Vernon will deliver, the CWU won't

HOPE not hate / Searchlight by Ian T | Sunday, 5 April 2009

Vernon Coaker MP, the Minister of State for policing, security and crime, has pledged to help the HOPE not hate campaign by delivering Searchlight materials against the BNP.

Speaking at Saturday’s HOPE not hate day school in Nottingham, Coaker told the delegates that he would do whatever he could to stop the BNP, a party he holds particular revulsion for.

"I have stood against them before, I have seen what they want to bring to communities, in particular former mining communities, and I am obliged to fight them," he told the conference.

"Everything they stand for is based on a divisive racism and I want to work with the trade union movement to ensure they are defeated wherever they show themselves."

Speakers from the GMB, Unite and Unison also backed the campaign in the East Midlands. Louisa Wass Griffiths, Unison’s political officer for the region, told the conference that she was "proud to be associated with the HOPE not hate campaign.

"Fighting racism and bigotry is central to everything that I stand for as a trade unionist," she said.

Jason Hunter, a coordinator of the ‘Union Friday’ initiative, and the person who officially ate Nottingham’s hottest curry the night before, drove home the method and importance of organising for Union Friday.

The afternoon sessions were lively and informative and gave a clear indication that HOPE not hate is a very broad church with wide and varied thoughts and opinions. The closing plenary, chaired by Anjona Roy of Northampton CRE, included Searchlight’s Matthew Collins (officially exposed as having turned 37 the day before by Saturday’s Western Mail click here), Alan Weaver of Midlands TUC and CWU regional secretary Lee Barron.

Barron told the conference that he would be reminding his members that they are not obliged to deliver the BNP electoral address by virtue of a conscience clause in their employment contracts and that the nature of new workplace agreements meant that few others would see much benefit in bending over for the bosses to do so. "This," he told conference, "is just one offer of support our union will be giving to the HOPE not hate campaign".

And very welcome it is too.