Melburnians to rally against the United Patriots Front this Saturday

The neo-Nazi group, United Patriots Front (UPF), announced a snap action outside Premier Daniel Andrews’ office this Saturday. UPF claims that Andrews has turned his back on ‘Aussie workers’, “parroting the usual diversity dogma while selling out the working Australian people.” For this, UPF calls him a communist. Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (CARF) has called out Melburnians to again counter-rally.

Debbie Brennan, CARF activist and member of the National Union of Workers (NUW) says, “Unionists have consistently come out in their thousands to stop this sinister threat for working people. Unions, such as the NUW, strongly support the counter-mobilisations against the far-right and neo-Nazis. We know that fascism aims to destroy the union movement. Its intent is to crush workers’ capacity to resist a global economic system that drops the full burden of its crisis onto us.”

CARF activist Vashti Kenway adds: “The government and police tell our diverse working class communities not to counter-rally against this dangerous menace. They say that by organising against it, we are inciting violence from the far right. But fascism took power in Germany and Italy last century, because no one organised against these stormtroopers. We saw the tragic consequences of failing to stop them when they were small. The violence we’ve seen from neo-Nazis and the Victorian Police, who facilitate their rallies, shows us why we have to counter-mobilise wherever and whenever they appear. We cannot let them grow into a movement.”

Brennan and Kenway say that the recent launch in Perth of the anti-Muslim political party, Australian Liberty Alliance, signals an effort by the far right to build a national electoral platform. They warn that, similar to developments in Europe, this could attract disaffected people who are looking for targets to direct their anger.

CARF’s counter-rally is 12.30 pm, Saturday, 28 November at Treasury Place, East Melbourne.