The Socialist Workers' Party has decided this year to mobilise heavily through Unite Against Fascism against the BNP's "Red, White, and Blue" festival in Codnor, Derbyshire, on 15 August.

At the opening rally of the SWP's "Marxism 2009" event in London on 2 July, a call for the counter-demonstration was given top billing, and lots of UAF leaflets were distributed.

The UAF leaflets describe the counter-demonstration as "called by UAF in conjunction with local UAF and LMHR groups". That is a flat untruth. The anti-BNP mobilisation was initiated, as in 2008, by Notts and Amber Valley Stop the BNP groups, and the Derby Campaign against Racism and Fascism.

In 2008 the SWP and UAF stood aside from the mobilisation. In the end they sent a small contingent which assembled separately from the main demonstration and then tried by unilateral action to take over the march following the rally. SWP members should demand that this year SWP and UAF officials discuss and cooperate with the local anti-fascist campaigns, rather than trying to gazump them.

The other big SWP effort announced at the "Marxism 2009" opening rally was for a demonstration at the Labour Party conference in Brighton on 27 September, apparently sponsored by the lecturers' union UCU.

The opening speaker was a student from Leeds University speaking on anti-fascism. (Surprising. The choice suggests that the SWP consider their effort in Leeds to be their best in anti-fascism. But AWLers in Leeds have reported UAF activity there as less rather than more vigorous than we would expect...)

She got a lot of applause for saying that the BNP's election gains "flagged up the need for a new workers' party", a formula the SWP has not previously used.

Jess Edwards, an activist from Lambeth NUT, described the present situation in Britain as a "massive rise in class struggle". Richard Boyd Barrett from the Irish SWP was enthusiastic about the successes of the "People before Profit" electoral coalition put together by the Irish SWP with others for recent local government elections in Ireland (five councillors elected). Conceding that the left in Britain is doing less well electorally at present, he nevertheless thought that similar electoral gains should be possible in Britain.

The SWP Central Committee speaker, Alex Callinicos, did not really pick up on the themes floated by Boyd Barrett (electoral ventures), Edwards (massive rise in class struggle), or the Leeds speaker ("need for a new workers' party").

On Unite Against Fascism, Callinicos said that he was proud how well UAF had protested after (!) the BNP victories in the Euro-elections.

He mentioned the SWP's "left unity" call - one apparently addressed to no-one in particular, and one where the SWP gives no answer to people who respond saying "yes, let's discuss unity"! - but offered little on how the SWP plans to take that forward.

The evidence so far is of an SWP Central Committee not sure about where to go next.