Sweep UKIP off the streets!

The UK Independence Party’s (UKIP) planned march in Whitechapel, London, on Saturday has now been cancelled by the Met police. While it is understandable that many residents of this largely Muslim area are relieved that this provocation is not happening, what the Met has actually done is to save UKIP from a humiliating defeat on the streets. When the Met says it is acting to “prevent serious disorder”, they don’t mean UKIP terrorising Tower Hamlets. They mean local residents and anti-fascist forces sending UKIP packing. UKIP is still going to march on Saturday in Hyde Park, promoting their racist crusade for “mass deportations”, only now facing significantly less opposition.

Let’s be clear. UKIP is positioning itself as the street-fighting face of the far right. They want to recruit the worst kind of scum by means of intimidation and violence against Muslims, minorities and leftists. There is nothing to debate with these thugs. The means to stop them growing is to defeat them on the streets and send them away with their tails between their legs. In the wake of the disaster of 13 September, this would be a welcome win for our side. Tower Hamlets, with a long and proud history of beating back fascist and far-right mobilisations, looked poised to hand them such a defeat.

It is precisely the fear that what organisers had called a “peaceful, community protest” could turn into an actual rout of UKIP that likely led local councillors to call for the Met to intervene. Now, the same forces wishing to curb a militant fight against these thugs are calling for a victory march in Whitechapel, while UKIP marches elsewhere, effectively splitting the forces set to oppose UKIP on the street.

This is a lesson in why you cannot look to the police to stop racist thugs. The left can always go on abstractly, and some already are, about how police bans can be used against the left, which is true. But this misses the point that right now the ban is being used to disarm the left and militant anti-fascists!

The Met action has demobilised and split the planned counter-protest. It has saved UKIP from very likely humiliation and allowed them to claim martyrdom as supposed victims of the so-called “Islamists”. And the Met will still be in Hyde Park to protect UKIP from whatever forces do show up to face them on Saturday.

We can have a victory parade if these scum find themselves swimming in the Thames. In the meantime, we need mass mobilisation to sweep UKIP off the streets—starting this Saturday in Hyde Park!