27 November 2007 at 12:39 am
Just this moment walked in through the door back from the protest this evening, so here are some unvarnished reflections. As per usual, this place seems to be teeming with pro-Irving and Griffin activists (sorry, I cannot imagine another more appropriate way to describe people who promote ideas by enabling and defending their promulgation on a prestigious platform).
At 5.45pm, when I arrived, St Michael’s Street was home to three outside broadcast vans, swarms of journalists of all stripes and channels, some burly security guards with their SIA identification nowhere visible and a few protesters. I amused myself chatting to Matt Wilkinson of the Oxford Mail, who didn’t believe me when I said that more than a thousand were expected; he must have been surprised later on. More than six years ago, the last time the Oxford Union invited David Irving, there were a bunch of us organising, luckily more sucessfully, to keep him out of our city; I had a real moment of throwback as I bumped into David Mitchell, then a J-Soc stalwart and now a student rabbi, on my way to the demo, both of us grimacing ruefully at being back in Oxford having the same old arguments.
At its height, the demo stretched from Cornmarket to New Inn Hall Street, everyone packed tightly in together, rocking against the gates of the Union. Unite Against Fascism placards were next to handpainted signs calling on Oxford students to unite against the BNP, and more intrepid protesters scrambled up to perch precariously on the wall of the Union. As the samba band played and music rose from the sound system, the protesters, far more than a thousand I would have thought, shouted, sang and booed. Coachloads from London, Manchester and Liverpool, Oxford alumni, the Trades Council, the Labour Club, representatives from the Union of Jewish Students and NUS, Labour and Green councillors and even George Galloway joined in, calling on the Union to reject the BNP. Packed tightly in, three metres from the gates, I felt the crowd surge forward, and saw some protesters slip past the guards and police and into the Union gardens. We found out later, from listening to the live TV broadcasts over the shoulders of cameramen, that they got into the union debating chamber and delayed and disrupted the debate.
Back on the streets, the focus turned to the other entrance of the Union, on Frewin Court, as rumours spread that union members were being let in that way. Protesters surged round the corner, and arguments developed with union members waiting in frustration in a loose queue outside Gap to be let in, with little chance of success. It became clear how many police were deployed as we rounded the corner, particularly to watch a small group of men dressed in black, with their faces hidden by black scarves, carrying the banner of Bath AntiFa bearing the legend “no pasaran”. Some students, not seeing the banner, mistook the group for the far right, and certainly the police were not about to let them get close to the building, despite their best efforts to break out of the cordon. The BNP were not obviously present, though there were many snappers mingling with the corwd, and no doubt many photos will presently turn up on Redwatch. I hope that the nasty answerphone messages left for David Williams, a Green councillor who wrote opposing the invitations in the Oxford Mail, are the worst that happens.
As I was beginning to think about going home, I bumped into Evan Harris, the Lib Dem MP who spoke alongside Griffin and Irving this evening, stood outside. Having stood against him at the last election, our relations are none too cordial, so I went over and asked bluntly whether he’d attended in the end, hoping he’d at least had the decency to cancel at the last minute. Of course he hadn’t; apparently seeing the protesters climbing the walls of the union had only made him more determined to speak, and he had done so. I said how disappointed I was in him, which under the circumstances was, I thought, rather restrained of me. He then, exceedingly oddly, changed the subject and launched into criticism of my position on abortion. Incredibly strange. Worth remembering the credibility he gives to racists, mind.
So there we are; a successful evening in terms of not letting the BNP and Holocaust deniers swan about our city unchallenged, but a desperate one in that they’d even been invited. Who knows, and who cares, what was said in the rearranged and long-delayed meetings, when they finally started? I’m sure the clever clever undergraduates of Oxford University wiped the floor with Irving and Griffin, but what use is that when BNP leaflets are even now being printed saying “Of course, our leader Nick Griffin is a credible leader of a mainstream political party; after all, he was invited to the prestigious Oxford Union debating society at Oxford University, where Bill Clinton and Mother Teresa have spoken…” The damage is done, and now it’s apparently acceptable to give these types credibility, prestige and profile, all the while protesting your anti-racist credentials. Well done, Luke Tryl, and well done, Oxford Union.
