Last month, the NF marched under the banner 'Kick out the Iranians and Lebonese'. With 700-800 supporters stepping out from Hyde Park it looked like one of the strongest protests the ultra-right have launched for sometime.
But where was the opposition? Where was the ANL which-only • ew years betore - had been ...- :00.000 onto the 'Nazi Front"?
The answer is quite simple.As a national organisation.the ANL nu longer realiy exists. Despite its promise of a few years ago, it has now declined to such an extent that its branches are no more than empty shells.
STATE RACISM The reason for this is not difficult to discover. While it was able to pull thousands of young Black and white youth onto the streets, many of them - as time progressed - began to realise that turning up once in a while to combat the NEwasn't enough.
They realised that, despite the filth pushed out by the NF they were not the main threat. The main threat stemmed from the Tory government which,by tightening the Immigration Act and 'sus' law, was deliberately whipping up race hatred against Black people.
The extent of disillusion with the ANL by the black community was shown recently in Bristol, when they told the ANL- which had come to 'defend' them from police harassment- where to go. Clearly they realised that the ANL was not really concerned with building opposition to racist laws, but only in 'parachuting' itself in at a time of publicity.
CARL Far from getting involved at this stage with mindless 'confrontations' with the NF, the Black community has become involved in more serious campaigns. One of these is the Scrap 'sus' campaign and the other, and more far-reaching, is the campaign against the 1971 Immigration Act (CARL).
This campaign-mainly with the the Indian Workers Assuciations-mobinised a mass 15000 strong demonstration last November against the Tory proposals and local CARL groups are now beginning to develop around the country.
As socialists, our main struggle against racism today should be to win as much support as possiblefrom within the labour movement - against che racist immigration policies of the Tory government and to build CARL.