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• Labour: Laura Moffatt MP (already withdrawn)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

There will be a general meeting of the Wealden UAF on October 3rd.  This meeting is open to all members, but non-members are welcome to come along and join on the night. (Membership is a reasonable £5, or £2 for unwaged plus any discretionary donations)

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the way forward for the organisation in the longer term, and a proposal to do some awareness-raising leafletting in Horsham and Redhil.  Since then the BNP have announced a candidate in October's by-election in Horsham.

There will also be an opportunity to elect a new member to the executive committee as there is a vacancy.

7:30pm Wednesday October 3rd
St John's Church Hall
Town Centre
Crawley

St John's is right next to County Mall, Crawley bus station and Crawley railway station.

From the Crawley News, July 18th

‘Say no to racism’

An anti-fascist group has formed to combat the growing popularity of far-right organisations in the area.
About 30 people came to Wealden Unite Against Fascism’s first official meeting last Tuesday at St. John’s Hall, Church Walk
Member Andrew Skudder said the group’s main aim was to “combat the propaganda spread by the British National Party” over a subject “which goes beyond politics”.
Mr Skudder added: “The BNP now has four councillors across the Wealden area, which covers Crawley Horsham, Redhill and Reigate.
“It is blatantly racist but it’s not only that, it is against homosexuals and gypsies as well.
“The fight is broader than just a fight against racism.”
Roles were allocated during the meeting with Crawley Labour activist Barry Richards elected chairman.
Nineteen-year-old James Haywood, from Oxted, volunteered to act as the group’s secretary.
He said: “I went on an anti-Nazi march a few years ago and just seeing what the BNP was doing and the hate it was causing - that’s what got me into anti-fascist politics.”
He added: “I really want to try to get young people involved. What the BNP does is just so wrong.”
The group plans to launch a number of campaigns and are in talks with national organisation Love Music Hate Racism to put on a summer concert.
The group, which has been around in a loose form since 2005, is part of the national Unite Against Fascist movement.

Generally a positive and supportive story, but a couple of factual errors should be pointed out:

• The subject does not go “beyond politics”. It is politics in its most basic sense - the actual quote was that it goes “beyond party politics”, meaning that those who are normally political rivals are working together on the project.
• The BNP do not have four concillors in the Wealden area. They did stand four candidates in Crawley this year, and another two in Horsham, but fortunately none was elected.

The second, and most important point about councillors was corrected in the next edition of the paper.

At an open public meeting in May there was a good turnout, with Crawley Borough, Horsham District and Reigate & Banstead all represented. Everybody agreed that there should be a local branch of the UAF but as there are no local branches at all between London and Brighton & Hove those from outside Crawley and Horsham asked if it could be expanded to include other areas, to give them something to join, with a longer-term aim of splitting up into local branches as support and membership grows.

With this in mind a working group was delegated to draw up a proper constitution and organise an AGM where the constitution could be formally adopted and a UAF branch formed which could then start enrolling members.

A constitution was drawn up and an inaugural AGM held in Crawley on July 10th 2007.   The constitution was adopted, and officers were elected from the floor.