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Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action

Red Storm said:
Are you going to wait until all the Red Actions are online before you publish? Must be worth going through them all?

I've put up three on the archive though.
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I think you need to properly distinguish between the Red Action newspaper and the Red Action bulletin which replaced it. Those are RA Bulletins that you've uploaded, which were produced in an A4 size glossy magazine format. The newspaper edition was published in a standard tabloid size newsprint format over several years.
 
framed said:
I think you need to properly distinguish between the Red Action newspaper and the Red Action bulletin which replaced it. Those are RA Bulletins that you've uploaded, which were produced in an A4 size glossy magazine format. The newspaper edition was published in a standard tabloid size newsprint format over several years.
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I thought they were a like for like replacement. Thanks for the info though.

I've amended the post.
 
according to larry o'h, both butler and lecomber were attacked by 1 of C18 in 93/94. any info on this? i seem to remember lecomber attacking butler apparently dressed as a ninja in loughton or similar but not this. any ideas?
 
Don't tell me people bought that twitter thing that had a newspaper report of another sargent who was released? Which is not to say that it's not happened, but...

Can't get the above link to load btw
 
Joe Reilly said:
Much of this is, the why's and wherefore's is covered in BTF.
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joe, i meant the release. he is due out. he got 14 years to cross's 18 (i think) and some twat on vnn mentioned it but i havent seen anything anywhere. there was a whole thing going on 'hes a grass, we gonna do him when hes out.' usual bletherskites!
 
the griffin watch blog - run by inadequate nazi sean hadley says:
The State like dealing with gangsters and criminals, as their dealings with the likes of the Jewish Krays proved, also some of the scum who attack genuine Nationalists as Gri££in's attack dogs. Incidentally talking of State sponsored Special Branch scum I've just heard Charlie Sargent was released from prison yesterday.
13/19/12.
 
malatesta32 said:
joe, i meant the release. he is due out. he got 14 years to cross's 18 (i think) and some twat on vnn mentioned it but i havent seen anything anywhere. there was a whole thing going on 'hes a grass, we gonna do him when hes out.' usual bletherskites!
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It's well know he was a SB asset. It came out in the trial. It also 'came out' in BTF including the relationshiop between Browning and Lecomber, and C18 and the BNP in answer to your previous query no 3424
 
Joe Reilly said:
It's well know he was a SB asset. It came out in the trial. It also 'came out' in BTF including the relationshiop between Browning and Lecomber, and C18 and the BNP in answer to your previous query no 3424
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If I remember right he got a visit whilst in custody from SB. No other suspect in the murder of Castle got such a visit, not exactly difficult to work out why and as an added bonus why C18 were allowed to get away with certain things for so long.

E2A Fed posting.
 
weepiper said:
If I remember right he got a visit whilst in custody from SB. No other suspect in the murder of Castle got such a visit, not exactly difficult to work out why and as an added bonus why C18 were allowed to get away with certain things for so long.

E2A Fed posting.
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there is a long thread on shirtfront from brownings side and sounds pretty authentic. it says that SB were desperately trying to get CS and help pin it on browning but the local plod dealing with the murder case pushed it thru and fucked SB off. browning was nicked but didnt make a statement, CS was at large for a month after the murder. cross wasnt! it reeks!
 
and if you can post any links, articles that yer man has about, that wd be great. just on oi, blood and honour, C18 etc in the antifascist book. wd be very timely barneyP!
 
Just a couple of observations on the review of the book by AFA Ireland. Ill ignore the accusation we weren't very nice people and deal with two more important points.


The book ,the writer says, lavishes praise " on gangland figures who sometimes lent AFA a hand. Given the reality of the relationship between criminals and the working class communities they prey on, it grates that some of these characters are singled out for praise."

Presumably this is the section that mentions Dessie Noonan?? I don't remember AFA Ireland having a problem with No Retreat when it also talked about the role of Mr Noonan. Nor did AFA Ireland ever raise any issue about working with him at any stage. Nor did the author personally raise any issue on his many trips to Manchester. By the way just out of interest how did Dessie prey on working class communities?

However I suppose this (and the mean boys accusation) was all just scene setting building up to

"There is also a vindictive element to the account of how a former Red Action and AFA activist, Dave Hann, eventually severed his links with the organization. Hann was a central figure in anti-Fascism in Manchester in the early 1990s but is portrayed as a fairly marginal, if not naïve character, in the book. As the BNP tried to establish themselves in the mill towns of Lancashire, AFA’s Northern Network, with Hann prominent, moved to combat them. In one incident in Rochdale, mentioned in the book, a large group of fascists came upon a group of AFA activists. Many of those present were new to anti-fascist politics and as the BNP charged, their ranks wavered. However ‘two leading RA people stepped forward and broke bottles off the wall (and) instantly people rallied’: the fascists were put to flight. Hann was one of the ‘two leading RA people’ but is not named, as this would surely position him as a more important activist than previously suggested. Similarly he is written out entirely of the account of the 1995 Bloody Sunday march in Manchester, in which he was again prominent. In December 1991 he was sent to help out AFA in Glasgow during one of their first major confrontations, also recounted in the book, but again his presence there is not mentioned. Much of the Northern Network’s activities were described in No Retreat, written by Hann and Steve Tilzey published in 2004. It seems Hann’s contribution has to be downplayed in order that his eventual departure from AFA appears as the result of purely personal failings. (That’s Hann at Hyde Park in 1989 putting the boot into a bonehead on page 158 of Beating the Fascists by the way.)

