After the Far Right/Fash Riots?

[Wilf]

Say the least, this isn’t going to be a worked out account of the ways ant-racism is going to go, just something purely observational from the weekend:

On Saturday I saw a Stand Up to Racism guy being interviewed in central London at the Reform HQ and thought, I know how this is going to go. The next step is that they, along with other groups will set up a bit national event in London, with the usual A-B march and usual list of speakers. I won’t even go through the issue of the SWP role or their wider politics, just stick to what this will be. Because there will be plenty of positives in this and similar events – demonstration that there are more of us then them, strong links to Palestine, a younger and more diverse crowd (as there were over the last few days), attempts to link racism to neoliberalism, austerity and the attacks on public services. All good, even if the some of the content can be awful or grating, to say the least. For example, I heard Jamie Driscoll, former North of Tyne mayor at the weekend say that instead of rioting they ‘should get a job and work hard like everyone else’. Even if his next statement was to say ‘and if conditions are bad, join a union and work for change’ this was still a bit...

Here's the but… SWP, of course. But beyond that, the more fundamental issue of whether any of that actually combats the far right. In Newcastle, for example, the original counter demo called (I think) by North East Anarchists was planned to take the space where the fash were meant to meet. Instead, this was undermined by SUTR who chose to meet 400 yards away and allow the right to still convene. Their numbers were pitiful, but they weren’t defeated by us, just handled by the police. But the more fundamental issue is that the approach isn’t to actually organise in the same towns and estates where the fash are strong. It’s a counter position that fails to engage with the phenomenon of the far right and the associated anxieties and angers that cause it. That’s not to suggest that the bottom up organising that is needed is easy or that the non-trot left is doing enough of it. Don’t want to derail, but the Corbyn lot didn’t do it either. But big demos of this hybrid trot-liberal-traditional left counter position do little more than that, they just demonstrate that such a position exists and doesn’t in itself combat the far right,

 

[emanymton]

Instead, this was undermined by SUTR who chose to meet 400 yards away and allow the right to still convene. Their numbers were pitiful, but they weren’t defeated by us, just handled by the police.

Just on this point. I always think this is top binary a way of looking at it. Would it have been better if a large group of us had driven them from the streets? Maybe*

But the police handled them in the way they did because of the counter protest. If they had not been there things would have been very different.

I say maybe here, as I wonder if the particular circumstances around these riots made a less aggressive approach a better strategic option.

 

[Wilf]

Just on this point. I always think this is top binary a way of looking at it. Would it have been better if a large group of us had driven them from the streets? Maybe*

But the police handled them in the way they did because of the counter protest. If they had not been there things would have been very different.

I say maybe here, as I wonder if the particular circumstances around these riots made a less aggressive approach a better strategic option.

Absolutely, I'm not an AFA purist and I'm in favour of stopping the fash get a foothold in a variety of ways and with tactics that allow people to do what they are comfortable with. And despite my reservations about the SUTR approach and national march/demos, I can see a positive role for that. It's just that it ends up becoming an end itself - having a national demo, speeches and the rest. It needs to be part of something bigger, an attempt to build something in working class communities, something around the working class in all its variety. Starting with the way places and communities have been fucked over for decades.

 

[ddraig]

It happens so many times though and is so frustrating
If they can get the numbers it makes sense to stand in the way, no violence needed!
Actual solidarity
But instead, they liaise with the police and do what their told
Have their speeches to the converted with usual people taking the megaphone then pack up their stuff, do a little cheer, pat themselves on the back and go home, even when there are still fascists about!

 

[krink]

Re Newcastle. Wednesday was absolutely stunning to witness. I looked forward to Saturday.

By Friday morning I could see that the fascists would not be stopped at all so I changed my plans and didn't go. The people who turned up give me real hope but the people who undemocraticaly took charge almost cancel it out. How do we get rid of them?

 

[Wilf]

It happens so many times though and is so frustrating
If they can get the numbers it makes sense to stand in the way, no violence needed!
Actual solidarity
But instead, they liaise with the police and do what their told
Have their speeches to the converted with usual people taking the megaphone then pack up their stuff, do a little cheer, pat themselves on the back and go home, even when there are still fascists about!

Yeah, I think it can be really frustrating at a strategic and political level, nothwithstanding what I said about a variety of tactics. My real problem with it is that it's a bubble.

