The Wealden UAF joined the Crawley Campaign Against Racism to man a stall at the Crawley Mela on July 28th/29th at the Hawth.

The CCAR is an organisation with a long and distinguished history, which has affiliated to the UAF, and which the Wealden UAF actively encourages Crawley-based members to join. Members from both organisations were at the Mela to explain their aims and welcome anyone who wanted to sign up as a new member.

Thank you to the many people who visited our stall at the Crawley Mela. The photographs in the Crawley Observer on August 1st showed how many visitors and participants at the Mela were wearing Unite/UAF badges and stickers.

If anybody has their own photographs of the UAF stall or of people wearing the badges and would be happy for us to use those photographs on this site or in printed material please let us know. We will, of course give full attribution for any photos used if requested.

(Thanks to CCAR for the photo above) 

From the Crawley News, July 18th

‘Say no to racism’

An anti-fascist group has formed to combat the growing popularity of far-right organisations in the area.
About 30 people came to Wealden Unite Against Fascism’s first official meeting last Tuesday at St. John’s Hall, Church Walk
Member Andrew Skudder said the group’s main aim was to “combat the propaganda spread by the British National Party” over a subject “which goes beyond politics”.
Mr Skudder added: “The BNP now has four councillors across the Wealden area, which covers Crawley Horsham, Redhill and Reigate.
“It is blatantly racist but it’s not only that, it is against homosexuals and gypsies as well.
“The fight is broader than just a fight against racism.”
Roles were allocated during the meeting with Crawley Labour activist Barry Richards elected chairman.
Nineteen-year-old James Haywood, from Oxted, volunteered to act as the group’s secretary.
He said: “I went on an anti-Nazi march a few years ago and just seeing what the BNP was doing and the hate it was causing - that’s what got me into anti-fascist politics.”
He added: “I really want to try to get young people involved. What the BNP does is just so wrong.”
The group plans to launch a number of campaigns and are in talks with national organisation Love Music Hate Racism to put on a summer concert.
The group, which has been around in a loose form since 2005, is part of the national Unite Against Fascist movement.

Generally a positive and supportive story, but a couple of factual errors should be pointed out:

• The subject does not go “beyond politics”. It is politics in its most basic sense - the actual quote was that it goes “beyond party politics”, meaning that those who are normally political rivals are working together on the project.
• The BNP do not have four concillors in the Wealden area. They did stand four candidates in Crawley this year, and another two in Horsham, but fortunately none was elected.

The second, and most important point about councillors was corrected in the next edition of the paper.

At an open public meeting in May there was a good turnout, with Crawley Borough, Horsham District and Reigate & Banstead all represented. Everybody agreed that there should be a local branch of the UAF but as there are no local branches at all between London and Brighton & Hove those from outside Crawley and Horsham asked if it could be expanded to include other areas, to give them something to join, with a longer-term aim of splitting up into local branches as support and membership grows.

With this in mind a working group was delegated to draw up a proper constitution and organise an AGM where the constitution could be formally adopted and a UAF branch formed which could then start enrolling members.

A constitution was drawn up and an inaugural AGM held in Crawley on July 10th 2007.   The constitution was adopted, and officers were elected from the floor.