We are supporting the call from the Gloucestershire branch of Unite Community to mobilise to show opposition to the far-right this weekend in Cheltenham.
This Saturday local trade unionists and campaigners will be gathering as of 11am. around the entrance Regents Arcade on High Street Cheltenham
Unite Community is a branch of Unite the Union open to retired and unemployed people. They say:
“Unite the Union is one of the TUC trade unions organising for the Hearts Union week. A protest entitled “Unite – Gloucestershire Patriots” is taking place this Saturday in Cheltenham .. this has nothing to do with UNITE, nothing to do with trade unions and is not in the interests of the working class that needs to stand united – white, Black, Asian people, irrespective of gender, sexual orientation, faith – against austerity and against racism and all forms of discrimination. United in Struggle – against austerity and racism.”
The far-right demonstration is due to begin at 12 noon in Montpelier Gardens – with Facebook posts advertising it claiming there will be a march down the Promenade/Montpelier walk to the High St” (see screenshot below)
Trade unionists, antifascists and antiracists will be gathering as of 11am. around the entrance Regents Arcade on High Street Cheltenham.
Organisers Unite Community Gloucestershire say: “The proposal is we meet in the High Street an hour earlier and decide the next steps… we need numbers – the far right are manipulating people worried about rents, winter fuel allowances, poor housing and linking that to a racist, anti migrant message. Local trade unions need to make clear that we are the ones who can and will fight on all workplace, social and economic issues”.
Please join if you can – travel in groups or with buddies especially in the vicinity of Montpelier Gardens.
We do not know how large the far right demonstration will be, see below for more advice on keeping yourselves and others safe.
The far-right demonstration, organised “against mass immigration and the solitary confinement of TR” [“Tommy Robinson”, or Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – founder of the English Defence League and currently imprisoned for contempt of court, repeating false allegations about a Syrian refugee through a screening of a film, in contravention of an order from the High Court. As we wrote in our article about the way in which “The Light” paper promotes the far right, in response to their article praising Robinson, Robinson is one of the most well known far right activists in Britain.
He was the founder of the violent far right street movement the ‘English Defence League’. Before this he was a member of the far right British National Party. He was a co-founder of far right Islamophobic organisation Pegida UK. Robinson has a long history of far-right organising, racist incitement, and has previously been imprisoned for for assault (in 2005, plus a suspended sentence in 2011), for using false travel documents (2012), and for mortgage fraud (in 2014).
Below is the publicity for the far-right demonstration we were alerted to earlier this week:
Community Solidarity Stroud District 