stepney Green, Morpeth, St Paul's Way -- formed the core group of
students who organised for the school students' strike.
The school students wrote and designed leaflets and, with the help of
the YRE, leafletted all the secondary schools in the borough. Sometimes
the school students and YRE members faced hostility from headteachers,
who tried to stop them leafletting schools. However, where this happened
we were able to approach the National Union of Teachers locally and ask
them to intervene in support of the students.
In each school the school students found out who the NUT rep was and
asked for their support for the strike. YRE members also approached the
local NUT branch for support and organised for some of the school
students to go and speak at one of their meetings. With support from the
NUT in Tower Hamlets and other teachers in schools, the idea of the
strike was able to get quite a good hearing.
Regular meetings were held during the month leading up to the school
strike, open to all school students, to bring the young people from
different schools together and organise the strike.
These meetings helped the school students overcome some of the
problems they faced. As well as hostility from some headteachers, many
of the Bengali community elders were opposed to the strike and put huge
pressure on young people not to take part, both through the mosques and
through their families. One community leader even turned up to the
strike meeting point for one school and went around trying to stop young
people taking part in the strike.
However, even despite all these problems, on the day 3-400 school
students marched through the streets of Tower Hamlets against racism and
against the gang fights that had been taking place. Because of threats
and intimidation many students who wanted to participate didn't, but the
strike had massive support from school students right across the
borough.
That was a brilliant prelude to the trade union-organised
demonstration of 40,000 that marched through the streets of Tower
Hamlets two weeks later.
TUC Unite Against Racism March
After the number of successful demonstrations that had happened in
Tower Hamlets Bill Morris, general secretary of the Transport &
General Workers' Union, made a public call to the Trades Union Congress
(TUC) that they should organise a demonstration in the borough.
The trade union leaders had come under considerable pressure, not
just from the young people in the area who had already started to
organise their own events, but also from the trade unions (particularly
UNISON, and many other unions) to organise a public show of strength, a
trade union show of strength, against racism in the borough and to help
defeat the BNP.
That demonstration, called by the TUC, took place in March 1994. The
huge demo was a real show of solidarity of trade unionists and youth
against the BNP. It was also the major mobiliser prior to the council
elections in May 94 for people to vote against the BNP and defeat them.
It was in these elections that Derek Beackon lost his seat.
Although in these elections the BNP got a higher vote, the votes
against the BNP (particularly for the Labour Party) increased even more.
Across the whole borough the threat of the BNP was felt so strongly that
the turnout in the local elections that year was the highest it had been
for many years. On the Isle of Dogs it was the highest election turnout
ever in the area.
Community Campaigns against Cuts
On the Isle of Dogs, where Derek Beackon was the BNP’s councillor,
YRE members had been concentrating most of their efforts in building a
campaign to save a local community centre from closure. The Alpha Grove
community centre, which provided services for all sections of the local
community – from mother and toddler groups to youth clubs and elderly
welfare services – was threatened with closure because of cuts in
funding.
YRE members were able to successfully argue for the Alpha Grove
campaign to support the idea of increased funding for all community
facilities across the Isle of Dogs with a "people’s budget"
for the Island, and helped ensure the BNP were not able to become part
of the campaign.
The Alpha Grove campaign held the only public meeting on the Isle of
Dogs to be organised while Derek Beackon was a councillor there. It also
played a key role in bringing together community groups across the
Island, helping organise a conference with representatives from 20-30
groups representing community centres, pensioners’ groups and youth
clubs to fight together against cuts in funding.
This community conference drew up a budget for community groups on
the Isle of Dogs and a petition, which were presented by representatives
from the conference to a full Tower Hamlets council meeting in March
1994.
The strength of the campaign and the support and publicity it
generated succeeded in not only saving the Alpha Grove community centre
but also helped to cut across racism and support for the BNP, by showing
a positive alternative to their politics of hatred and division.
Organising Community Defence
We've also been involved in Tower Hamlets in making sure that the BNP
are not able to use elections to actively campaign in public. The reason
again is because of the intimidation these people unleash when they come
onto ordinary working class estates.
We always aimed for the YRE to be an organisation that could help
local youth and communities get rid of the BNP, rather than trying to do
it all ourselves. While we had members in most local communities, we
knew that we wouldn't always have an organised YRE campaign in every
area and for a campaign to stop the neo-Nazis long-term it is essential
for the local community to organise themselves.
Wherever we organised community defence, we made sure that we had
plenty of discussions with young people locally about how they felt
about the threat from the BNP and what they wanted to do. When this had
been decided we gave practical advice and help with organising the
campaign.
Shadwell by-election, August-September '94
In one particular council by-election in a largely Bengali area the
BNP was standing and threatened on a number of occasions to come into
estates and do leafletting. We organised in advance to have a campaign
of explanation aimed at the young people on the estate of what the BNP
stood for. We then made sure that when we went onto the estates we said:
if you are going to prevent the BNP coming onto your estate you’ve got
to do it properly.
We used whistles as an alarm system so that if the BNP were going to
come onto an estate, people blow their whistles and people would come
down to their front doors, to their front gates, to make sure to stop
the BNP even from getting onto the estate. So we organised that but to
make sure we did it properly we organised some trial runs as well, to
make sure that people knew the drill and were prepared for the BNP if
they came down.
