Since 2014 International Ukraine Anti-Fascist Solidarity (IUAFS), and its predecessors have campaigned in solidarity with the people of the Donbass, and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics they created after the fascist Maidan coup backed by US imperialism. As part of the struggle against imperialism and its Ukrainian fascist puppets, we defend the Special Military Operation of Russia to crush the fascist threat from the US backed Azov, Aidar, Kraken, Svoboda and other such fascists who are the dominant forces in the Maidan Ukraine state apparatus. We support the defeat of this regime and the “Denazification of Ukraine” as the Russian government rightly set out as a key war aim.
Opposition to the NATO proxy-war in Ukraine is not confined to internationalists who act in solidarity with the victims of imperialism. Most of the far right are showing solidarity with the NATO-funded Nazis who infest and dominate the Ukrainian regime, with the likes of Azov, Aidar, Kraken, Svoboda and Right Sector who have dominated the Maidan regime since 2014. But there is a minority of fascists who oppose the Ukraine war. We have nothing in common with them, their differences with Ukraine’s Nazis are about tactics only. Thus, we oppose the decision, apparently taken by George Galloway, to organise an online rally with David Clews, who organises the Unity News Network, and voted not to endorse or support it at our meeting on 22nd May. It is a major error for others such as Chris Williamson to speak alongside Clews.
We subsequently intervened at the 25 May event, in the online comments (which was all that was open to us), to expose who Clews is to those attending the event. Some of those provided with this evidence subsequently agreed with us that Clews is a fascist. This material has been circulating among No2NATO circles in Scotland for a couple of weeks now, and knowledge of Clews’ politics is hopefully becoming more widespread. Some IUAFS comrades also raised a motion along the lines of this statement at the No2NATO members meeting in London on 27 May, though the discussion was not conclusive, and we did not press the issue to a vote on that occasion. We concluded that because of the seriousness of the issue, and the unclarity among No2NATO supporters generally, it was necessary to publicly air this issue and hopefully resolve it positively. We also stated our intention to do this at that members’ meeting.
Clews, who organised the 22 April Protest in Trafalgar Square on the slogan “Not a Penny More to the Zelensky Regime” is not working in solidarity with those under fascist attack. He writes:
“Our position is absolutely UNEQUOVICAL [sic!] these conflicts are NOTHING to do with us and we should be sending no money or weapons or getting involved in any way shape of form.
Now we can all have opinions and I am perfectly comfortable with those who are opposed to what is happening but my position is that we must put the needs of this country first!”
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/saturday-22nd-april-trafalgar-square-london-no-more-money-for-zelensky/
Clews is a fellow-traveller and publicist for Patriotic Alternative (PA), who have organised violent protests and attacks against refugees. Unity News Network have given sympathetic coverage to such hostile mobilisations (see https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/sturgeons-msm-describes-those-protesting-against-erskine-asylum-seekers-as-far-right-extremists/)
PA are a Nazi group whose ‘opposition’ over Ukraine is based on isolating British people from any involvement in the affairs of ‘foreigners’, not any notion of solidarity with those under fascist attack! PA is in favour of an Israeli-style ‘nation state’ law in Britain based on white nationalism. It has a programme of ‘assisted repatriation’ of non-white minorities in Britain.
Clews’ fascist politics are revealed in a long interview that he did for Unity News Network (UNN), with PA’s leader Mark Collett and his fellow fascist Laura Towler (https://www.bitchute.com/video/uHmChuA7faUE/).
During this discussion, he engages in a prolonged, sophisticated exchange with Collett and Towler, where both sides talk at length about the 1930s historical tactics of ‘revolutionary organisations’ (they clearly mean fascist/Nazi, white nationalist organisations), in diluting their views to reach a greater audience. Clews reassures Collett, that he shares all his basic views, but fears they will alienate ordinary people and have to be hidden, so a future saviour can ‘liberate’ white people from multiculturalism etc. It is clear that Clews is just as much a white nationalist as Collett but seeks a PR strategy to win over greater layers.
Clews is seeking to draw leftist anti-war activists into blocs with him. We should firmly reject such overtures. Any bloc with such forces is a serious mistake, and the kiss of death. We want to win over fighters against imperialist oppression to solidarity with the people of the Donbass, who are facing an imperialist campaign that funds Nazis to expel them (ethnic cleansing), as part of a wider project of balkanising and fragmenting Russia. We want to win fighters against imperialism from the many in the immigrant-derived parts of the working class to such an internationalist perspective.
This attempt at a bloc with the like of Clews is completely at odds with that aim, and can only seal us off from anti-imperialist layers who act in solidarity against fascism. As supporters of No2NATO No2War we repudiate this and call on the movement as a whole to do so. These fascists want to drive oppressed minorities out of the country in the name of white nationalism. Despite any temporary, formal similarly of demands at a given time, they are not allies, but enemies. Just as much enemies as the Nazis who murdered millions of Jews, Russians, Poles, Gypsies and other oppressed population such as gays and lesbians in the Nazi death camps, and the Azovists and similar fascists who are attacking Russia today.
