BBC Question Time Protest

Went down to Ldn a couple weeks ago with about a dozen SWP comrades from Leeds to demonstrate outside the BBC in west London.

The decision by the BBC to allow Nazi Nick to appear on Question Time elicited a reaction from everyone and his sister, and for most people the arguments were fairly simple: As a democratic and democratically elected party, the BNP must be allowed the same public platform as everyone else. The reasoning behind this being that every time the BNP turn up in public, they bring along more than enough rope to hang themselves with.

The second train of thought was that the BNP shouldn't be allowed any kind of platform, which oddly enough seemed to see Peter Hain in agreement with those on the left who engage in a consistent policy of no platform for fascists.

However there are two problems with the democracy argument.

Firstly, the BNP are not a legitimate political party (in the sense that any of the bosses parties have a claim to legitimacy). It exists to advocate and bring about an all-white Britain, dragging the country back to where we were before half a century of anti-racist activism.

Not only do they want to recreate some idyllic snowflake Albion, but we must be in no doubt that as a fascist organisation, they will smash workers' organisations without the least hesitation, and will attack all the rights that workers have won over the past decades.

Secondly, all the 'political commentators' seem to agree that Nick Griffin was a pasty-faced, shifty-eyed caricature on Question Time - an embarrassment to himself and his party. However, this perception has been true of every one of Nick's public appearances. Far from demolishing the BNP's credibility as the bourgeois media gleefully proposed in Friday's papers, Griffin's QT appearance merely reinforced the BNP's public position as the victimised, anti-establishment party standing up to a nefarious Lib/Lab/Con multicultural conspiracy to deport the ethnic British population to Magaluf.

The BBC's decision to rehabilitate the BNP into the national consciousness just a short time after they ran an undercover show exposing them as an amateur gang of Nazi hooligans, should not have come as a surprise. The appearance on the show will doubtless mean that the BNP will feature with some regularity on the public broadcaster - even though the homophobic, sexist and racist BNP disagrees with just about every one of the BBC's ethical guidelines.

The demonstration itself like most recent UAF stunts was something of a farce. Taking place in London you'd think that with an A-Z and a bit of forward planning, they would have found out all the entrances/exits to the complex and organised spotters to make sure that we could respond quickly and prevent Griffin from entering.

In a word: no.

Instead it was left to the initiative of a few activists to storm the vehicle entrance when it was loosely guarded, and run into the main lobby. Again the lack of preparation meant that we didn't have a clue where to go, and the rest of the demonstration hadn't followed us.

There were about 30 of us standing there for half an hour linking arms, chanting with dozens of staff looking on from the galleries. Eventually the pigs and BBC security dragged us away one by one kicking and screaming etc.

Happily they didn't arrest us, they merely chucked us back out into the crowd to join the several hundred demonstrators trying to force open the gate again.

We tried this for several hours, with a melee of police and protesters; eventually we forced out way to the front of the gate, forcing the remaining police to scramble over the sides. We tried to force the gate for several more hours, until they used CS gas on the first few rows of demonstrators, after which no-one was particularly keen to get upclose and personal.

Nothing of any particular interest happened to be honest, apart from Martin Smith of SWP fame managing to get himself arrested (again).

Griffin was smuggled in through a back entrance, and smuggled out of the front entrance after we went round the side to stop him coming out. Despite the lack of organisation, there were never enough protesters to make a serious attempt at stopping him from getting in.

We left around 8 or 9ish, and went to Chicken Cottage where I picked me up a fuckin lush burger and chips for £3.

Fuckin sweet.

Demonstrate in support of the Iranian people

Join the rally in London to show solidiarity with the Iranian people oppressed by the brutal Islamic republic.

Friday 26th June

Assemble @ 12:30-1:30pm outside Iranian embassy

Saturday 27th June

Assemble @ 2pm at High Street Kensington Station

Proceed @ 2:30pm towards Iranian embassy.

Days of protest against President Ahmedinejad's regime are being brutally repressed by security services, including paramilitary militias and Revolutionary Guards. The disputed election result has led to popular demonstrations that have far outstripped simply being support for 'Reformist' candidate Mousavi.

In the event of student protest

In the wake of a fresh occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies over a raid by immigration officials and the deportation of several cleaners, I thought I'd share this from Indymedia. It's a copy of emails sent between SOAS admin and a legal firm, detailing the legal recourse available to institutions facing 'trespass' by protesters.

There seem to be 3 principal ways of evicting protestors from private property:

1. Under Common Law, the owner can physically remove the trespassers, using no more force than is reasonably required.
2. A Possession order may be aquired though an emergency High Court injunction whereby the administration must show that they have a greater right to the land than those occupying it.
3. Police can order trespassers to leave a property (and arrest those who do not comply) if:

• at least two people are trespassing on the campus with a common purpose of residing there for any purpose
• the institution has taken reasonable steps to ask them to leave; and
• any one of them has damaged property, or used threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour towards a member of staff.

Pertinently, the advice picks up on the fact that after occupations, negotiations or concessions granted by the administration with the purpose of ending the occupation are not pursued with the same level of efficiency, and tempo as during the occupation:

"In some cases, it appears that the original organisational energy is not sustained post occupation and the follow up actions are not pursued as rigorously by the students."

While some occupations gained notable concessions, and many universities have initiated processes for disinvesting from arms companies, granting scholarships to Palestinian students etc, the failure of many occupations to consolidate the demands of their occupation - even where successful - was an important feature of workshops during the National Student Co-ordination conference in April.

The email shows that the university administrations were legally well prepared for the January Gaza solidarity occupations, even if the initial occupations at SOAS, Kings, and LSE may have come as a surprise.

Over the next 3 months, occupations spread to over 30 universities from Sussex to Strathclyde and while technology allowed the occupations to maintain contact and disseminate tactics and ideas, it did the same for the university vice-chancellors.

Many would no doubt have been aware that conceeding to '"negotiations" after putting up a show of token resistance, would have been the policy best suited to dispersing the anger, and hoping that the students would not apply the same dedication to protracted rounds of "talks about talks" as they did in the initial demands stage of the occupations.

In many cases they have been proved right.

With a wave of actions, including occupations, sit-ins, demonstrations, speaking tours etc, planned for the autumn term, it is vital that students utilise all the resources at their disposal to organise effectively on campus, form cross-campus links, and fight to consolidate the smallest of victories.

This email proves that the administration was preparing for protest during the depths of nearly two decades of dormant student activisim.

We must likewise prepare for the coming struggle in autumn.