West London Stand Up To Racism mobilized over 400 people in Brentford on Wednesday evening, 7 August 2024, with just a day and a half’s notice.

This rapid response came after the far right posted a video and notice on Monday, 5 August 2024, announcing plans to gather outside a hotel on Great West Road, Brentford, where they claimed asylum seekers were being housed, threatening to "kick them out."

However, the far right failed to muster the numbers they had promised, with only about a dozen showing up. The police kept them well away from the anti-racist protesters.

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In response to the online threat, Balwinder Rana, co-convenor of West London Stand Up To Racism, immediately called a Zoom meeting with his organization to strategize. The group decided to expand the discussion, organizing a larger Zoom meeting the next evening with local organizations, including the Indian Workers Association (GB), cultural groups, and local trade unions.

On Tuesday, 6 August 2024, this larger meeting agreed to stage a counter-protest starting at 7 pm at the same location where the far right was expected an hour later. Yet, the far right's presence was minimal, and the anti-racist protesters, energized by speeches, music, and chants, departed triumphantly around 9 pm.

During the event, Balwinder Rana, a veteran of anti-racism and anti-fascism, addressed the crowd, asking, "Where are those racists and fascists who promised to kick out our brothers and sisters, asylum seekers, who have nowhere else in the world to go?" The crowd responded, calling the far right "cowards" for failing to show up.

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Rana, who was the founding president of the Indian Youth Federation, the first Asian youth movement in the UK established in 1969 in Gravesend, Kent, remarked, "They promised to be here, but they failed. We kept our promise—we came in our hundreds to welcome asylum seekers, refugees, and to defend our Muslim brothers and sisters. We will continue to stand against this new far-right threat."

Reflecting on his 55 years of activism against racism and fascism through groups like the Anti-Nazi League, Unite Against Fascism, Sikhs Against the EDL, and Stand Up To Racism, Rana declared, "We’ve always defeated them, whether they called themselves the National Front, the BNP, or the EDL. We will defeat these so-called ‘far right’ too, because ‘we are many and they are few’."

He then introduced his longtime friend, Dalawar Chaudhry, a community leader from Southall, who thanked the anti-racist protesters for standing up to the far right and defending asylum seekers and the Muslim community.

Southall Black Sisters tweeted "Yesterday, we joined the protest against the far-right racists in Brentford."

"It was heartening to be part of the gathering, united in calling for racist borders to fall. Our message is loud and clear - here to stay, here to fight! Our tradition is struggle, not submission."