Fascist Violence on The Streets of London

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/damocrat/status/1005566922841260033

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1005492827210514438


Geert Wilders came. That Breitbart prick kassam. A fair amount of violence.

[Nefertiti2]

https://twitter.com/khanur1983/status/1005487155576299520

[Toby Gymshorts]

Fucking scum, the lot of them.

[MsD]

Best bit was when some of them got mixed up with the Naked Bike Ride today.

[Felicity, I guess so]

We were spared their visit to Newcastle as the various factions couldn’t agree with the coppers, but they’re threatening to turn up next week instead...

[Satchmo Distel]

Is the footage in the two opening posts taken by the fascists themselves? Will the plod deal as severely with the fascists as they do with violence by other groups?

[MsD]

TR supporters claim their numbers were in the tens of thousands, as if all the people in Central London on Saturday were there for them. Seems closer to 1000 but it’s impossible to know for sure.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Is the footage in the two opening posts taken by the fascists themselves? Will the plod deal as severely with the fascists as they do with violence by other groups?

I suspect that the people who were stupid enough to throw traffic cones at cops, unmasked, in central london, are gonna be facing a public order charge and probably a prison sentence.

That said, they only made four arrests on the day, one of which was for the non-existent crime of "possession of a flare".

[Nefertiti2]

The police seem to be remarkably relaxed about behaviour that would see snatch squads and kettling if it were done by, say, students.

Maybe they recognised some mates.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

The police seem to be remarkably relaxed about behaviour that would see snatch squads and kettling if it were done by, say, students.

Maybe they recognised some mates.

I think kettling has largely been abandoned as a tactic for policing large crowds (in the ways in which it was used in 2011). From what i can tell, the disorder caught the cops by surprise - the recent FLA/DFLA marches have not been characterised by wide-scale disorder.

Part of the reason for this is because there's been fuck-all meaningful opposition to them unlike, for example, the riots in Dover 2016. I imagine that's the reason there were no S14 conditions applied to the rally - which has been de-rigeur for far-right marches in Westminster over the last few years.

[EIM]

Local anti fascist groups, certainly in Manchester, saw large scale opposition to the FLA marches as self-defeating. They were observed, and there were counter demos with the usual SWP cranks and St Pauli fanboys, but a decision was made to keep everything else low key.

The Provisional FLA march the other week they reckoned 4000 would turn up. I reckon 800-1000 at a push. There was as many police, and they were marched nowhere near the counter demo. There were some right wing cranks (the White Pendragons where there), some Tommy Robinson cultists, and there were some people there who just don't like kids being blown up, who probably wouldn't consider themselves anything approaching racist, but, nevertheless, aren't people I'd particularly like to spend too much time with.

[Snake Plissken]

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

https://twitter.com/barfi_culture/status/1005852011726802944

[Felicity, I guess so]

We were spared their visit to Newcastle as the various factions couldn’t agree with the coppers, but they’re threatening to turn up next week instead...

Actually we weren't spared- there were about 40 of them at the Monument, it turned out- the people responsible for calling off our counter-demo had been assured 'if they turn up they'll be arrested'. Surprise, surprise they were being 'observed' by police, but no arrests.

EIM: please spell out for me the logic of large scale opposition to the FLA marches as self-defeating?

I am rather getting the impression that the left/anti-racists need to waken up to what is becoming a substantial street movement (the NF never had demos this big in he 70s) and some of the basic lessons of defeating them in the 70s and 90s need to be relearned.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

Local anti fascist groups, certainly in Manchester, saw large scale opposition to the FLA marches as self-defeating. They were observed, and there were counter demos with the usual SWP cranks and St Pauli fanboys, but a decision was made to keep everything else low key.

The Provisional FLA march the other week they reckoned 4000 would turn up. I reckon 800-1000 at a push. There was as many police, and they were marched nowhere near the counter demo. There were some right wing cranks (the White Pendragons where there), some Tommy Robinson cultists, and there were some people there who just don't like kids being blown up, who probably wouldn't consider themselves anything approaching racist, but, nevertheless, aren't people I'd particularly like to spend too much time with.

Yeah, it's been much the same in London too. The logic tends to go that no-one actually lives in SW1A and the state is normally more than willing to protect its institutions from a rampaging fascist mob (and indeed a rampaging antifascist mob). Any counter-demo normally gets slapped with an S14 which then gives the cops carte blanche to arrest antifascists. And there's so much CCTV around that any militancy is likely to be severely punished - as Tommy's goons are going to find out. And if mass marches on Whitehall actually achieved anything, the SWP would be in government by now.

I agree with enough of that tbh - symbolic mass antifascist demos that don't meaningfully oppose the fascist march are largely futile (and good only for opportunists like the SWP/MfJ). But it's also clear that stuff like the Football Lads Alliance is providing cover for fascists to organise and it's deeply concerning that there seems to be very little in the way of an antifascist response.