Unfortunately this colours what otherwise is an important study of militant anti-fascism"

Firstly again AFA Ireland at no time sought any clarification from AFA in England/Scotland about any of the reasons why Dave Hann was put out of AFA.
Dave Hann played an important role in AFA in the North for a good few years and was a valued and trusted member. However when he approached AFA people telling them of his involvement in a mugging and asking for help that was it he was gone. The fact that his co-accused did a deal on the day of the case that involved the dropping of charges against Dave in exchange for his guilty plea made no difference to AFA. Incidently that was why he wasnt mentioned in relation to Bloody Sunday in Manchester- because he wasn't with the AFA group instead he was on the march because he was on charges.
All this has been done to death- why bring it up again?
It is unfortunate that someone with a longstanding anti-Red Action agenda was allowed to write this review and "colour" it with personal and political nonsense.
 
jackie 68 said:
"There is also a vindictive element to the account of how a former Red Action and AFA activist, Dave Hann, eventually severed his links with the organization.

As outlined at some length in BTF it was AFA that severed links with him. And there was nothing 'vindictive' in it.

Hann was a central figure in anti-Fascism in Manchester in the early 1990s but is portrayed as a fairly marginal, if not naïve character, in the book. As the BNP tried to establish themselves in the mill towns of Lancashire, AFA’s Northern Network, with Hann prominent, moved to combat them. In one incident in Rochdale, mentioned in the book, a large group of fascists came upon a group of AFA activists. Many of those present were new to anti-fascist politics and as the BNP charged, their ranks wavered. However ‘two leading RA people stepped forward and broke bottles off the wall (and) instantly people rallied’: the fascists were put to flight. Hann was one of the ‘two leading RA people’ but is not named, as this would surely position him as a more important activist than previously suggested.
G. M. was the other RA person 'not named'. And it was G. M. that Hann choose as an interlocuter between him and RA when he realised that he would need some serious advice on how to extricate himself from the consequences of the charges he was under. The quid pro quo was that he would resign thereafter. But on avoiding jail he reneged.

"It seems Hann’s contribution has to be downplayed in order that his eventual departure from AFA appears as the result of purely personal failings."

What hasn't been emphasised in all of this is the extreme personal pressure AFA activists could be under. Unlike the other succesful physical force campaigns such as the 43 Group and the ANL Mark 1 which were wrapped in a couple of years the AFA campaign to make the BNP etc cry uncle lasted more than a decade. Not surprisingly there was a certain amount of wear and tear. People handled it in different ways. But people still lost jobs, friends, relationships, suffered life-changing injuries or went to jail.


We now know, with the publication of the RA archive, that Hann's first contact with RA came in January 1987 (contrary to his book which states 1984) when he applied for supporting membership. We know this now because his letter entitled 'Write or wrong' was printed in the paper (issue 30) along with criticism from him about RA's coverage of the attack on the AFA Rememberance Day march. What is not known is when he applied or was invited to become a full member. In any event he moved to Manchester sometime in 1989.

Due to D.C moving in the opposite direction around that time and both Hann and G.M became the RA reps in the city. And as a consequence RA reps within the Northern Network. With the benefit of hindsight this was a very siginficant step-up particulalry for Hann, who remember, unlike GM had had no involvement in politics previously, and was about 19 at the time.

As I said before people handled the pressure in different ways. Clearly Hann handled the pressure less well than others. There had been a number of incidents previously and tentative suggestions that something may have been going gradually askew in Manchester, but nothing was nailed down. When inquiries were made Hann opted for the 'Lance Armstrong defence': hinting at the personal failings/agenda's of those he believed to have been drawing the attention of the leadership to said shenanigins and lie doggo. (Interestingly he continue to apply the same strategy after his explusion and in his book).

But in actual fact, street operations apart, he was way out of his political depth. Putting it bluntly he had been over-promoted as a result of an absence of alternatives, which forced his 'personal failings' to the fore.

Which is why the idea put about, both in this review and elsewhere (one blog describes him as 'an unsung hero of the anti-fascist movement' and so on) of Hann as being somehow 'exceptional' are so wide of the mark,and the political conclusions drawn by him in No Retreat, now look such pure baloney.
That didn't stop people drawing succour from them then, (supporters of Anftifa for example) and bizarrely even now.

I know for instance of another pamphlet/book due to be published in the not too distant future that goes down the same line, (AFA threw in the towel) which after the publication of BTF can be motivated purely by a political desire to consciously revise the straightforward truth.

A former member of the original AFA executive, pre re-launch in 1989 has also published a book recently, for which he interviewed Hann, and who in turn was interviewed by Hann, both seemingly agreed that 'the problem with RA in AFA', was that RA was in AFA!

Which is why it would have been nice to be afforded the opportunity to compare No Quarter's review of No Retreat with the review of BTF but for some reason it does not seem to be available on line, which sort of illustrates the sensitivity about the political differences between the two versions of history, and helps give lie to the notion that the exchanges are of little political import or are the by-products of a mere 'spat'.
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A former member of the AFA executive has also published a book recently, for which he interviewed Hann, and who in turn was interviewed by Hann, both seemingly agreed that 'the problem with RA in AFA', was that RA was in AFA!
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Which book is that?
 
Tony green stein came talk to us when we formed the Red Party. He seemed amiable, but a mite obsessive and a little uncomfortable with our somewhat relaxed attitudes.
 
I recall Tony Greenstein, as secretary of Brighton Unemployed Centre, writing a piece on his blog on, Paul Kenny, of the GMB, asking why he'd signed-up to a report with an American anti-union workfare company.

And this.
 
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