GSN events

Our next event:

COMMUNITY OVER DIVISION!

UNITY RALLY – SAT 26 SEPT | GLOUCESTER CITY CENTRE
Meet at Kings Square in Gloucester at 13:30

No to racism and sexism!
Yes to women’s and LGBTQ+ rights!
No to division and hate!
Yes to solidarity and workers rights!

Speeches, music, banners, unity!

After fourteen years of Tory austerity, we can all see the impact – crises in the NHS, housing and social care, and poor public services. The trade unions have a responsibility to defend the interests of working class people. Starmer was forced to do a U-turn on cuts to the winter fuel allowance and Unite the Union played a big part through its campaign against fuel poverty and for public ownership of the energy sector.

Reform and the far right cynically exploited fuel poverty and the housing crisis to sow division and apportion blame on the wrong people. We have seen a spike in hate crime against migrants,
black and Asian British citizens, and LGBTQ+ people.

Trade unions were formed to defend workers’ interests: to defend jobs and secure decent pay, safe working conditions, acceptable working hours, holiday and sickness pay. The trade union movement opposes anti-working class measures of government and local councils but also campaign on issues that affect the working class – housing, health, education, the crisis in adult social care, etc.

Rather than placing the blame for austerity and attacks on services on the profit-driven bosses and their political representatives, Reform and other groups on the right have focused on scapegoating people who aren’t to blame – refugees, migrants, people of colour, disabled people. trans people… The scenes of violence and intimidation in Belfast, Portsmouth and Dover are due to a minority of racists but many others, concerned about the future are being duped into thinking that these bogus anti-establishment parties are fighting in their interests.

Unity is our strength and we will stand firm against those that
aim to pit different workers and communities against each other.

Join with us on Saturday 26 September at Kings Square,
Gloucester at 1.30 pm – meet up with community and
faith groups, anti-racists, trade unionists and many others.

This event is organised by Gloucestershire Solidarity Network and Unite Community Gloucestershire.

Past events

August 22nd – Ibis Hotel

Once again we outnumbered the far right “patriots”. Around 135 people on our side, and at most 40 watching Nick Tenconi give a speech (and abandoning a planned march because there weren’t enough people). Many of these people were not local, including a set of ‘streamers’ who simply follow far-right events around the country. Watch videos from the August 22nd event.

February 15th – Ibis Hotel

Once again we outnumbered the far right “patriots”. There was a decent turnout for us given the weather – around 100 people. This is at least 3 if not 4 times as many as the 25-30 who turned up on the other side, most of whom seemed to be “independent journalists” aka grifting streamers we managed to ignore.

People brought creative placards and we enjoyed our playlist – and even some of theirs (we don’t understand why they think The Clash and Desmond Dekker would be on their side 😵‍💫).

It was great to see some of the people living in the hotel smiling, waving and giving us the thumbs up from the windows. The main reason we turn up is to show solidarity with people from Iran, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Sudan and other countries – who have been housed in the hotel while their asylum claims are processed. Most will be granted refugee status, because they are fleeing oppression, war, or torture. It was also great to hear from a local resident who has met some of the asylum seekers through the local church, and was really positive about both them and our efforts.

We heard a couple of good speeches, and some strong chanting – as you can hear (video of the speeches, as well as photos from the event, will come in the next few days).

This was the smallest mobilisation the local far right have had at the Ibis Hotel, but it seems the smaller their crowds get, the bigger their flags. And the weirder fancy dress – we were treated to the bizarre spectacle of someone dressed in Kinights Templar attire handing out medals to a hedge, and someone dressed as a nun performing some sort of holy water ritual on the verge. And, for all their chat about us not being local (when we are) one of their side was carrying a Grimsby flag 😅

We’ll all get back to working on positive change in our communities, but we’ll be keeping an eye out if the local far right try to organise anything again. Thanks to everyone who turned out!

November 2025