25.04.2001

Greater Manchester

Straw pays deposit

The Socialist Alliance supported the peaceful protest against the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act on April 1 2000 in Manchester. This Act now makes virtually any peaceful protest into a 'terrorist' action.

The Greater Manchester police, explicitly seeking a "practice for May 1", violently charged into the demonstration, forced unprovoked and wrongful arrests, and imprisoned demonstrators for several hours; and in the process the police broke the Socialist Alliance banner.

As a result of the protestors seeking compensation for the police assaults upon them, Jack Straw is now financing the election campaign of his own opponent. The deposit for the Socialist Alliance candidate, Jim Nichol, who is standing in Blackburn against the home secretary, is being paid for from the police damages received.

The Lancashire Socialist Alliance made history last year by fighting a parliamentary by-election in Preston, only weeks after the organisation was formed, and gaining an unprecedented five percent of the vote (saving its deposit). Both Greater Manchester and Lancashire Socialist Alliances believe that this will be a national campaign, against the most anti-civil-rights home secretary that even New Labour could ever have produced. Responsible for the racist voucher system and for whipping up hysteria against refugees, escalating and even exceeding the racist comments of the Tories, Straw must be challenged.

Said John Clegg, Greater Manchester Socialist Alliance, prospective parliamentary candidate for Manchester Withington, and one of those carrying the banner during the April 2000 demonstration: "The real danger is that the approach of Straw and Blair will lead to a vacuum in politics, which the far right already seeks to exploit. Opposition to New Labour must come from the left. That's why the Socialist Alliance is standing in this election.

"There is an alternative, a socialist alternative, to Straw and Blair. Vote Socialist Alliance!".

John Nicholson