On Sat 6 May, MFJ led a bold, integrated and overwhelmingly youthful mobilisation that inflicted a humiliating defeat on fascist plans for a recruitment rally in Croydon. The fascist, white supremacist South East Alliance planned an anti-immigrant demonstration, building on the immigrant-bashing politics of Brexit, and they seized on the brutal racist gang attack in Croydon, that left 17-year old Kurdish asylum seeker Reker Ahmed with near-fatal injuries, as a potential recruitment opportunity. Their hopes were completely trashed as we stopped them linking up with local racist thugs to organise a base in Croydon. Anti-racists from all sections of our multi-racial community - black, Kurdish, white, Asian, asylum seekers, students etc. - drove the fascists out of Croydon.

This was community self-defence in action, and a warning to any organised or wanna-be fascists seeking to recruit, that Croydon will shut them down.

The aim of Movement for Justice (MFJ) was firstly to stop the fascists from assembling and marching, but also to prevent potential supporters in Croydon from joining up with them. If they had succeeded in drawing in local racists it would lead to more racist attacks and spread hostility and division; an organised fascist presence in an area always increases racist and anti-immigrant violence. It is necessary for the community's self-defence to shut down the fascists wherever they march or organise.

Our demonstration, nearly 400-strong, made it impossible for the South East Alliance and their National Front allies to emerge from East Croydon station as a group. We stopped them having a public assembly there to draw in local racists, as they had planned. They were forced to make their way in ones and twos to the Wetherspoon's on George Street, where they were contained by the police. Eventually, a huge police operation escorted the 15-20 fascists who had not yet given up, to their destination - the Home Office immigration HQ at Lunar House. 

Brexit can only increase racism and immigrant-bashing; it is racist and has to be stopped. We are confronted by two possible futures, and the way Britain develops in the next few years will be decided in action. A new integrated generation of leaders must step forward to fight for a hopeful, integrated future, based on the equality of everyone who lives, works or studies in Britain, free to be the people we are. The alternative is to follow the inward-looking nationalist politics expressed in Brexit to a race-divided society at war with itself, with more repression and more poverty. The fascists are the advance guard of that divided future and must be defeated.

MFJ is committed to building a mass movement that will WIN. We stand with our brothers and sisters, citizens & immigrants, who are resisting fascists and tearing down borders across Europe. We fight to Stop Brexit, Defeat Racism, Open the Borders of Britain and Europe, and win a future of freedom, justice and equality for all.  Join MFJ!.

This is our eleventh demonstration at the notorious Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre. With every demonstration there is more vibrancy, more anger, more determination - with ex-detainees, asylum seekers, feminist and anti-racist activists from around the country demonstrating right at the fences of Yarl's Wood.

The women behind the fences join the demonstrations from their rooms with handmade banners, signs, ribbons of toilet paper, their arms and legs -defying the guards' threats and expressing their rage and determination to be free. The Surround Yarl's Wood demonstrations are palpable, direct and visibly impactful acts of solidarity, because they unite the daily resistance of the women inside who are fighting racism, sexual abuse, deportations and the absence of decent healthcare, with the fight outside by former detainees, immigrants and a whole generation of new young activists. This movement inside & outside detention has inspired a whole new, integrated generation of fighters, citizens & non-citizens. 

In Yarl's Wood 400+ women are indefinitely detained, most of whom have experienced rape, domestic violence, torture, forced marriage, sexual abuse, female genital mutilation and anti-gay persecution. Many of whom have long and deep connections to the UK, have been here most of their lives, have all their family and friends here. Many have children; some are pregnant, elderly, disabled, sick or and have mental health difficulties.

Yarl's Wood has been exposed time after time for the sexual abuse & harassment of women by male guards. Undercover investigations and the 2014 Parliamentary inquiry have exposed the racism & brutality of the whole detention system. It is time to SHUT DOWN all detention centres!