Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain's streets

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Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain's streets

Postby jingofever » Sun Sep 13, 2009 4:31 pm

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'Parallels' between rightwing groups planning protests in Muslim neighbourhoods and Oswald Mosley's incendiary marches

A cabinet minister last night raised the spectre of a return to 1930s fascism, warning of "parallels" bertween rightwing groups planning protests in Muslim neighbourhoods and Oswald Mosley's incendiary marches through Jewish areas of east London in the 1930s.

Announcing a government drive to address issues alienating white, working-class people at risk of being "exploited" by the far-right, John Denham, the secretary of state for communities and local government, singled out protests being organised by the English Defence League.

The group, has organised a number of protests in recent months which have turned violent. It is to hold events in Manchester, Leeds, London and Bristol in the coming weeks. Yesterday small groups of EDL supporters gathered for a protest outside a mosque in Harrow, north-west London. They were confronted by at least 1,000 anti-fascist protesters. Police arrested 10 people after clashes, nine of them for allegedly possessing weapons. No injuries were reported.

"I think the English Defence League and other organisations are not actually large numbers of people," Denham said. "They clearly though have among them people who know exactly what they're doing. If you look at the types of demonstrations they've organised … it looks pretty clear that it's a tactic designed to provoke and get a response, and hopefully create violence."

He pointed to historical "parallels" with Mosley's events. "You could go back to the 1930s if you wanted to – Cable Street and all of those types of things. The tactic of trying to provoke a response in the hope of causing wider violence and mayhem is long established on the far-right and among extremist groups."

The so-called Battle of Cable Street occurred in October 1936, when Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, attempted to lead his supporters through a Jewish area of the East End of London, leading to violent clashes.

EDL's supporters include known far-right activists and football hooligans, filmed at recent protests chanting racist slogans and making Nazi salutes. Next week senior police officers from across the country will meet to share intelligence on the EDL, amid fears that a volatile mix of extreme rightwing activists, and counter-protests from leftwing groups and locals, could result in serious disorder.

The National Public Order Intelligence Unit monitors extremists, and is producing an intelligence briefing on the group's activities ahead of the meeting, to be chaired by West Midlands Police's Assistant Chief Constable Sharon Rowe. She policed the EDL's last two protests in Birmingham, which resulted in pitched battles with local youths and 125 arrests, and which were marked by an "escalation in criminality". "If the EDL come back to this city in future I've got more of an evidence case, and intelligence to arrest them a lot earlier, to prevent a breach of the peace," she said.

Today the EDL gathered outside the Harrow mosque to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

In the past month, the home secretary, Alan Johnson, has twice used public order legislation to restrict far-right marches. On one occasion, in Luton, his "banning order" resulted in a three-month prohibition of all marches in the town.

Denham praised the home secretary's action, but said there was a need for a broader strategy from government to "undercut issues that racists try to exploit". Ministers would in the coming weeks unveil a government-funded programme targeted at mainly white, working-class communities, he said.

"You need to be prepared to let people's real underlying fears and concerns come out, but address them frankly and openly," he said. He gave the example of perceptions of unfair allocation of council housing and new jobs, and said there could be changes at street level to allow local people to "influence and shape" how resources are distributed in their area.

Profile: the rightwing group stirring up fresh trouble
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Postby smiths » Sun Sep 13, 2009 9:04 pm

i have felt for a long time that britain would drop first,

the formerly great nation that exported so much order and chaos to the globe will descend into riotous and calamitous chaos very soon i think, it really is on a knife edge,
poetic justice almost

i also think a small section of the 'the city' will be fortified for the use of the most important families and business groups and will defended by the national/corporate military

and a large chunk of science fiction will be wrenched horribly into the reality of our increasingly strange world
the question is why, who, why, what, why, when, why and why again?
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Re: Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain's stre

Postby American Dream » Mon Oct 09, 2017 9:20 am

https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/cable-s ... nd-beyond/

5TH OCTOBER 2017

CABLE STREET AND BEYOND

BY WEAREPLANC


The following article was written by Brighton Antifascists.