On one of the trial runs in Shadwell somebody rang the police to
complain and two police came down and asked us to stop. The young people
in the area suffered a lot from police harassment, stop and search, etc.
However YRE members stood their ground in front of the police, pointing
out that nobody was breaking the law, that we had the democratic right
to do what we were doing and therefore there was nothing the police
could do. The police were forced to leave empty-handed, which was seen
as a victory by the young people involved in the whistle alarm campaign:
"that's the first time the police have left without getting what
they wanted".
The whistle alarm campaign was so successful that the BNP never dared
to come onto many of the estates in Shadwell, and complained to the
local paper that they were being "intimidated". The word
spread and people on other estates began to organise similar campaigns
themselves. In many areas BNP leafletters were chased off by local
people.
In the end the BNP restricted their leafletting to between around
11pm and 6am because they found that the only time they were able to
push leaflets through people's doors without being chased away was when
the majority of the population were asleep.
Conclusion
The campaign against the BNP in Tower Hamlets wasn't easy. Among the
problems we faced were: police harassment, media attacks, intimidation
and violence from the BNP, long-standing divisions among Bengali youth,
particularly based on gangs, opposition and sometimes open hostility
from Bengali "community leaders" and figures in authority such
as some headteachers, as well as suspicion towards an anti-racist
organisation that was racially mixed.
However, by consistently putting forward the ideas necessary to
defeat the BNP and by proving in action again and again that we were
serious and that our ideas worked, YRE members in Tower Hamlets were
able to build mass movements which inflicted a serious defeat on the BNP.
In May 94 Derek Beackon got 2,041 votes and two other BNP candidates
got 1,775 and 1,713 votes in Millwall ward (28% on average). The BNP
candidate in Holy Trinity ward, about a quarter of a mile from Brick
Lane, got 755 votes (19%) . Although we had a successful campaign we
couldn’t completely stem the ideas of racism and the BNP immediately.
However, the defeat we inflicted on them has led to a massive drop in
their votes and activity in the borough. In a by-election in the Holy
Trinity ward in June 01 the BNP received 74 votes (3.6%), the lowest
vote received by a neo-Nazi candidate in that ward for over 20 years.
In June 02 the BNP only attracted 87 votes (4%) in a by-election in
Blackwall and Cubitt Town, a new ward that contains about half the old
Millwall ward and includes many of the areas that supported the BNP most
strongly in 1993-94.
That is a testament to the campaign that was waged way back in the
90s. Now we need to apply the lessons of that campaign to the struggle
that needs to be waged today.
by Hugo Pierre, Tower Hamlets YRE
About Tower Hamlets
Tower Hamlets is one of the poorest boroughs in Britain. It has a
large Bangladeshi population (35.6% in 1991), a smaller Somali
population and longer-established Jewish and Black communities.
During the early 90s:
-
more than one in three people in Tower Hamlets lived in a household
with an income of just £4,500 a year (compared to less than one in 20
nationally).
-
one in five men in Tower Hamlets was out of work (twice the
national rate).
-
66% of council tenants relied on housing benefit.
-
seven out of ten secondary school students got free school meals.
-
Tower Hamlets had the biggest proportion of families suffering
overcrowded accommodation anywhere in England.
Many of these things still haven’t changed.
Justice campaigns
A number of people were arrested and charged by the police at
anti-racist demos, particularly at the hospital vigil (Tower Hamlets 9
campaign) and the first big demonstration that chased the BNP off Brick
Lane (Brick Lane Defence Campaign).
Organising support and solidarity for these people was an important
part of the campaign against the BNP. This let the police know that they
couldn’t just pick off individuals and try to criminalise them. It
also helped get the police to drop or reduce the charges against a
number of people, as they knew that the public eye was on them.
YRE supported the Tower Hamlets 9 campaign, which was set up by a
broad coalition of groups locally, and also helped to initiate the Brick
Lane Defence Campaign, which organised support for people facing charges
and raised money to help pay their costs.
Key dates
Key dates in the campaign against the BNP in Tower Hamlets, summer
‘93 to spring ’94
July/August 93: YRE carries out mass leafletting and campaigning across Tower
Hamlets, including open air estate meetings, visiting youth clubs and
consistent street work with young people. The aim is to expose the real
nature of the BNP and build confidence, particularly of the youth.
25th August 93: 60-strong YRE meeting in Davenant Centre agrees to
organise demo to remove BNP paper sale.
September 93:
8th -- Quddus Ali attacked.
9th -- YRE meeting of over 100.
Youth Connection set up.
10th -- Hospital vigil provoked by the police; 9 Asian youth arrested
and charged.
16th -- Derek Beackon, BNP candidate, elected to Tower Hamlets
Council in by-election.
17th -- Isle of Dogs UNISON strike against Derek Beackon.
19th -- BNP driven from Brick Lane by demonstration of several
hundred, mostly local people.
October 93
3rd -- 3,000 youth on Youth Connection demo jointly stewarded by YRE.
February 94
Mukhtar Ahmed attacked.
First borough-wide meeting of school students
March 94
9th -- school student strike against racist attacks organised by YRE.
19th -- TUC anti-racist demonstration of 40,000 marches through Tower
Hamlets.
May 94
5th -- Derek Beackon loses his seat on Tower Hamlets Council in local
elections.
August-September 94
Shadwell whistle alarm campaign.
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