Celebrating May Day in Chesterfield

HOPE not hate by Alan Weaver | Wednesday, 6 May 2009

"Would you like to join the Hope not hate campaign against the BNP?"

It's a simple question to ask really, just about everyone we ask says yes, of course we will. So we were a bit taken aback to get the reply, "We vote for the BNP, we are not going to talk to you, we are getting stronger and when we are in power you won't be able to do this".

Now, I'm used to people laying out their prejudices but the elderly couple in question didn't seem to understand where they were. Because the activity they wanted to ban was the annual May Day celebration in Chesterfield, attended by hundreds of trade unionists from all parts of the country.

I don't know whether they were doing research for the BNP on the stall holders or secretly enjoying one of the best May Day celebrations in the country! They certainly stuck around for long enough to take advantage of the comradely atmosphere so maybe there is hope for them yet.

And there certainly was Hope in the air in Chesterfield on Bank Holiday Monday as dozens of trade unionists and concerned members of the public signed up to our growing campaign to keep the BNP out of the European Parliament. We spoke to lots of people who knew about the BNP threat but were not sure what to do about it. Signing up to the campaign was just the start and many of them pledged to do a couple of hours' leafleting to ensure others knew of the threat too.

The final word for me was the young woman with a baby who said she wanted to get involved in the campaign as the week before she had been abused in the street because her son was of mixed race. "He just stood there and shouted racial abuse at me", she said, "and no one on the street challenged him. That has never happened to me in Chesterfield before."

Is that not reason enough to join the Hope not hate campaign and do what you can to keep the racists off our streets and out of our political institutions?