[EIM]

"EIM: please spell out for me the logic of large scale opposition to the FLA marches as self-defeating?"

Fuck knows. I was out there, so were my friends. I think the original reasoning was not legitimising them with large scale opposition. But like I said, UAF had their lot out, and things were monitored when it became clear there were other groups turning up.

I'd argue that the FLA is done though. Dwindling numbers from march to march, internal political strife, splits, all the usual stuff. The Tommy Robinson support is different though, and needs looking at carefully.

[adams house cat]

Kettling?

[ad hoc]

Basically forcing the protest into a small area and cutting off the exit routes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling

[Ray de Galles]

TR supporters claim their numbers were in the tens of thousands, as if all the people in Central London on Saturday were there for them. Seems closer to 1000 but it’s impossible to know for sure.

I've seen some claims (from people on the left who opposed the march) that they numbered in the multiple thousands, and some of the videos I've seen indicate that may be accurate. Certainly enough people to be very worrying.

[EIM]

The Tommy Robinson thing is worrying. A lot of people who aren't at all racist are now supporting him. This is partly, I think, down to the freedom of speech angle that the right are pushing seemingly unchallenged. And partly to do with not getting to grips with the grooming/rape issue. An acquaintance of mine (I stop short of calling him friend) who has in the past physically confronted racists at football, now supports and champions Robinson because of his stuff on Muslim grooming gangs. He's of the opinion "the left" are ignoring the issue as they are more concerned with racism than they are with the sexual assault of minors. Absolute horseshit, of course, but reaching these people is key, and we're failing currently.

There are, of course, lots of violent dickheads who just like a tear up and like Tommy Robinson because he hates Muslims just like they do. There is no reaching these people, and they need a boot up the hoop.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

The Tommy Robinson thing is worrying. A lot of people who aren't at all racist are now supporting him. This is partly, I think, down to the freedom of speech angle that the right are pushing seemingly unchallenged. And partly to do with not getting to grips with the grooming/rape issue. An acquaintance of mine (I stop short of calling him friend) who has in the past physically confronted racists at football, now supports and champions Robinson because of his stuff on Muslim grooming gangs. He's of the opinion "the left" are ignoring the issue as they are more concerned with racism than they are with the sexual assault of minors. Absolute horseshit, of course, but reaching these people is key, and we're failing currently.

There are, of course, lots of violent dickheads who just like a tear up and like Tommy Robinson because he hates Muslims just like they do. There is no reaching these people, and they need a boot up the hoop.

The charge that the left throw victims of sexual violence under the bus in the name of anti-racism would have a lot less sting if the mainstream left didn't immediately prove their point by lining up alongside SWP fronts like Stand Up To Racism and Unite Against Fascism.

I think about this piece a fair bit - it's four years old now, but since the intervening years have seen everyone rush to join the Big Red Party which is supportive rather than antagonistic towards the institutions that systematically fail the victims of sexual violence, it feels more relevant than ever.

The problem now is the left get stuck between two equally reactionary positions - that outlined in the link and a similar one that suggests that Tommy Robinson's supporters and the Footy Lads somehow represent the True Working Class Who Are Alienated By Identity Politics That Infects The Left (a position which sort of relies on never actually defining Identity Politics, but is popular nevertheless across the political spectrum).

[adams house cat]

Ah. Thanks ad hoc. Corralling over here.

[MsD]

I've seen some claims (from people on the left who opposed the march) that they numbered in the multiple thousands, and some of the videos I've seen indicate that may be accurate. Certainly enough people to be very worrying.

I heard 3000 from someone opposing today. So, more than 1000 but not in the tens of thousands.

[E10 Rifle]

It's worrying though – there is clearly more far-right street activity going on at the moment than there has been for 15 years or more.

And you can't help but link this with Brexit, though all too few have. Brexit has helped make racism and xenophobia respectable, helped the far right cannibalise "respectable" or "normal" prejudices and resentments; and this is the single worst thing about the 2016 referendum result. And yet hardcore Remainers tend not to have made this a big issue, preferring to pick through the details and idiocies of what this might mean for trade, markets etc. Which is all well and good, but if a sizable rump of people are making the big issue the chance to turn against foreigns, Muslims and immigrants, then it's not gonna have much impact. Lexiters, meanwhile, clutch their hands over their ears at the mere connection of the issues.

I'm not sure whether this means anti-fascists should up their street activities - make racists scared again, to put it bluntly – or whether that might be counterproductive, but it's one of the most pressing issues in Britain today.

[Nefertiti2]

Another fascist pleads guilty to plotting to murder a Labour Mp