Combat far right at gigs and football matches, says veteran activist

Counter-protesting does not go far enough to fight the growing threat of the far right, a veteran activist has said, adding that anti-racists must organise concerts and meet the public at football matches.

- Robyn Vinter

Ameen Hadi, an organiser for Stand Up to Racism in Manchester who has been involved in the cause for more than four decades, called for the return of events such as Rock Against Racism and its successors.

He also said football clubs should return to working with anti-racism campaigners and allow them to leaflet inside stadiums as the new season gets under way.

"Counter-protesting alone is not going to solve the problem," Hadi said, referring to growing protests against refugees and asylum seekers. "We actually have to reach out to schools, to music-lovers, to other ways that people want to get together, to try and then say: 'Actually, these people aren't your enemy.'"

Concerts under the Rock Against Racism banner in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Love Music Hate Racism events in the early 2000s, are credited with having shifted public opinion at times when the far right was on the rise in the UK.