 

[hitmouse]

By the by, following on from the the discussion that the riots drew in possibly non-racist and/or vulnerable people (e.g. Middlesbrough bin woman): I wonder what the overlap was between the 2011 rioters and this one? 2011 had anti-racist origins in that the spark was a racist police murder, whereas 2024 had emphatically racist immediate origins. But both had deeper origins and drew people in for diverse reasons, some of which were extensions of 'normal' low level disorder. I'm wondering if there were people involved in 2011 who were also involved 13 years later, but more importantly, about the common non-ideological routes into the riots.

Thought this post from Wilf over on the other thread was an interesting one, and chimes with stuff I've been wondering about, so wanted to copy it over here to try and stop it getting buried under the speed that thread moves at.

 

[Dogsauce]

I think at the moment I’m worried that more direct confrontation with the fash will lead to aggro that will feed the awful ‘both sides’ shit that the media and politicians desperately want, suggesting there are two equivalent sides rather than one side out to harm innocent people just for being (in their view) ‘non-native’. So I don’t particularly mind if it’s a bit softly-softly at the moment with a-b marches with smiling families etc. so that it becomes clear to the wider public while they’re still paying attention who the ‘bad guys’ are.

Plus I don’t think the far right will be gathering in numbers for a while despite some planned demos, they have nothing to gain. Look at the numbers last weekend, a mere handful showing their faces in most places, and given the footage is circulating on mainstream channels at the moment it’s a way to get recognised by employers, clients, neighbours and so on.

Much of the fash stronghold is online, and it’s skewed in their favour by bad faith ‘moderation’ (or lack of it), bot farms out to cause trouble generally, and media organisations that seek controversy for the sake of clicks and ad revenue. There’s been fash scum commenting below the line for as long as there had been the ability to do so, openly racist stuff never deleted. I don’t know if government attention in this area will reduce the reach of online hate, I suspect it’ll get ‘looked into’ over a course of years with reports and recommendations never enacted due to the Labour party’s timidity in fighting back against a hostile press. Is it territory that anti-fascists can have enough of a presence to fight back, or will it just end up as a Twitter-style circle jerk of pile-ons, spurious claims of people being ‘owned’, self-congratulation for witty retorts to a bot that can’t even pay attention and so on. Does this ground need fighting for too? A waste of time and effort?

 

[JimW]

Some sort of programme to help people engage with the fash-adjacent they know/work alongside etc. Sort of support network for those willing to argue with those who can be reached. Could be fairly informal, just people you can unload to, get suggestions off each other and have each other's back if needed.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

But the more fundamental issue is that the approach isn’t to actually organise in the same towns and estates where the fash are strong. It’s a counter position that fails to engage with the phenomenon of the far right and the associated anxieties and angers that cause it. That’s not to suggest that the bottom up organising that is needed is easy or that the non-trot left is doing enough of it. Don’t want to derail, but the Corbyn lot didn’t do it either. But big demos of this hybrid trot-liberal-traditional left counter position do little more than that, they just demonstrate that such a position exists and doesn’t in itself combat the far right,

This is the key question.

My expectation is that those who came onto the street will now dissolve away again and back into other issues/their community/whatever.

The dominant liberal narrative - social media to blame, misinformation is bad, tough jail sentences needed etc - is designed to externalise the problem (or even offshore it), to demotivate activity and to move us away from engaging in serious discussion about addressing the symptoms and not the causes.

By symptoms, I mean both the organised far right and how it should be confronted and the much bigger group around the far right who are influenced and sometimes motivated by its agenda for a multiplicity of factors: not all of which relate to race.

 

[Dogsauce]

I think one of problems for the far right is that they’ve shown their true colours with these events - trying to burn down hotels with people inside, smashing up cars with people inside and attacking homes and businesses owned by non-whites. They’re not going to bring out the ‘moderate’ racists on demos in the near future with that record. Which probably makes those that do turn out fair game for doxing and a robust welcome if they show up on the streets.

Reform are also likely to be blamed for the violence, not only by labour but by some of the loyal Tory press who see them as the culprits for the party’s defeat in July and will happily put the boot in, no doubt while continuing to pedal anti-immigrant bollocks with a straight face. Legitimate concerns and all that.

I’d caution about blaming the violence solely on victims of neo-liberalism or portraying them as some kind of thick underclass. As with Brexit, this lets the white collar and oligarch leadership of the far right and the many Daily Mail middle class racists off the hook, makes some on our side ‘punch down’. The social media gobshites stirring and pushing violence aren’t generally the precatariat.

