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Author: Chris Moore | Date: August 1981
WHILE Coventry, South London and other areas of Britain have been terrorised by racist violence, the country's No.l Nazi, National Front Chairman Andrew Brons, has been hiding away in Harrogate. For eleven years Brons has taught British Government & Politics at Harrogate College of Further Education but now his cover is blown.
On 12 May a Union General Meeting voted to campaign for his suspension and since then students have picketed his lectures in order to get this one-time member of Colin Jordan's National Socialist Movement sacked.
Wednesday 24 June saw the biggest demonstration against Brons so far. Over 500 students and anti-racists from all over the country marched through Harrogate. The police have been predictably antagonistic throughout the campaign but their brutality on the 24th was totally unnecessary. Having served the Public Order Act on the march and obstructed the right to picket, they drove mounted police into the marchers, attacking demonstrators and arresting six anti-racists.
The strength and unity of the demonstration, however, was magnificent. When demonstrators took over the college building where Brons was hiding, having left his lecture (to which only one student turned up!) the NF leader was given the treatment he deserves, from black and white alike. The message was clear - anti-racists under attack from Nazi violence will fight back.
But, most significantly, the demo showed that there are skins here and elsewhere who are anti-Nazi, anti-racist and actively organising against Brons and his goon squads. During the march a "National Front Skins" banner was taken from the thirty or so Nazis Brons had managed to mobilise and at the rally afterwards a group of skins set it on fire, destroying both the banner and the myth that all skinheads are Nazis.
What is encouraging is that not only is the campaign winning support from Trades Councils, Labour Party branches, the National Union of Mineworkers Area Council (Yorks) and many sections of the labour movement, but also the support of youth in North Yorkshire. With Brons exposed, more and more people have seen the NF for the thugs they are and as more kids join the fight against the Nazis, so white youths and skins involved with the Front (and BM) realise they are being used and are leaving Brons to peddle his filth alone.
Anti-fascists are turning the tide against Andrew Brons and his thugs and with even Tory MP for Harrogate, Robert Banks, questioning Brons' right to teach, the Students' Union is confident that Principal Peter Drake can no longer continue to cover up and excuse Brons' activities. Students here will demonstrate, picket and boycott Brons' lectures until he is sacked.
© Searchlight Magazine 1981