WE WILL NOT LET THE COMMUNALISTS DIVIDE US!

On October 31, two sets of reactionaries will take to the streets of London. One group is "Islam4UK", an Islamist organisation led by Anjem Choudhary and descended from the now-illegal Al-Muhajiroun. They have organised a "March 4 Sharia", in which they will demand the imposition of theocratic Islamic law in the UK. Islamic religious law has many interpretations, but wherever it has been applied it has meant severe repression for women, LGBT people, religious and national minorities, secularists, trade unionists and other dissidents. In the face of growing anti-Muslim racism from the press and the far-right, Islam4UK offer Britain's Muslims a blind alley of reactionary religious politics.

In response to this demonstration, a splinter group from the thuggish English Defence League (styling itself the "EDL - St. George's Division") has called a counter-demonstration. The EDL claim to protest merely against Islamic fundamentalism, but the prominent involvement of several members of the BNP and other fascist and far-right organisations reveals their true agenda; they are racists. Wherever such forces find room to organise, they pose an immediate physical threat to ethnic minorities, asylum seekers and others. As white working-class people are abandoned by mainstream politics and beaten down by increasing cuts and unemployment, the racist lies of the EDL, the BNP and others - which seek to scapegoat ethnic minorities, migrant workers and asylum seekers for problems caused by privatisation and profiteering - will find footholds unless the working-class left is able to provide a positive political alternative.

Hysteria around the day has been whipped up by the gutter press, with the Daily Express in particular giving the Islam4UK march coverage far out of proportion to its size and significance. The Express and other tabloids have inflated the significance of the march to suggest that Islam4UK represent a substantial tendency within the Muslim community, rather than the far-right fringe element that they are. However, with the coverage afforded to them by right-wing rags, they can realistically hope to substantially grow in size and influence. Wherever such forces have been able to grow, it is people within the Muslim communities themselves - women, LGBT people, secularists and other dissidents - who have been first in the firing line.

Against this backdrop, we believe there is an urgent need for a third presence on the streets of London on October 31 - a working-class, anti-capitalist, anti-racist presence that can make a positive case for secularism, workers' unity and common struggle against the far-right communalist reaction of both Islam4UK and the EDL. For all workers - Muslim and non-Muslim, white and black, British-born and migrant - the only way to fight against racism and the social conditions that have allowed it to grow is to cut their roots. A united struggle around issues like jobs, pay and public services could provide a vision for a society run in the interests of human need rather than private profit; a society in which the poisonous politics of groups like Islam4UK and the EDL could not take hold.

Supporters include:

Worker-Communist Party of Iran (Hekmatist)
Worker-Communism Unity Party of Iran
Alliance for Workers' Liberty