The no2id organisation is holding a public meeting in Crawley on March 25th, billed as a question time on civil liberties.

The organisers have invited the local Crawley prospective candidates for all political parties to speak at this event - including the BNP.

If anybody feels that there is something hypocritical about the BNP speaking about civil liberties, or if supporters of any of the other parties are unhappy with the idea of their own representative sharing a platform with the BNP they can either contact the organisers directly (south.east@no2id.net) or contact other speakers directly.

At the moment the advertised speakers are:

• Labour: Laura Moffatt MP (already withdrawn)
• Conservative: Henry Smith
• Lib Dem: Godfrey Newman (Horsham candidate)
  
• Green party: Philip Smith
• UK Independence party: Chris French
• Justice party: Arshad Khan
• BNP: Richard Trower

UAF National Conference
Saturday 21 Feb 2009
9:30am - 4:30pm
TUC Conference Centre
Great Russell Street
London WC1

Special guests and speakers include:

• Ken Livingstone
• Jon McClure (aka 'the Reverend' from Reverend and the Makers
• Glyn Ford MEP
• Billy Hayes (CWU)
• Megan Dobney (Southern & Eastern TUC)
• Dr Abdul Bari (Muslim Council of Britain)
• Wes Streeting (NUS)
• Edie Freedman (Jewish Council for Racial Equality)
• Weyman Bennett (UAF and ANL)
• Sabby Dhalu (UAF and National Assembly Against Racism)
• Martin Smith (LMHR)

Tickets will cost £20 for Organisation delegates, £10 for inviduals, Student/Unwaged £3 - 100 free student places available on a first come first served basis.

Last year’s Unite Against Fascism conference was extremely successful with over 500 people attending the event. This year’s conference will be an important event that will enable discussion on strategies that have been successful in defeating fascism and help us organise activity across the country to stop the BNP in these elections. There will be a number of practical workshop sessions dealing with ways of opposing fascists in the workplace and wider communities.

Full details here

Online registration will be available shortly via the above link.

Tonight saw the anti-fascist organisations in Sussex complete a hat-trick, when the BNP cancelled their Christmas party in Crawley and hastily re-arranged the party in Berkshire instead.  This followed events in Hastings and Brighton & Hove this week where BNP meetings were cancelled after demonstrations.

Their plan had been for BNP members to meet in a car park in Crawley to get directions to the secret venue for their party, but these plans were thwarted in two ways.  Firstly the secret venue was made aware that the booking they had was for the BNP using a false name and cancelled the booking.  Secondly, local anti-fascist campaigners gathered in the car park for the benefit of those partygoers who had not got the message about the change of plans.

Having shown that this corner of Sussex does not want to be associated with the BNP, the protesters heard some short speeches from local MP, Laura Moffatt, national LMHR organiser, Lee Bellingham, and representatives from Wealden UAF, the national UAF, National Union of Students and the trade unions.

Wealden UAF would like to thank the NUS, trade unions, LMHR, UAF and all the other organisations and individuals who turned out to show their support tonight.

Stop the Fascist BNP's South-East Xmas jolly

THIS SATURDAY 13th DECEMBER
GATHER 6pm, B&Q CAR PARK, London Road, Crawley, West Sussex RH10 6WD

PEACE AND GOODWILL TO ALL IN THE FESTIVE SEASON – BRING CANDLES, BANNERS, WHISTLES AND FESTIVE SONGS

Anti-fascists in Sussex have already stopped two BNP meetings/socials going ahead in our area this week – they had to cancel their Hastings meeting on Monday after the venue pulled following pressure from local LMHR supporters, the local MP and local councillors. Then on Wednesday a magnificent 300 people turned out to occupy the planned redirection point for the relaunch of a Brighton & Hove BNP branch – the BNP have postponed this meeting.  Join us on Saturday to make a hat-trick of triumphs for everyone opposed to racism and fascism in Sussex.

Called by Unite Against Fascism and Love Music Hate Racism, supported by National Union of Students, PCS London& SE Region, Medway Trades Council, Merton Trades Council, NASUWT, Kingston/Sussex/Kent Uni's NUS; Brighton/Hastings/Portsmouth/East Kent/Surrey LMHR groups; Kent/Brighton/Wealden/West Sussex Coast UAF groups; Worthing Against Racism, Kent UNISON, Sussex Univ UNISON

WWW.UAF.ORG.UK  0207 833 4916

WWW.LOVEMUSICHATERACISM.COM  020 7801 2781 // 07838 156

Crawley News story

Some reminders for the next couple of weeks:

1.
Its local elections on May 1st.  Its important to vote anyway, but if you are in one of the 10 wards in Reigate & Banstead or Crawley with a BNP candidate it is especially important to go out and vote for any other candidate.  Every voter who stays at home makes the BNP proportion of the vote look higher!

