A FAR RIGHT PALAVA

POOR LEED-ERSHIP

Last Saturday (31st) the racist English Defence League (EDL) hit Leeds, after a distinct lack of success last month during planned demos in Swansea and Newport (See SchNEWS 696). Around 500 dragged themselves out of pubs for the afternoon to assemble their football firm-styled crowd, and were again significantly outnumbered by up to 800 anti-fascists in a counter-demo organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF). 

Reports suggest that both groups were kept well apart – and it wasn’t just the police with horses doing the crowd control, as apparently the UAF stewards kept a tight rein on the anti-fascist demo. It was reported that as one of the few groups who did break out to attempt to meet the EDL face-to-face were being told not to by the UAF over the sound system. Apparently one group of 20 did make it as far as the EDL demo, but of course they needed more of the numbers to be effective. Again, all protesters are calling for continued mobilisations against the far-right, but autonomous from the UAF.

FRIENDLY FIRE

Also last Saturday, an array of demonstrations and counter-demos were due to assemble in central London for something akin to a three-sided football match around the planned rally at Downing St by the Muslim fundamentalist group Islam4UK, who are calling for strict sharia law in Britain. Directly opposing them was to be the Islamophobic assemblage of EDL, Combat 18 and other assorted fascists. And countering them - and also not too keen on the Islamic fundamentalist nutters - was to be an anti-fascist mobilisation. Added to the mix was the British Muslims for Secular Democracy (BMSD), a liberal group opposing Islam4UK, but probably not big fans of the racist fascists either.

In fact the Islam4UK demo at the centre of it all was called off because of threats of violence from the far right; the BMSD and supporters still took to the streets for a rally. On the anti-fascist side there was no UAF mobilised demo on the scale of the EDL counter-demos - they were probably all up in Leeds. That left the far-right...

There were apparently around 300 from the far right out on the streets looking for a barney, and when one wasn’t coming from their political enemies they managed to have one with themselves: it seems that the 200-odd EDL/Casuals United group and the 60-odd collection of proper fascists coming from the ranks of the NF, Combat 18, RVF and Blood & Honour all had one thing in common – hate – but they didn’t quite hate the same things.

It started when EDL lads milling outside a pub started chanting anti-German songs in their English nationalist football-fan idiom. This evidently wound up those with Neo-Nazi leanings - who look at Germany with some admiration - and a group of fifteen C18 boneheads approached the EDL and started calling them ‘EDL c*nts’ and ‘Jew lovers’. They were outnumbered by EDL, who started throwing pint glasses, fire extinguishers and other objects at them. A chase ensued, which headed across Trafalgar Square, with C18 getting a battering and one smashed across the head with a fire extinguisher and left unconscious in a pool of blood by his comrades, who promptly left him to be sorted out by police.

You might think the left are fragmented and divided, but at least we don’t wage violent street battles against one another, as our common enemies look on and laugh.