By Beth Aze
Sunday 25 April saw French fascist leader Jean-Marie Le Pen arrive in Manchester. Shouldn't have been too much of a surprise really.
For all that Manchester is a hugely multi cultural city, Greater Manchester suffers the same problems as much of the UK. Poor housing, limited job opportunities, overstretched public services.
Plenty of opportunity, then, to scapegoat Black and Asian communities.
In Burnley the BNP is the main opposition party on the council. It is in the North West that BNP leader Nick Griffin has chosen to stand in the European elections. He needs as little as 8% to get elected.
For Le Pen's visit several hundred trade unionists, students, activists and socialists hastily gathered in central Manchester to express their opposition.
Next followed a mystery tour of Greater Manchester, culminating in more than 120 people arriving at the Cresta Hotel in Altringham.
The loud chants of the picket must have reached the ears of the fascist press conference; some shouted in French for the benefit of the non-English speaking Le Pen. "A bas, à bas, le Front National".
A fire alarm brought the other hotel guests shamefaced onto the pavement. Hotel staff were completely unprepared and shocked - the BNP had been forced to lie to book the venue.
As Le Pen and Griffin prepared to leave and the protesters moved into position to stop them, the police protected the fascists. From door to car, to car park exit, to the street, the fascists and the police struggled to edge forward. Banners, eggs, fruit, and bodies blocked their path. Police and the private-hire fascist thugs were stretched to their limits.
The entourage was delayed, the car battered, windscreen wipers snapped off, the car park barrier bent back. One of the rent-a-muscles was left bleeding from the head. It's fair to say the "warm welcome" promised to Le Pen was not to be had in Manchester.
What matters now, though, is the doorstep campaign across the North West. It's not enough for Unite Against Fascism to tell people that the BNP are a Nazi party. The vast majority of working people in Burnley, Oldham and elsewhere need real answers to real pressing problems.
With not enough jobs, valueless homes falling down, free education in short supply, and waiting lists still a depressing reality, the BNP explains that it is Black and Asian communities stealing someone else's share.
Whereas the real fault lies with the mainstream political parties, in national and local Government.
Real problems need real solutions - socialist solutions, socialist answers, socialist campaigns routed in working-class communities. Our direct action, our message on how to change the world.