2.
Love Music Hate Racism are holding their free carnival in Victoria Park, London on Sunday, April 27th. Full details at www.lovemusichateracism.com.  It should be a great day out and its only a short train ride from the Wealden area.

3.
If you can't get to the carnival you can still show your support by texting LMHR to 84424 which will donate £3 to help meet the costs of holding the carnival.

4.
Its never a bad time to join us and help to keep fascist parties out of the Wealden area.

In case anyone needs reminding, the full line-up on Sunday is:

• The Good The Bad The Queen
• Jerry Dammers & RAR Allstars
• Drew McConnell (Babyshambles) + friends feat v/special guests
• Hard-Fi
• Akala
• Roll Deep presents… inc Wiley, Tinchy Stryder, Jammer
• Jay Sean
• Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
• Poly Styrene (X-ray Specs)
• Bashy
• Natty
• The View
• Patrick Wolf
• Paddingtons
• The Thirst
• The Tribunes
• Rugrats
• Statik
• Target
• Nihal
• Don Letts
• Ace n Vis
• Dennis Bovell's  London Lovers'
• Rock Crew
• London Community Gospel Choir
• Mistajam + PA's tbc
• Aruba Red (PA)
• Tommy Def v King Bats
• Target & Karnage
• Dubstep slot with Skream & Benga
• Old skool jungle with DJ Hype & Daddy Earl
• DJ Nihal
• Heartless Crew
• Adelaide McKenzie
• Hoodstars
• Ny
• Snakeyman / No.Lay / Lil Rascals / Stylo G
• Mecca 2 Medina
• Nathan 'Flutebox' Lee

There are a few interesting late additions to the line-up at the LMHR carnival on April 27th.

• The Good The Bad & The Queen
  (Damon Albarn, Paul Simonon & Tony Allen)
• The View
• Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly

If you can't make it, you can still help out by making a donation to the cause: just text LMHR to 84424 and Love Music Hate Racism will get three quid towards fighting racism.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the first Rock Against Racism festival in 1978 those nice people at Love Music Hate Racism have arranged a carnival in Victoria Park, London on Sunday April 27th.  The event runs from 12 noon until 6pm and entry is free - although donations to support it are obviously welcome.

There will be two outdoor stages and a club marquee in the park.  Activities include speakers, debate and, of course, music.  The full line-up is here and includes Hard-Fi, Jerry Dammers, Poly Styrene, Nihal, Jay Sean, Don Letts, Roll Deep and many, many more including the mysterious "Rock Against Racism All-stars ft very special guests"

Victoria Park is within easy walking distance of many tube stations. 

From Friday's West Sussex County Times:

Anti-BNP initiative

Anti-British National Party campaigners staged a protest in Horsham's Carfax on Saturday.The rally was led by Ray Chapman, Labour candidate for the Holbrook West by-election, and Horsham Labour parliamentary candidate Andrew Skudder.The initiative was backed by local anti-BNP group Wealden Unite against Fascism who campaign against BNP activity in West Sussex.
Mr Chapman said the protest was well received by Horsham residents.
He said he was particularly proud to stand against the BNP in Holbrook, where he has been resident for over 20 years.
"I'm very concerned to see the increased activity by the BNP in Horsham." he added.

While there is, apparently, no such thing as bad publicity there are a few points to note here:

1. It was not a protest
2. It was not a rally
   We were just talking to voters, reminding them of the importance of voting in elections, and letting them take leaflets from us.
3. Andrew Skudder is not the parliamentary candidate for Horsham Labour.
   Until an election is called there are no candidates; only prospective parliamentary candidates, and even that is subject to endorsement by Labour's NEC.
4. The event was not backed by Wealden UAF
   It was organised by us, albeit at the request of Ray Chapman and his colleagues in Horsham LP because they were unable to join in with the UAF's by-election activity on Oct 6th.
5. Wealden UAF does not just campaign against BNP activity in West Sussex
   It only covers the Northern part of West Sussex and, in the absence of any other groups, it also covers parts of Kent, East Sussex and Surrey

The article is unfortunate, in that it gives the false impression that the Wealden UAF is supporting the Labour party.  While many members are indeed Labour members we do support that party, there are members of of other parties and some who belong to no party at all.

The Wealden UAF is scrupulously careful to not promote any one party over the others, regardless of any personal loyalties of individual members.

Following the previous week's sighting of two BNP members trying to drum up support in Horsham, last weekend the Wealden Unite Against Fascism campaign were out in rather larger numbers.

The UAF members spoke to many people in the Carfax and the reception was very positive for the first event organised by the new Wealden UAF.  The BNP thrive when there is no organised opposition and they know it too, if the reaction so far is anything to go by.

Next week there is a by-election in the Holbrook West ward of Horsham and the UAF is asking everybody there to not stay at home, but to get out and use their vote to support any party which supports the UAF's aims to oppose Fascism in all its forms.