Action in support of immigrants in South Wales

On Friday the 8^th of August, an anti-immigrant protest was called in South Wales. It was advertised as being organised by “concerned citizens” and “not the far-right”. This was outside the Holiday Inn hotel near Cardiff Airport which houses Afghan families of people who supported the British Army during the war in Afghanistan.

A counter-protest was also organised by Stand Up to Racism Wales. The Welsh Communist Party supported the counter-protest and several members took part alongside other groups. Some notes from our assessment of the action follow:

• The anti-immigrant protesters were about 70 whereas the pro-immigrant protesters were about 110.
• The anti-immigrant protesters included people who clearly identify as far-right and fascist including supporters of Tommy Robinson.
• The anti-immigrant protesters also included people who are not fascists and may not have a full picture of who they were standing next to. This was evident by the fact that several children were brought to the protest (including a baby), an environment clearly inappropriate for children.
• A number of anti-immigrant protesters turned up late and clearly with instructions to intimidate. They made several moves to that direction without direct provocation, but were stopped by the police.
• The anti-immigrant protesters clearly had no background in protest and in struggle and their protest lacked creativity, character and coordination.
• The pro-immigrant protesters consisted of groups that have long experience in peaceful protest and displayed energy, creativity and a clear sense of unity in support of immigrants. They followed instructions by the police in terms of the site area to occupy.
• The pro-immigrant protesters led the protest with chanting. In our view the choice of chanting was not always positive. While pro-immigrants chanting clearly united everyone in the pro-immigrant protest, the chanting labelling the anti-immigrant protest as fascist did not always do so. The risk of labelling someone a fascist is that they adopt that identity even if they are not fascists only to antagonise the counter-protesters. This, then legitimises the actions of the actual fascists who are seeking to hide their violent behaviour behind the backs of normal people.
• The police handled the protests successfully and there were no incidents during the protest despite the attempts of the far-right protesters to intimidate.
• The police completely mishandled the dispersion of the groups after the protest. The counter-protest group attempted to leave as one unit to ensure the safety of its members. This is standard tactics that the police is obviously aware of. However, the police did not stop the traffic for the group to be allowed to leave the site in one unit and as a result the group was broken down in multiple small groups which increased the risk of attacks from the far-right violent protesters. Given the scale of the protest, blocking the traffic for maximum 2 minutes would be enough. At the same time the far-right protesters shifted on the roundabout to continue antagonising the counter-protesters thus putting themselves at risk from the ongoing traffic. Standard practice would have required that one group stays in place while the other leaves and the police should have ensured that was the case, but instead lost control of the situation which could have led to violent conflict and accidents happening.

The statement of the Communist Party on class solidarity can be found on the main Party website.