The police failed Black Lives Matter protesters who were attacked by fascists in Trafalgar Square, reports Steph Pike

The serial liar and racist Boris Johnson last week told BLM protestors “I hear you”. His nose grew visibly longer as he buried sections of a report into the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities and then posted a series of inflammatory Trumpesque tweets which have undoubtedly emboldened the far-right, who took to the streets of London in their thousands today.

In Trafalgar Square, a brave group of BLM protesters came under sustained attack from hundreds of far-right thugs, who repeatedly charged at them and attacked them with smoke bombs, fireworks and bottles. The Police, out in force around Trafalgar Square, who have also pledged to listen to the black community in the wake of the BLM protests, failed to do so today.

They failed to protect the BLM protestors. Black protesters who asked the Police why they weren’t acting to protect them from the violent attacks by the fascists were told to ‘shut up and go away’.

The systemic and institutionalised racism that this government denies exists was in plain view; in Boris Johnson’s incendiary attempts to discredit the BLM movement and fan the flames of fascism and racism, and the Police’s refusal to defend and protect BLM protestors on the streets of London today.

We must continue to support the BLM movement and build a united campaign to keep fascists off our streets and to challenge the institutional and systemic racism that only a mass movement can challenge.