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

[Pickman's model]

What about the bloke who turned state? My recollection was that his touting wasn't enough to avoid being charged, or have I misremembered that? As for the state surveillance, whilst the CCTV may have been of some importance in securing convictions, it's equally the case that the participants' blyth disregard of the likelihood (certainty, in fact, if anyone had bothered to do their homework) of the station being camerad-up was what allowed the footage to be used in the first place. That degree of amateurism was something that was far from new to a couple of the participants - a fact which, whilst it might not have led to their getting lifted the first time around, may well have been a factor in their being on the radar in this instance....

i couldn't recall anyone doing what you suggest, so i asked someone else familiar with the case - neither of us can think of anyone who 'turned state'. e2a: more people were charged than appeared ultimately in court, but i'm not sure how many were picked up after the event, i can think of at least one.

 

[past caring]

Cheers. I'm pretty sure there was something on here at the time regarding someone giving a statement....will see if I can find it.

Only 6 lifted on the day, but significantly more later though not all of those were charged (iirc 30 later lifted with 15 - including the original 6 - charged).

Anyway, more importantly, as we're agreed it was a bit of a mess, the question is why? As in why that came about - interested in your thoughts?

 

[Red Sky]

Cheers. I'm pretty sure there was something on here at the time regarding someone giving a statement....will see if I can find it.

Only 6 lifted on the day, but significantly more later though not all of those were charged (iirc 30 later lifted with 15 - including the original 6 - charged).

Anyway, more importantly, as we're agreed it was a bit of a mess, the question is why? As in why that came about - interested in your thoughts?

There's a big difference between making a statement in interview and turning Queens. One is unadvisable, the other inexcusable.

 

[Pickman's model]

Cheers. I'm pretty sure there was something on here at the time regarding someone giving a statement....will see if I can find it.

Only 6 lifted on the day, but significantly more later though not all of those were charged (iirc 30 later lifted with 15 - including the original 6 - charged).

Anyway, more importantly, as we're agreed it was a bit of a mess, the question is why? As in why that came about - interested in your thoughts?

oh jesus - where to start...

yeh, the cctv at the station was a schoolboy error. as was hanging round in pubs for ages. and having people along who weren't used to that sort of thing.

information should have been requested and plans drawn up before. having everyone on the platform was asking for trouble. and after the hassle people had had in central london - where it was specifically people associated with the group who were being targeted - people should have stepped back and asked why this was happening then. while no one wants to let things go ahead, sometimes it's better just to let things pass and get information than go mob handed into a clusterfuck.

 

[past caring]

There's a big difference between making a statement in interview and turning Queens. One is unadvisable, the other inexcusable.

True - in a 'moral' sense. But when one considers that giving a statement is inevitably a consequence of not being able to stand up to pressure, you never know where it will end. At a minimum it confirms your own participation and potentially that of others. Further, given that even the dogs in the street know 'no comment' to be the only sensible option, you then have an immediate problem if, as here, more than one person gives a statement. Unless pre-prepared and a collaborative effort, it's almost inevitable that each statement will give the lie to all the others.

The cumulative effect - particularly when one considers that if charges were eventually brought they would inevitably involve a conspiracy element - may well end up being of little practical difference to turning state's...

 

[Red Sky]

True - in a 'moral' sense. But when one considers that giving a statement is inevitably a consequence of not being able to stand up to pressure, you never know where it will end. At a minimum it confirms your own participation and potentially that of others. Further, given that even the dogs in the street know 'no comment' to be the only sensible option, you then have an immediate problem if, as here, more than one person gives a statement. Unless pre-prepared and a collaborative effort, it's almost inevitable that each statement will give the lie to all the others.

The cumulative effect - particularly when one considers that if charges were eventually brought they would inevitably involve a conspiracy element - may well end up being of little practical difference to turning state's...

As you say "No comment" is always the way to go.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Interesting meeting. AFN and IWCA/RA/AFA sharing a platform. Along with Danish anti fascists.

Turns out the proposed 'AFA' speaker was not actually from AFA at all. Tied in with both Labour and Hope not Hate apparently. Which sorts of make you wonder what he would have come out with? And what motivated him to chance it?

 

[Red Sky]

Turns out the proposed 'AFA' speaker was not actually from AFA at all. Tied in with both Labour and Hope not Hate apparently. Which sorts of make you wonder what he would have come out with? And what motivated him to chance it?

I thought Mr O'Shea was the AFA speaker? Was there supposed to be another?

 

[Joe Reilly]

I thought Mr O'Shea was the AFA speaker? Was there supposed to be another?