On the 4th October 1936, tens of thousands of anti-fascists turned out to stop Mosley’s Blackshirts marching into the East End of London. Nevertheless, Mosley was able to carry on recruiting and indeed marched again within the week. A year later, an equally large march was met with similarly fierce opposition in Bermondsey. It was one battle in an ongoing campaign: fascism isn’t that easy to put down. Anti-fascism is never just ‘the big demo’.

Mosley, in common with the other fascist leaders, understood the value of the mass demonstration. Even in this online era the physical coming together of an ideology to take space, even better ‘foreign’ space, is powerful. Marching into areas perceived as alien, with police assistance (it is important that the state acts as a “neutral” facilitator) confrontation of some sort can be guaranteed. The events of the day, unless disastrous, gain press coverage and boost the overall movement.

The most recent example of a mass movement dedicated to taking ‘foreign space’ here, was the English Defence League. Originating from a local dispute in Luton, where jihadist group Al Mujahiroun disrupted the homecoming parade of the local regiment, the EDL were able to take advantage of strains of Islamophobia, ultra nationalism and racism to rapidly build their movement. Between 2009 and 2012 the EDL were demonstrating around once a month somewhere in the country. Their M.O was to head to a town with a large Muslim/Asian population for a large flag waving intimidatory demo. These demos, although organised with the police were large (often over a thousand), disorderly and violent. They drew on wide layers of society far beyond neo-nazi cranks. The rhetoric that they drew from around ‘the war on terror’ had been prepared by the media and Labour government for nearly a decade.

Realistically at the time (in contrast to today’s often smug “Just punch them in the face” social media rhetoric) neither anarchists or the rest of the left had the wherewithal to successfully counter-mobilise. There were good examples of community self defence, (e.g Bradford in 2010) but the left’s contribution was either tiny or actually counter-productive in the sense of trying to dissipate energy by organising rallies miles from the EDL.

The inability of the Left, to confront this modern day “King & Country” mob (as well as the the fact that some far-right factions began attacking left meetings) led to some anarchist and left activists organising the Anti Fascist Network.

This upped the ante. Not every outing was a glorious victory and it should be said that the AFN always performed best in towns where there was strong left base e.g Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool, London but the arrival of a more militant approach, aimed at mass community mobilisation, did change the game. Even on days where there was no direct confrontation the police, nation wide, adopted a strategy of utilising massive numbers, relocating the EDL marches to out of town sites and kettling both sides. The monotony of the average EDL demo then began to tell and numbers fell into a steep decline.

However, the door had been wedged open. We saw the return of openly Nazi groups, such as National Action to the streets for “White man marches”. The National Front crawled back out of the sewer and joined up with groups that had splintered from the EDL, like the South East Alliance and the various Infidel groupings. They all subscribed to overtly white supremacist beliefs.

These groups were smaller, confined by their more overtly extremist rhetoric and quite frankly poor leadership. There were numerous confrontations with militant anti-fascists, most notably in the town of Dover (although a mention in dispatches must go to the stinging defeat suffered by National Action in Liverpool in 2015). The riot in January 2016 that saw several hours of hand to hand fighting between ‘Unite the Right’ and anti fascists lead to hefty prison sentences being handed out to both sides, although primarily it was the right that really copped it with some sentences ranging as high as seven years.



So where are we now then?

Right now, the fascists are in some disarray. This has bred a level of complacency among the left as we share “Good Night, Alt Right” memes or joke on platforms about how much fun it is to “punch a Nazi”. There are however still fascist marches and events happening regularly around the country, often opposed by just a handful of locals. Tommy Robinson recently threw his hat into the ring again in Manchester and pulled a crowd of 1,500. While many would have been ordinary mancunians who wanted to show solidarity with the victims of the recent terror attacks, many were ex EDL.

