The election of a member of the Nazi BNP to the London Assembly and the revival of the Tories make the fight against racism especially urgent. From the Anti Nazi League to Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) today, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) has always been at the forefront of challenging racism and fighting for liberation. That is why we were shocked to read the outrageous slander about our involvement in the NUS Black Students campaign by the current officer. Our approach reflects the growing resistance to racism and the potential to build this new movement. Hundreds of thousands have taken part in Love Music Hate Racism activity across the county including the massive LMHR London carnival. That has become a reference point for further education and school students across London bringing popular culture together with the struggle against racism. Our comrades have been engaging with debates across the country about how to best challenge the rise of the Nazi’s and racist right by building for the Unite against Fascism demonstration on the 21st June and taking LMHR into the BNP’s strongest areas in places like Stoke and Rotherham.

Now Tory Mayor Boris Johnson has announced that the “Rise against Racism” festival will be about “communities” rather then racism killing its political content. The SWP will be central to building resistance to this attack as we have been over every attempt to deny the issue of racism in society. We have campaigned for justice in response to the racist murders of Stephen Lawrence, Christopher Alder and Antony Walker. Our members are at the forefront of organising migrant workers from Eastern Europe in the trade unions. In the late 60’s it was an SWP member on the docks who leafleted against the march in support of Enoch Powell while other dockers were caught up in Powell’s racist hysteria.

It is this alliance between socialists and an emerging anti-racist movement we hope to bring into the NUS Black Students Campaign. We reject Ruqayyah’s contention that democratising the campaign and opening it up to activists on the ground will benefit the rightwing of the student movement. A left wing student movement can only be based on democratic, campaigning groups on every campus. Attempts to build the left by manipulation and locking down democratic structures are bound to fail.

Ruqayyah implies that we oppose Black self organisation. In fact we have always defended the right of black students to organise independently. But independent organisation does not, as she argues, defend against “opportunism”. Avoiding opportunism requires a mass democratic movement controlled from the bottom-up fighting both racism and the system that breeds it. Our real difference is that we want a radical and democratic campaign controlled from below while the Broad Left wants a campaign tightly controlled from above.

The SWP believes in a complete over throw of society and the creation of a socialist society with equality for all. Therefore we support all efforts to organise against oppression regardless of the blocks thrown up by capitalism. Only a movement comprising of the whole working class, black and white, that can over come the power of the system which propagates racism and is built on their exploitation.

Our position at NUS Black Students Conference was clear. We organised with and supported Assed Baig and other Student Respect supporters to get the most radical candidates elected and policy passed. We succeeded in affiliating the campaign to LMHR for the first time and elected several people to the committee. We advocated (alongside Student Respect) a second vote for the Student Broad Left.

The Student Broad Left is heavily involved in Galloway’s split from Respect and are trying to draw parallels. The politics and choice is similar – an erosion of principled methods and policy for electoral gain or a focus on building the broadest and most radical movement against the horrors of war, racism and exploitation.

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