On July 21 a march organized by the Liverpool Irish Patriots Republican Flute Band was surrounded by the North West Infidels and other loyalist and fascist groups who tried to stop the march from going ahead,. They attacked the marchers as ‘IRA scum’ and ‘murderers’.
The march was organised under the slogan: Fight Racism and Fascism because of the rise in racism and fascism in Britain today. In addition to the Liverpool Irish community there were trade unionists and activists from Merseyside trades councils, Unite, RMT, PCS, UCU, Unison, Unite Against Fascism, and members of the Asian and Jewish communities.
James Larkin, who later founded the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union, was born into grinding poverty in Combermere Street in Toxteth, one of Liverpool’s poorest quarters, in the 1870s. Today, nearly 150 years on, it is recorded as being Britain’s most deprived district.
The annual march has always been a family occasion but racists and fascists continue to target Irish people along with Black, Asian and immigrant communities.
{module Propaganda 30 anos}The march, heavily policed and controlled away from its normal route along Park Lane, was taken by the police through Princes Park. Later it was revealed that the fascists had leafleted in the area before the march and that they were aware of the route of the march. The march organisers were not. The police posed as defenders of the march yet failed to arrest many of those shouting abusive racist comments to Black and Irish marchers.
The following week in a trade council meeting that the police told residents of Liverpool 8 community that they did not know the fascists were mobilising. This is difficult to believe because fascists did not hid their plans.
The Irish have not been the only target. Striking public sector workers, Occupy Liverpool protesters, left activists, Unite’s Liverpool offices and the leftwing bookshop News from Nowhere have been targetted.
Capitalism is the cause of unemployment and racism and fascism emerges out of capitalisms nooks and crannies. Fascist bands are useful to them as workers begin to increase their resistance to capitalism’s decay. An alliance of trade unionists and communities have to fight the fascists together and build the movement against the cuts.
