News / protest

‘Our streets don’t belong to the far right’

By Martin Booth  Saturday Sep 30, 2023

A march from Redcliffe to Wapping Wharf was held on Saturday in response to a recent gathering of people outside a hotel currently closed to the public which only houses asylum seekers.

Hundreds of protesters marched in solidarity with the refugees now living in our city behind a large banner from the Bristol branch of Stand Up To Racism reading ‘refugees welcome here’.

Placards contained slogans including ‘no-one is illegal’ and ‘migrants make our NHS’, with car horns beeped and bicycle bells rang as the march made its way around the city centre.

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The march on Saturday afternoon began from the Portwall Lane car park

In a speech on Museum Square next to the M Shed, Anne Lemon from Stand Up To Racism Bristol said that the reason why groups such as the English Defence League and National Front “all failed is because we got out onto the streets and stopped them”.

Lemon added: “Generations of people have done that. We’ve stood up to them and we’ve said to them, ‘Whose streets are these? They are our streets and they don’t belong to the far right.'”

Several hundred took part in the march

Booooo to fascism

People from across Bristol attended the march

‘Refugees are welcome, fascists are not’

All photos: Rob Browne

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