Someone was invited, and put themselves forward to speak specifically on AFA's behalf, which wouldn't have been a problem (as the RA reference was largely to the period prior to AFA being launched) except that as it turns out he wasn't from AFA at all.

 

[Red Sky]

Someone was invited, and put themselves forward to speak specifically on AFA's behalf, which wouldn't have been a problem (as the RA reference was largely to the period prior to AFA being launched) except that as it turns out he wasn't from AFA at all.

Odd.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Well whoever invited them must have believed so.

 

[MrSpikey]

Thanks. On the touting bit - my recollection is that there was one individual who gave a statement in return for reduced charges.

None of those charged cooperated with the prosecution, and all those who went to trial faced the same conspiracy charge.

One individual has their charge dropped before the trial, after submitting medical statements to the court (and with the CCTV showing they were not on the platform at the relevant time). Maybe that's what you are thinking of?

 

[Nice one]

There was also one young lad who separated himself off post-arrest and wouldn't have anything to do with the other defendants - i think his dad paid for a private solicitor. I don't think he was a liability to any of the other defendants - this is going from (very hazy) memory.

What would have happened is post-arrest they would have all been interviewed, plus further down the process their repective solicitors would have written a witness statement on behalf their client - this essentially sets out your defence for the CPS. You don't have to do one but it's necessary to gain access to all the unused material (evidence the cps have but wouldn't be used in court as part of the prosecution).

I can't think of any time during the trial defendants interviews/witness statements were used against other defendants on trial, so i don't think it was ever an issue. Wasn't there everyday at both trials so don't hold me to it.

 

[past caring]

Possibly. As I've said, it's only from my recollection of what was said on here at the time - which could have been a little off the mark.

That said, the thing was a fucking shambles wasn't it? More on which later....

ETA: this was in reply to MrSpikey. The thing Nice One has mentioned about one of them going solo was really what I had in mind.....

 

[LDC]

Maybe people should be a bit more careful in throwing accusations like grassing about?

 

[past caring]

Maybe people should be a bit more careful in throwing accusations like grassing about?

Are you after an apology?

Happy to say I was wrong to say tout. It wasn't necessary. This lot were such a fucking shower it wasn't required.

 

[The39thStep]

I remember a conversation I had with a former poster on here who reckoned that there were over 2000 pages of CPS evidence using social media extracts and messages extracted from phones

 

[Pickman's model]

I remember a conversation I had with a former poster on here who reckoned that there were over 2000 pages of CPS evidence using social media extracts and messages extracted from phones

i saw the piles of phone messages provided in discovery and it really was fuck loads over a long period of time.

 

[Pickman's model]

Are you after an apology?

Happy to say I was wrong to say tout. It wasn't necessary. This lot were such a fucking shower it wasn't required.

not to mention that one mark kennedy was doing enough touting surveillance anyway

while there were, er, issues with the way things happened in welling, it's to my mind unfair to put the boot in as you and joe reilly have. antifa had a number of successes and near successes and shouldn't be damned on the basis of welling. for example, dave hann noted that antifa fought the bpp and held off their development as serious contenders for the streets abandoned by the bnp. antifa tried having a pop at the red white and blue - offhand i can't think of a time when other anti-fascist organisations tried something similar outside cities. there's the yorkshire incident mentioned in the vice article.

all british anti-fascist groups over the last couple of decades have operated in the shadow of afa's activity in the 1980s and 1990s. there's no denying that afa and red action were highly organised and astute groups. pretty much any group is going to suffer by comparison! i remember waterloo, the attempt on the bnp agm - also in '92 - the march round the east end, being outside york hall with afa, must have been the night of the local elections in '94, running round holloway looking for fascists near the bloody sunday march in '98 or so... none of the subsequent organisations, no platform, antifa, the afn, have managed to repeat the successes of afa.

nevertheless, i think that the people who've gone out to oppose the fash and some of whom have paid with their liberty for doing so shouldn't be done down on the basis of one flawed outing, even if it was a catastrophic fuck up.

 

[The39thStep]

The BPP were an irrelevancy imo

 

[Pickman's model]

The BPP were an irrelevancy imo

when the big boys were off the streets you had to make do with what there was.

 

[past caring]

Pickman's model - I'll come back to this in substance later as I'm posting from my phone, but I'm glad you posted it. I had (and have) no intention of 'doing down' in the sense of wanting to besmirch others in terms of supposed personal failings or character defects.

I only know one of the participants to any real extent (one of the others I'd met in passing a couple of times) and I would be - and was- happy to have him stood beside me in a tight spot. But it's not about that.....