I also don’t find it hard to believe some of the mob were just caught up in the moment, as some have claimed (rightly or wrongly) in their defence. Some people hate coppers and in passing might have happily jumped in to throw a brick or two without necessarily having the aggravating factor of a racist motivation. I don’t expect the state to show much sympathy but at the same time they might not be beyond reach/redemption.

 

[The39thStep]

This is the key question.

My expectation is that those who came onto the street will now dissolve away again and back into other issues/their community/whatever.

The dominant liberal narrative - social media to blame, misinformation is bad, tough jail sentences needed etc - is designed to externalise the problem (or even offshore it), to demotivate activity and to move us away from engaging in serious discussion about addressing the symptoms and not the causes.

By symptoms, I mean both the organised far right and how it should be confronted and the much bigger group around the far right who are influenced and sometimes motivated by its agenda for a multiplicity of factors: not all of which relate to race.

I've read a few articles that have attempted to offshore it to the Russians.

 

[bellaozzydog]

Observations/opinion piece on the Penzance attendance and the gap between the Peace and love people and the stand your ground Antifa position
(I wasn’t there)



The Beresford Hotel counter protest/defence was a long cold day, the core principle was we were staying till the last of the immigration protesters left

It’s a nice principle putting flowers in rifle barrels but at some point there will be a need to actually defend people or a location.

I guess every little helps but the Penzance love crowd didn’t seem to feel the need to mask up and seemed very keen on the social media/self promotion shizzle giving interviews, full names, Facebook pages etc

Maybe I’m a bit martial, I got the cold shoulder at an extinction rebellion intro meeting when I suggested political violence has a place

 

[hitmouse]

Thought this was a really interesting report from a "community meeting" in London, lots to think about there - I think there's definitely a temptation for those of us on the anarcho/libertarian/non-SWP left to just genuflect to "the community" as an alternative to SUTR, so good to see something really going into the pitfalls of that approach:

Closing Ranks: Notes on a Community Meeting

the coordinated dissipation of antifascist energy

whatwemake.substack.com

A few other things that seem worth mentioning, this pair of articles were posted on the main megathread but quickly drowned under all the other crap on there, worth a read even if somehow the person responding to Seymour actually has a worse case of swallowed-a-thesaurus than Seymour himself:

Richard Seymour, Dreaming of Downfall — Sidecar

Riots in the UK.

newleftreview.org

Anton Jäger, Into the Void — Sidecar

Explaining British pogromism.

newleftreview.org

This is also fairly interesting - also a bit overblown and longwinded, but probably slightly less than those two NLR pieces:

Four theses on Fascism, Pogroms and Liberation

Some reflections on fascism, crisis and class politics

proletarianblues.substack.com

 

[Pickman's model]

Thought this was a really interesting report from a "community meeting" in London, lots to think about there - I think there's definitely a temptation for those of us on the anarcho/libertarian/non-SWP left to just genuflect to "the community" as an alternative to SUTR, so good to see something really going into the pitfalls of that approach:

Closing Ranks: Notes on a Community Meeting

the coordinated dissipation of antifascist energy

whatwemake.substack.com

A few other things that seem worth mentioning, this pair of articles were posted on the main megathread but quickly drowned under all the other crap on there, worth a read even if somehow the person responding to Seymour actually has a worse case of swallowed-a-thesaurus than Seymour himself:

Richard Seymour, Dreaming of Downfall — Sidecar

Riots in the UK.

newleftreview.org

Anton Jäger, Into the Void — Sidecar

Explaining British pogromism.

newleftreview.org

This is also fairly interesting - also a bit overblown and longwinded, but probably slightly less than those two NLR pieces:

Four theses on Fascism, Pogroms and Liberation

Some reflections on fascism, crisis and class politics

proletarianblues.substack.com

Re community meeting - All these things have protocols - there's a vicious murder or terrorist attack, there's 'reassurance' police patrols, there's a vigil for the dead, there's a public meeting where the official version's promulgated and dissident voices sidelined.

 

[The39thStep]

Brief article on intelligence led anti fascism

Stochastic Anti-Fascism

“ having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.” The evening of 7th August 2024 may go down in history as a day when the…

medium.com

 

[cesare]

Brief article on intelligence led anti fascism

Stochastic Anti-Fascism

“ having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analysed statistically but may not be predicted precisely.” The evening of 7th August 2024 may go down in history as a day when the…

medium.com

Although I imagine the answer to one of those questions is that it's people that are being defended, not institutions.