Tommy’s also been busy up in Sunderland, exploiting the alleged sexual assault of a young woman by four refugees. Two large demonstrations and large scale community support have seen the case (which was originally thrown out) reopened by the CPS. In both of these instances, he’s managed to draw on much wider layers of the population than National Action ever could. I doubt these events could have gained as much traction without the support offered by the Rebel Media, an outlet that has all the trappings of a swish millennial media outfit, but with the politics of Enoch Powell.

Following on from this, we’ve seen recent mobilizations by the group Gays Against Sharia. While only attracting less than a hundred to each of its demos (one in Bristol and one in London), its narratives of defending Western Liberalism against hordes of Muslim Infidels has proved attractive to some, and has seen a number of high profile Right Nationalists jump onboard, from unsuccessful UKIP leadership candidate Ann Marie Waters, to one of the BNP’s former rising stars Jack Buckby. While unable to mobilize great numbers on the streets, they are in the process of building a powerful online presence.

If these groups were to coalesce into anything like a successful street movement, it would probably done through something like a Generation Identity movement in Britain. Some of the top people have been building links with ‘Identitarian’ bloggers from Europe, but so far the Generation Identity ‘brand’ has yet to gain a foothold in the UK.

Despite constant state repression, banning orders, and frankly embarrassing displays, Britain First continue to call demos on an almost bi-monthly basis. Like much of the far-right at the moment, they mobilize around the narrative of the muslim paedophile, and call demonstrations in towns with high profile cases where muslim grooming gangs have been uncovered. They blame the politically correct Labour Party for covering up rape, and use the events to whip up anti-muslim sentiment in these towns. While only being able to pull at max a hundred or so people to these demonstrations, they usually march unmolested, with antifascists being unable to block their march route due to lack of numbers and organisation (Ramsgate upcoming, working with KARN who have a base in the area and have been building for weeks, good chance to really try and block them; be there).

What remains of the neo-fascist right, seems to have largely retreated into itself. They are now building an online presence and putting on cultural and physical events in an attempt to sharpen their critiques and build capacity. The Western Spring and London forum movement regularly put on talks and discussions about how Jewish power is undermining the West. As previously mentioned, the street power that expressed these groups politics was taken off the street through antifascist mobilisation and police repression around the ‘dovers’. However, when they do mobilize through the national front (which, while a shadow of its former glory remains the street expression of neo-fascism), they can still pull a hundred people and are well trained, disciplined, and radical.

So, we have a far right fractured into multiple different pieces. There are the bits around Tommy Robinson and the Gays Against Sharia crowd who peddle an islamophobic right-nationalism. You have Britain First who, while expressing very similar politics, have decided to carve out their own path. And then you have what remains of the neo-fascist right. What dwarfs all of these mobilizations is the new outfit Football Lads Alliance, who managed to bring 5000 football lads to the centre of London. While having incredibly ‘soft’ politics they represent a real threat. Speakers at their demo earlier this summer ranged from former a former EDL member, to an islamophobic sikh, to a racist ex-squaddie. They’re not fascist and they’re not currently threatening either the Left or Muslims. There are multiple possibilities. They could dissipate into nothing, they could turn further right of their own volition (their leader Tom Meighan has already been interviewed by a number of softer far right bloggers and vloggers), or they could break up, with a section of their supporters going on to form a new EDL with Tommy. Whatever happens, they’re a group to watch.

From Cable Street to Lewisham to Tower Hamlets, the way to stop fascist marches has been through mass community mobilization. Whatever form the coming fascist threat takes, we need to be able to mobilize thousands of people on a regular basis to ensure that they are opposed wherever they go.
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Re: Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain's stre

Postby American Dream » Wed Feb 07, 2018 9:10 am

LEWISHAM ’77 – MYTH AND ANTI-FASCIST HISTORY

February 5th, 2018


Fourty years ago this summer [2017], one of the most decisive events in 1970s UK anti-fascism took place in South East London.

