Hostile crowds shout down race march in London

A 400-STRONG march against immigration was given a hostile reception by lunchtime crowds in London yesterday.

In the Strand, workers tore up racialist leaflets and threw them on the ground. At Charing Cross others gave mock fascist salutes and shouted 'Nazis'. Asked to join the march, a printworker in Fleet Street shouted angrily: 'If concen yau medall end up in a Last week holiday crowds had watched a similar march with good-natured amusement, but yesterday workers stared Silently from shops and offices and onlockers shouted fascists' and 'gorillas' as the demonstrators passed by behind a loudspeaker van • blaring out 'Rule Britannia' and 'Land of Hope and Glory'.

The march, led by about 100 of Smithfield's 2,000 meat-porters, was backed by a strong National Front contingent, teddy boys, Hell's Angels and about 60 housewives and children from Brixton, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets.

Leader Ron Taylor, a Smith. field porter, handed in letters at Smith Square, headquarters of the Transport and General Workers Union and the Conservative Party, demanding action to halt immigration.

Police hustled the demonstrators past Transport House as they tried to stop outside chanting 'Jones out' out'.

There were no other incidents throughout the 90-minute march, with leaders chatting amiably with their police escort. Other police lining the road smiled and nodded sympathetically.

Earlier, at a meeting at Smithfield, Mosleyite Danny Harmston and National Front organizer Martin Webster were joined on the platform by Air Vice-Marshal Donald Bennett, who had flown back from a holiday in fascist Spain to be at the meeting.

Bennett led the special Pathfinder force during World War II and, he said: 'Britain is cursed with a softie government that puts everybody else's interests before our own.'