 

[hitmouse]

Been reading the new Notes from Below, and found another interesting little bit - not directly related to the riots as such, but seemed worth thinking about. From an article by an ex-bouncer:

In light of these failures, there are a lot of reactionary ideas circulating that give these men a chance to blame someone else, someone weaker than them.

This opportunity to exert power over others for our own satisfaction isn’t a new thing for us: it’s a feeling we have at work all the time. The job can require and instil a level of petty vindictiveness. In every interaction you have with a customer, you have power. In the majority of lairy situations, you come out on top. Those experiences can be attractive for all the wrong reasons. Just like how the precarity of self employment shapes your thoughts about work, so the experience of the job can shape your politics. It can be intimidating work, and so the politics that bouncers express are often comfortable with the everyday realities of social violence. It can be precarious work, constantly exposed to different variations in pay and conditions that you’re expected to navigate as an individual, and so the politics are often a patchwork of different ideas drawn from all over the place.

Alongside that power, you can find a sense of close knit, predominantly male camaraderie on a door team. That gets reinforced by confrontations with groups of people that the dominant discourse primes you to dismiss as ‘scum.’ Your daily job becomes you and your mates being confronted by the homeless, drug addicts, (mostly Albanian) drug dealers, travellers. You hear the knife crime on the radio. Every horrible idea spouted in the right wing press has its own grains of truth in what you see everyday. The pain of your individual failure to escape or move up the ladder can be masked by the feeling of exerting power over other people, of being an agent of order in an era of decline. The feelings of fear that emerge from the exposure to violence you face in the job and the precarity of your working and living circumstances can manifest in a sense of being part of the thin line holding back social decay. For many people, it’s easy to slip into a Travis Bickle mentality: “Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.”

But the direction of travel doesn’t only go in one direction. The job cuts across all racial and ethnic lines and disproportionately employs black and brown people. Often as a white British guy I was in the minority on the door. But it’s not only racially diverse, there’s also a huge diversity in class backgrounds and positions. You might be working on a team with a migrant who’s working 60 hours a week security in Sainsburys and then another guy who’s a self employed electrician who’s just using the job to make a bit of extra cash and as an excuse to get away from the wife on the weekends. Despite all these differences, your bonds with your team can be really strong. There is a deep sense of solidarity born out of working in a potentially high stress and violent environment. You have to have each others’ backs.

I worry about what could happen to door supervisors in this unfolding crisis. The base units of the English Defence League were often the building company and the various friendship circles that make up a football firm. These were cells of 2 to 10 guys with fairly high levels of trust and solidarity between each other who were often used to doing physical work together and taking instructions from a boss/Capo figure. Door teams could fit that mould. As the potential for workplace conflict increases in hospitality and in wider society, with more and more social breakdown occurring, security workers could be mobilised to defend private property and the interests of its owners against workers, organisers and desperate people. The securitisation of an increasingly unstable and unequal society requires people willing to enforce it. These are the people who will be called upon to do that, and they’re vulnerable to being convinced to do it because they cleave right on a lot of social issues and have no sense of a possible collective alternative.

But that rightward ideological tendency doesn’t mean that door teams get along well with the police. Context is everything, and different venues and doormen have different relationships with the police. MSU in particular have a closer working relationship with the police and so develop higher levels of trust and cooperation. For my own experience and the door team I became part of, we were not viewed by the police as being on their ‘side’. We were separate, not colleagues. We were spoken to by them in the same way that they would speak to any other member of the public. There was a level of mistrust. Particularly when they came in to do a venue sweep and check everything was in order, there was a sense of tension between the police and the door team; you are made to feel just as much as a potential suspect as anyone else.

The times I did call the police (for example, when we had someone restrained), when they arrived, they would position themselves in the role as an intermediary, standing above the conflict rather than immediately coming down on the side of the doorman; I was interviewed and made a statement just like everyone else. My first head door refused to even engage with the police when they came to the venue due to the fact they’d nicked him once after a fight with a customer. He always got one of the other door staff to do the talking when they turned up.

That complexity is part of what convinces me that there is another potential for security workers in the hospitality industry. I don’t think doormen are likely to organise themselves as things stand right now, but they could be drawn into a coalition of hospitality workers that is led by other groups.