The Anti-Nazi League’s founders have called for the creation of a national campaign to oppose “all forms of racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism”.
In a letter to the Guardian, the group said that a new cultural and political movement was necessary to combat a “growing and serious challenge from the racist and fascist right” across British politics.
As examples of “the scale of the threat”, they cited the resurgence of Tommy Robinson, the former English Defence League leader, the storming of the London socialist bookshop Bookmarks and Boris Johnson’s comments about fully veiled Muslim women.
The letter is signed by Peter Hain, a former Labour minister, Paul Holborow, a political activist, and a group of musicians including Jerry Dammers of The Specials, the singer-songwriter Tom Robinson and the writer/producer Mykaell Riley, who were all active in Rock Against Racism.
“We need a broader based, imaginative and vibrant campaign which unequivocally opposes all forms of racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism,” the group said in response to a “welcome and timely” call to action from the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell.
Last week, McDonnell asked if “it’s time for an Anti-Nazi League-type cultural and political campaign” to resist “the rise of far-right politics in our society” after a string of racist incidents and at a time when both main parties have been embroiled in race rows.
The ANL was founded by Hain, Holborow and others in 1977 in response to the rise of the National Front, and organised a series of counter-demonstrations to the far-right party, which had hoped to break through in the 1979 general election.
It quickly linked up with Rock Against Racism, founded by a group of musicians in response to a notorious onstage racist outburst made by Eric Clapton, which organised a series of carnivals starting with an event in Victoria Park in Hackney, east London, in 1978.
The ANL was revived in the early 1990s as a counter to the British National party, after the racist party had won a council seat in London’s Docklands. Many of its activists were from the far-left Socialist Workers party, but the ANL was a broader movement encompassing Labour figures such as Hain and in its early incarnation Neil Kinnock.
Stand Up to Racism, the successor group to the ANL, should be at the heart any revived campaign, the letter authors said, but they added that the anti-racist movement urgently needed to be “deepened and extended” with the support of McDonnell and others.
Holborow said that conversations about how to proceed had only recently begun. Stand Up to Racism was organising a series of events around the country in September and a conference in October, he said, but called on others to get involved.
“We need more contemporary musical involvement. I would welcome something like rappers against racism, something with the power of Stormzy’s support for justice after the Grenfell fire,” Holborow added.
McDonnell described the response from the ANL founders as “very welcome, as public anger grows about Boris Johnson’s inflammatory comparison of Muslim women wearing burkas to letter boxes and bank robbers, as well as the storming of Bookmarks bookshops and the scale of Tommy Robinson demonstrations”.
The shadow chancellor pledged that the Labour party “will take a leading role in this movement against racism and fascism” and said it was time to start “serious practical work” to organise anti-racists and anti-fascists.
The letter from the musicians and activists concluded: “Whatever our other political differences, we believe the time to come together against the poison of racism and fascism is now.”
