12.06.2002

Republican success

The decision of Notts Socialist Alliance to mount some kind of protest against the jubilee was undoubtedly a correct one. Our week-long republican celebrations ended with an extremely successful gig held in Nottingham on Monday June 3. Nearly 100 people crammed into the upstairs room of the Rose of England pub in Nottingham city centre to watch Chris TT, The Regulars and Dallas Burn. As with our anti-jubilee public meeting, Socialist Workers Party comrades seemed to have overcome their initial doubts about whether to recognise the jubilee at all, and turned up in encouraging numbers, taking advantage of the numerous stalls to promote Marxism 2002. However, the gig was predominantly attended by those of a non-political persuasion. This proved an excellent opportunity to expose a layer of young people to the Socialist Alliance's politics, and even when Chris TT, during his set, said that he opposed militantism, he was met with a hail of abuse from just about everyone in the room! All in all, a great success, and it is agreed that we will organise further, similar events later in the year to raise the profile of the SA amongst students and younger people in the city. Meanwhile, Monday June 10 saw the latest coming together of the Nottingham SA steering committee. The main discussion at the meeting centred around whether we should look to stand a candidate in Bingham in next year's local elections. RAF Newton, near Bingham, it has been decreed by Blunkett, is to be the latest in New Labour's long line of 'accommodation centres' for asylum-seekers. A number of comrades had been to a 1,000-strong demonstration in the town the previous week, and we heard anecdotal evidence of how a number of hostile teenagers had surrounded an Anti-Nazi League stall. A young SWPer said that the BNP were "extremely well organised in the area", and they had taken his photograph whilst he was on the stall. He reiterated that we needed to make our presence felt in the area. However, comrade Pete Radcliff of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, who had also been at the demonstration, said that the BNP were extremely unorganised in the Bingham area. They had been handing out racist material and placards to local teenagers, who were more than happy to simply go out into the town and make a nuisance of themselves. Pete told of 14- and 15-year-olds, wrapped in St George flags, shouting racist abuse. When it was suggested that we should maybe look to standing a candidate in next year's local elections in Bingham, Pete questioned the need to prioritise the area, saying that he thought the situation there would "die down". It is true that the kids running around Bingham town centre were hardly organised battalions of the BNP - the demonstration was held the day before an England World Cup match. However, Andy Birchenough, chair of the NSA and senior SWPer in Nottingham, proposed that we organise a party to distribute the excellent Terry Conway leaflet recently drawn up, which states the Socialist Alliance's position on asylum-seekers. Comrade Radcliff opposed this, saying that "people from Bingham don't like outsiders." I disagreed. If we are to stand a candidate in Bingham, and surely it would be a good idea, then we need to go into the area and state our case for 'outsiders' coming in? Comrade Radcliff was right, however, when he stated that we should engage with other organisations in the area such as the Refugee Forum and the Notts Anti-Fascist Alliance - something that SWP comrades seemed hesitant about. The meeting then went on to decide that we should resurrect our newsletter, The Red Flag, using Manchester comrades' Left Turn as something of a model. An editorial board will be elected at the next members' meeting in June. Sam Metcalf