Your honesty about what went wrong in practice is appreciated - and useful. But when I asked the question, I was really driving at the issue of what went wrong (or was wrong from the outset) politically that allowed/enabled those things to occur.

I'm not interested in 'we in RA and AFA were better' cock-waving nonsense but in what lessons are to be learned. As you say, no-one likes to see anti-facists doing jail - all the more so when it's unncessary and for only minimal (if any) political gain....

Lastly, Joe can speak for himself, but I doubt his motivations in this are any different to mine.

 

[The39thStep]

when the big boys were off the streets you had to make do with what there was.

True if anti fascism is only just looking for a fash to attack rather than building any form of working class resistance

 

[Pickman's model]

Pickman's model - I'll come back to this in substance later as I'm posting from my phone, but I'm glad you posted it. I had (and have) no intention of 'doing down' in the sense of wanting to besmirch others in terms of supposed personal failings or character defects.

I only know one of the participants to any real extent (one of the others I'd met in passing a couple of times) and I would be - and was- happy to have him stood beside me in a tight spot. But it's not about that.....

Your honesty about what went wrong in practice is appreciated - and useful. But when I asked the question, I was really driving at the issue of what went wrong (or was wrong from the outset) politically that allowed/enabled those things to occur.

I'm not interested in 'we in RA and AFA were better' cock-waving nonsense but in what lessons are to be learned. As you say, no-one likes to see anti-facists doing jail - all the more so when it's unncessary and for only minimal political gain....

Lastly, Joe can speak for himself, but I doubt his motivations in this are any different to mine.

tbh afaics the main lessons to be learned are to better know the area in which you're going to be operating, to avoid alcohol in advance, to have a plan b and to know the people you're with, so that everyone's on the same page if things go tits up. in addition, having an understanding of how the forces of darkness will proceed, what courses of action they're likely to take, will stand you in good stead - the mass arrests a few years ago in whitechapel show that the lessons of mayday 2001 and the student protests hadn't been fully taken on board - that the police can and will kettle large numbers of people and arrest a couple of hundred to achieve their aim.

i think that what was wrong politically was that apart from the rwb pretty much everything was reactive: that unlike e.g the march round the east end or the unity carnivals antifa focussed almost exclusively on responding to events. if you're always responding to things you can't push a second proactive track to your activity. there was no strategic goal, no way really to measure progress or success unless by driving other groups off the street. and when these were often groups like the bpp sure it's a victory but what does it lead onto?

 

[Pickman's model]

True if anti fascism is only just looking for a fash to attack rather than building any form of working class resistance

yeh. this is something i was hinting at in the post i wrote while you submitted that. there was an overemphasis on tactical and short-term activity and a failure to invest, if you will, in the future by doing the legwork to help develop a culture of resistance to racism and fascism in communities.

 

[LDC]

...by doing the legwork to help develop a culture of resistance to racism and fascism in communities.

Indeed, easier said than done though.

There's a structural problem in that anti-fascist activist/street activity groups are probably not the grouping type that is suited to developing this longer term culture in communities, workplaces, and neighborhoods. (Need both obviously...)

Fucking long term project that requires people in be rooted and committed to areas and collective 'normal' workplaces rather than moving about loads and being self employed or doing co-op/hippie work or being an academic.

Quick question, what year was that big court case?

 

[Pickman's model]

Indeed, easier said than done though.

There's a structural problem in that anti-fascist activist/street activity groups are probably not the grouping type that is suited to developing this longer term culture in communities, workplaces, and neighborhoods. (Need both obviously...)

Fucking long term project that requires people in be rooted and committed to areas and collective 'normal' workplaces (rather than moving about loads and being self employed or doing co-op/hippie work or being an academic.

Quick question, what year was that big court case?

quick answer 2011

 

[Red Sky]

Indeed, easier said than done though.

There's a structural problem in that anti-fascist activist/street activity groups are probably not the grouping type that is suited to developing this longer term culture in communities, workplaces, and neighborhoods. (Need both obviously...)

Fucking long term project that requires people in be rooted and committed to areas and collective 'normal' workplaces rather than moving about loads and being self employed or doing co-op/hippie work or being an academic.

Quick question, what year was that big court case?

That's really the job of the whole Left.

Anti fascism is a specialised and reactive activity.

 

[Red Sky]

quick answer 2011

Remarkably inconvenient timing as it happened.

 

[Pickman's model]

Remarkably inconvenient timing as it happened.

yeh that and the next 18 months, 2 years weren't the highest of lights of my life.