BNP meeting a wash-out

On Thursday July 5th members of Maryport Against Racism joined anti-racist campaigners from Carlisle and local residents on the Currock estate to protest against the BNP holding a public meeting in Currock house community centre.

Although we only found out about the meeting just over 24 hours before it started local residents managed to organise a protest of 25 people on a wet, weekday evening to picket the meeting. Those who joined the protest included a local WWII veteran who stated he opposed the BNP coming into the area because he had fought the Nazis over 60 years ago.

We had planned to leaflet members of the public who turned up to the meeting but only around 7 or 8 members of the public turned up anyway despite BNP members coming to the meeting from all over Cumbria. They had even got their key speaker, the failed fuel protestor Andrew Spence who managed to get almost two dozen people demonstrating at a national protest against high fuel prices in 2005, who is standing in Tony Blair’s ex-constituency in an upcoming by-election but this failed to draw in the crowds.

Despite the fact it was advertised as a public meeting the BNP refused to allow anyone in who had joined our protest and suddenly decided that it was a private meeting. Not that these lies should surprise anyone who is familiar with the BNP.

Thanks to the group of local kids and teenagers who joined our protest in the rain and livened it up with a few creative chants of “fight for what’s right, the BNP are sh*te!”