Far right stoke community resentments in Leicester

Over the past few weeks, tensions have been building on the Thurnby Lodge estate in Leicester, over plans to convert a disused scout hut into a Muslim community centre. Residents unhappy with the local government decision to lease to the As Salaam charity have staged nightly protests against the group's meetings drawing as many as 250 people. When community tension is high, the parasites of the far right are never far away and the BNP, EDL and Casuals United have all been along to stir things up. Yesterday the BNP even parachuted Nick Griffin in to give a speech.

BNP leader, Nick Griffin, parachutes in

The Leicester Mercury reports that police have been stationed in the area over the past week after demonstrations of as many as 150 people against the As-Salaam Trust’s plans to convert a disused Scout hut into a community centre for local Muslims.

Some demonstrators say they want the Scout hut turned into a resource for the whole community and others have voiced support for a local boxing club to take on the lease instead. However, Leicester City Council has said that when the Scouts gave up their lease of the hut last year, 100 community groups looking for premises were contacted of which As-Salaam was the only one that could meet the criteria agreed with the Scout Association.

The demonstrations, which Leicestershire BNP involved themselves in, have focused on the Muslim group’s meetings at the existing community centre. The BNP said that “When the Muslims finally left the Centre they were met with jeers and told that they were not welcome.” Of course, the BNP have written this up in a way that supports their own agenda of promoting a clash between white and other communities. However, it would be very worrying if the protests are taking on a communal and islamophobic nature.

It seems that the tragedy here is that, thanks to the capitalist system of landlordism and rent extraction combined with the patronage politics of local authorities, suitable venues for community activities are unavailable to the working class people in the area. Only groups with the funds and organisation to jump through the council’s hoops end up getting a look in. We need communities where everyone can share resources and find a place, not ones where the poor are locked out and some ethnic and religious minorities are blamed for the scarcity that is an inevitable result of capitalist economics.

Anti-fascists need to make sure that far right groups do not get a boost as a result of these protests. Residents of Thurnby Lodge have a right to shared community resources and a say in how their community is run rather than being dictated to by Leicester City Council. Any attempts by the far right to turn this into a racial or religious matter need to be firmly resisted. We need to get an anti-fascist presence in the estate, to talk to people about what manipulations the fascists are involved in as well as showing that we genuinely support the right to community self-organisation but not the division of communities along cultural and religious lines.

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East Midlands Anti-fascists