No Pasaran: Liverpool update

Well done to all the areas of the country that turned out on Wednesday 7th August.

Here in Liverpool a call out to Defend Asylum Link was made and thoroughly prepared for. The work for the call out went into the community local to Asylum Link, to the trade union activists, Palestine activists, the Muslim community and the left activists, and of course Mersey Pensioners.

Thorough preparation and the national mood all helped.

We thought the far right would turn up and the police thought so too. Having seen the violence of last Saturday, there were good reasons to be prepared for that.

One section of our mobilisation met in Lodge Lane – an area that had been leafleted and where we had links. That section marched as a bloc to Asylum Link. UCU members walked as a group from the University. There were obvious far right spotters reporting in as we left the University.

We had first aiders and comrades with water and snacks.

The whole street was blocked with our people and the far right turned back.

Nationally and locally we won on Wednesday.

The harder work starts now. Our ideas have to reach the youngsters in our streets and communities.

Faced with a real-time threat to their members at work the unions organised. Anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-far right work must be developed at work, not outsourced to other organisations.

Three moments from the defence of Asylum Link:

• A chance conversation with a woman in the crowd. She happened to work at Asylum Link. They feed 200 people a day and cook food from different countries so each person one day says, “This tastes like home. Thank you for remembering me”.
• An old priest, someone I last saw at the very frightening Suites Hotel incident in Knowsley, was there with the same beautiful home made banner. “You are my brother, you are my sister”. For him to come having seen that violence really meant something.
• The Imam from the Abdullah Quilliam Mosque spoke of meeting up with some of the “protesters” who had tried to attack the mosque, and beginning a real dialogue with some of them.