Tuesday 2 March 2010

Hackney 'Loony left' accused of cashing in on BNP

Terry Fitzpatrick sent this letter to Blood and Property. It is a response to a letter published in the Hackney Gazette last week. Whether you agree with him or not, there seems to be a long-standing division in the fight against fascism:

"Regular readers (of the Hackney Gazette) will remember an exchange of letters between myself and several members of Hackney Loony Left starring, amongst others, the SWP's Sasha Simic. I won the exchange and they all went quiet until this week when a bunch of them popped up in the letters page, (Unite in the fight to stop fascist vote 25th Feb).

"Using the SWP front Unite Against Fascism Hackney Trots are on a shameless money raising mission from people quite rightly concerned about the rise of the BNP vote. People may be asking why, some eight weeks before the elections of May 6th, we now see a call for " a broadly-based UAF organisation in Hackney. Our aim is to mobilise the broadest opposition to the BNP and (sic) provide a network of supporters for the anti BNP campaign in Barking."

"A campaign against the far right already exists and can be contacted on Hackneyunites@btinternet.com. In the GLA elections last year it distributed 50,000 copies of a special eight page tabloid paper printed especially for Hackney which I delivered to activists all over the borough. The group also organised a day of action when every railway station in the borough was leafleted. Where was UAF when all this was going on? Well, nobody knows as there was no sign of them.

"There is a national campaign which can be contacted at www.hopenothate.org.uk with daily updates on the national anti BNP campaign.

Terry Fitzpatrick.

(Who is he? Some links: Hackney Gazette, Searchlight, But for a flavour of the oddness/bitterness behind the scenes in the world of anti fascists, check out the comments section here: http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2544. Or a life story/interview.)

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