Some personal thoughts on two successful anti-fascist actions last weekend, and what they can teach us.
The past weekend was very instructive as far as anti-fascists were concerned. In Manchester and Birmingham fascists were repulsed.
In Manchester, so called hard-core street activists around UKIP leader Nick Tenconi were chased out of Piccadilly Gardens.
And in Birmingham city centre a group of dedicated neo-fascist organisers from the National Rebirth Party, with party leader Alek Yerbury in attendance, had to hastily pack up a table top literature stall after being surrounded by local anti-fascists.
In Manchester, we knew the fascists were coming and, despite huge policing, effectively opposed the so-called Patriots of Britain and their “security” thugs from as far away as Glasgow and London.
In Birmingham, where former soldier Yerbury’s penchant for security and control meant there was no advance notice, this opposition was spontaneous, and followed a local trans rights demonstration.
What these events show is the need for intelligence gathering, organisation at grass roots level, sinking political differences to oppose the fascist enemy, and the physical courage to face off with, and face up to, fascists intent on violence.
Violence is central to fascism. In Manchester last weekend, when outmanoeuvred by their opponents, the first response by fascist thugs was to try and attack their opponents, throw missiles, and win a small victory from huge failure.
Attacking people
But it’s not so easy to run around attacking people these days with cameras everywhere.
So the obvious lesson we learn is to understand the purpose of this aspect of anti-fascist activity. It is to outnumber and put ourselves between the fascists or local racist gangs and force the fascists to face us instead. As stated, this requires considerable effort and organisation.
And beware – it’s often the anti-fascists who get arrested first if trouble breaks out.
It would be a mistake to concentrate on the physical aspect alone, important though that is. Organisation and intelligence are key.
Knowing your local bigots is a good start. Who are they? Where do they like meeting? What are their plans? Are they leafletting, snickering and postering? Are they harassing local political activists?
Normalising local activity
In the case of Alek Yerbury, let’s understand what he is trying to do. Beyond theoretical waffle about his creating a national community, he is less looking for confrontation and more seeking to normalise local activity, to get people used to his small table top activities and literally sneak under our radar.
He believes this real world approach, as he would call it, is the antidote to wasting time online. Nor for Yerbury the smoke, mirrors and grift of Mark Collett and Paul Golding.
All this hifalutin thinking comes crashing down when the real world intrudes, as it did on Saturday. Surrounded, outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, Yerbury packed up and cleared off.
However, Yerbury and his small numbers of activists have already held similar unopposed table tops in London, Leeds, Cornwall and Manchester. So be on the lookout. Use social media to mobilise people at short notice. It can be done.
Self-inflicted wounds
Nick Tenconi, still licking his self-inflicted wounds from last Saturday, and his previous disaster in the city several weeks ago, must be thinking again about rallies, especially supporting ones organised by others.
They’re a flop and a disaster, always opposed, and he ends up speaking at most to a few dozen already convinced racists. For the moment at least, most racists will support Reform and not join a fascist rally.
If unopposed, they become emboldened and history shows what happens when this tipping point is reached. Burning of asylum seekers hotels, racist attacks, attacks on mosques, violence against opponents
But we know the aim of this right-wing street movement. We saw it after Southport. A couple of hundred racist hooligans acting as a catalyst for violence against Muslims, foreigners, or pretty much anyone not like them.
Within those low hundreds, a possible hard-core of fascist activists are looking for mass violence out in the open.
If unopposed, they become emboldened and history shows what happens when this tipping point is reached. Burning of asylum seekers hotels, racist attacks, attacks on mosques, violence against opponents.
Hearts and minds
And, given the rise of Reform UK and its many candidates and members whose agenda is specifically racist, we now have the mother of all battles for hearts and minds to fight in the future. This will be another crucial side of our anti-fascist campaigning – door to door, in communities, workplaces, canteens, and rest rooms. Taking on the lies, winning the arguments.
The model exists; the Anti Nazi League’s mass movement of the late 1970s, and, more recently, the Searchlight/Hope Not Hate community campaign in 2010 to remove the BNP from Barking and Dagenham.
Broad based movement
We’ve done it before, and we will have to do it again, especially as bigotry has been mainstreamed by the right wing press, social media, and personalities like Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe.
The truth is that this will have to be a broad based movement where we’ll all have to work with people we may not agree with politically. It may not be always exciting but we’re in a moment where the extreme right are seeking to destroy the tolerant society built in the UK since 1945.
Last weekend, intelligence, organisation, and physical and ideological opposition, played equally important roles in defeating two different fascist manifestations.
Let us live, learn and thrive in opposing fascism today and tomorrow…