On 13 August 1977, the far right National Front (NF) set off on a march from New Cross to Lewisham in what was intended to be a major show of strength. Lewisham NF organiser Richard Edmunds had promised the NF’s ‘biggest-ever rally… Everybody will know that the Front is marching’, while national organiser Martin Webster had talked of the march as part of its racist and anti-communist struggle: ‘The Reds have had it all their own way and the only way you can fight Communism is to confront it. We believe that the multi-racial society is wrong, is evil and we want to destroy it’. Earlier that year the NF had won over 119,000 votes in the Greater London Council elections and, although it did not succeed in winning any seats, the party had cause to believe that it was a growing force.

In the event, thousands of people mobilised to oppose the march, and as it started from New Cross there was hand to hand fighting as anti-fascists broke through police lines and seized NF banners. The local paper reported:

‘Suddenly the air was filled with orange smoke, and a hail of bricks, bottles and pieces of wood fell onto the Front from demonstrators and householders leaning out of their windows… At one point the Front marchers stopped. Half the marchers remained in Pagnell Street, afraid to walk into the hail of missiles… One young man, perhaps 16 years old, rushed into the Front ranks and grabbed a flagpole from one of them, broke it in half and held the pieces up while the crowd cheered. Others hurled dustbins and fence stakes into the Front column from close range’ (Kentish Mercury 18.8.77). In later clashes in Lewisham town centre, police used riot shields for the first time in England as they confronted anti-fascists and local young people.

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Re: Minister warns of 1930s-style fascists on Britain's stre

Postby American Dream » Thu Oct 24, 2019 7:45 am

24TH OCTOBER 2019
GROOMING GANGS AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE: CHALLENGING FAR RIGHT NARRATIVES ON THE STREETS

BY WEAREPLANC


Report back: a Plan C member from Wakefield gives details of the activities of the Kirklees Anti Fascist Assembly, set up a year ago in an area with a significant history of far-right activity.

My name is Smurf. I’m from Wakefield. I work as a support worker for adults with special needs and mental health disorders. I am a member of Plan C and an organiser with Kirklees Anti-Fascist Assembly and Leeds Anti-Fascist Network.

The Yorkshire Patriots held a demonstration in Dewsbury on Saturday October 12th. Kirkless Anti-Fascist Assembly (KAFA) organised locally to oppose them with militants from AFN and FLAF also mobilising. Can you tell us what happened?

Two months ago in August, The Yorkshire Patriots announced they would be holding a march and rally in Dewsbury over Melanie Shaw’s imprisonment and over “Muslim grooming gangs”. The Yorkshire Patriots had previously planned a demonstration in Dewsbury in May, however they had cancelled this. Kirklees AFA immediately put out a statement opposing the demonstration and challenged the Yorkshire Patriots on their narrative of defending women and children by exposing the domestic abuse and rape convictions of Yorkshire Patriots members, as well as allegations of sexism and personal abuse towards former female Yorkshire Patriots members. For the next two months we campaigned in Kirklees and reached out to various groups. We supported other mobilisations such as the LAFA demonstration on the 3rd August and the Leeds AFN demonstration on the 7th September. We spent our time leafleting Huddersfield freshers and holding public meetings in Kirklees and Wakefield. We leafletted social centres and various clubs in Yorkshire. In preparation for the demonstration we also spent time stickering parts of Dewsbury and tearing down National Front stickers.

Image

On the 12th October we were joined by a few dozen antifascist groups and left organisations varying from Sisters Uncut to Oxford Antifascists. From the start the numbers were looking good. We had up to 50 AFN militants and 40 FLAF militants. We even managed an additional 30 from community and local groups, even many former militants from Leeds and Kirklees AFA. For a first demonstration this would be an amazing number especially with so many experienced antifascists.


Continues: https://www.weareplanc.org/blog/groomin ... e-streets/
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