Leicester City is united

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

Members of Unite the Union, the Hindu Forum of Britain and the National Union of Students met in Leicester to launch their HOPE not hate campaign today (Sunday).

Whilst the city bathed in glorious and welcome sunshine, a steady stream of people accepted an invite to dine and meet together to discuss the BNP threat in the East Midlands.

Hope Not Hate organiser Sundip Meghani told the meeting that although the BNP might not seem a major threat in Leicester, the city is part of the wider community that is the East Midlands and everyone in Leicester is obliged to play their part.

Searchlight’s Matthew Collins (having another curry) spoke of his own experience of the BNP’s racism and division as well as drawing on the history of immigration to Leicester and how in the past the people of Leicester had fought the National Front together when the threat was more physical than electoral.

Matthew described the combined threat of increasing poverty and racism as "toxic", while Alan Weaver of the TUC called upon the unions to build the biggest day of action in the Midlands against the BNP that the region had ever seen.

Harish Patel of Unite promised that all faiths in Leicester would join together on 17 April to build a campaign and representatives of Leicester’s students agreed to build a day of action for Student Sunday, Union Friday and 17 May.

Twenty people agreed to form the committee to formulate the actions, a mixture of students, lawyers, chemists, bus drivers and union organisers.