Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
His obsessive delight in his, erroneous, perception of the defeat of working class activists who’ve invested over a decade in the estate where they live is instructive.
Last edited:
Beating the Fascists: The authorised history of Anti-Fascist Action
- Thread starter cogg
- Start date
His obsessive delight in his, erroneous, perception of the defeat of working class activists who’ve invested over a decade in the estate where they live is instructive.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
He’ll be back shortly to claim a) it’s just a genuine enquiry given his interest in pro working class politics and b) his sneering attacks are a purely defensive response to the arrogance of the IWCA that he’s got no examples of.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
This counterfactual nonsense is dangerously delusional. The truth is the 1994 cessation was respected across the entire country. With one notable exception. A far-right counter demo against a Bloody Sunday March in Manchester in 1996. They were absolutely splattered. No punch-ups, marches or meetings thereafter.
There is little doubt that anti-fascism will face huge strategic challenges in the years ahead. Pretending that 'they never went away you know' (on top of confusing the likes of BNP/NF/B&H/C18 with UKIP, EDL and the FLA) risks leaving anti-fascism psychologically ill-equipped to step up up to the plate, as we have already seen happen elsewhere in Europe, when required to do so.
Arbeter Fraynd
Active Member
I'd agree about the overall shift of strategy, and I'm not claiming there were huge marches, but there definitely were some NF and/or BNP marches in the NW in the early 2000s. I know that for a fact as I witnessed and was involved in confronting at least 2.
Its a while back now, couldn't give you exact dates, but would probably be 2001/2
Its a while back now, couldn't give you exact dates, but would probably be 2001/2
Last edited:
Fozzie Bear
Well-Known Member
There were some absolutely tiny NF “marches” in the noughties iirc of about 30 people, heavily protected by the police.
Far more like trolling or doing the old “come on then” whilst running away than a show of strength like Lewisham 77 or the BNP’s “rights for whites” marches of the early 90s.
Far more like trolling or doing the old “come on then” whilst running away than a show of strength like Lewisham 77 or the BNP’s “rights for whites” marches of the early 90s.
The forces of nationalism returned to the streets in 2009. Inchaote and disorganised but recognised at the time as the kernel of something potentially much bigger.
The search for "The real fascists" among them is a bit of a distraction.
Arbeter Fraynd
Active Member
.
can't you delete posts on here? balls up trying to reply on a phone while slightly pissed...
can't you delete posts on here? balls up trying to reply on a phone while slightly pissed...
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Yes. Press edit and delete the words. Replace with a . or similar and press post reply.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
A distraction from what?
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
OK. You provide no location. You are unable to pin down the dates. And are not sure exactly of who was marching. Hardly compelling.
More importantly what you also appear entirely unaware of is that the Griffin/Lecomber/Butler leadership fought an intense and bitter internal battle (covered extensively in BTF incidentally, which you obviously haven't read either) against the old guard Tyndall/Edmonds prior to assuming leadership and imposing the new strategy.
After a long patient 7 to 8 year wait, it was only in 2001-2002 that the investment looked like paying off.
The idea that Griffin/Lecomber would pick this precise time revisit the old strategy, which they themselves had done so much to discredit, is risible.
PS: "I'm not claiming they were huge marches" - here unwittingly you give the game away anyway. For if the BNP did decide to organise a march, then the turn out would likely be ten or twenty times bigger than the 30 odd the NF could hope to muster, so there never could be any confusion between the two.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
He's been on the case for longer than that. As far back as 2004 he was disputing the 50,000 votes the IWCA candidate received in the London Mayoral election...
The fact that dangerous forms of ultra nationalism can emerge spontaneously without some kind of hidden hand involved.
A lot of time was wasted in the first couple of years of the EDL trying to spot the secret cabal of Hitler worshippers who were obviously behind the whole thing.
Griffin did try to organise marches in the wake of the Lee Rigby murder, one in Whitehall (foiled by badgers) and a bizarre appearance in Dover with Paul Pitt.
The NF were organising matches around this sort of time. Two in Margate to my knowledge. Numbering 120 max iirc
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
I do hope you are not implying that because Griffin tried (allegedly) to organise a single march a year out from his retirement and twenty years after the 'no more marches' declaration that in some way this supports the counterfactual theory that the declaration was merely a smokescreen all along?
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
So what? The NF could march in Margate every week, even every day, and not make a smidgen of difference to anyone either in Margate or anywhere else. AFA abandoned the NF as unworthy of its time, when the NF could pull twice as many, ten years earlier, in order to focus on the BNP in the East End in particular.
'Focus' is the operative word. Impulsively reacting to every tiny initiative always runs the risk of appearing symbiotic.
Especially when the seriously ambitious elements of the far-right are gathering unhindered elsewhere. This is surely the lesson from the Continent where both social democracy and anti-fascism have been hopelessly outflanked.
Firstly it's a factual response. This happened. Thats what.
I totally disagree that it wouldn't make a smidge of difference if they marched every day. Maybe tell that to any non whites living in Margate.
At the time this was the biggest far right march in the country. It was greeted with an ad hoc mobilisation led by locals which was an appropriate measure.
Not really interested in reviving rows from nearly thirty years ago. Again, this is a fact and something that happened.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Well, according to your own account nothing actually happened. And as far the "thirty years ago" reference it was cited by you as an example to begin with. But you apparently now wish to row back from explaining its import. It's like your having an argument with yourself.
Yes, there was a far-right anti-immigrant march in Dover around this time, I recall seeing on the BBC before they went ultra politically correct.
Focus was on strong white man holding Union flag on his balcony, and crusty anarchists fighting fash/pigs.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Always reminds me of that period where the BNP were winning seats but the anti fascists thought that the real fight was against some micro sect of fash picketing HMV about a record. Anyway, anyone going to answer Joe's question about how to tackle the coalition around the TR campaign ?
Something definitely happened. Griffin thought he might be able to replicate the EDL phenomena, gain control of it or at least go into alliance with it. He put out a video appeal to Tommy Robinson to abandon his Zionist backers and join him.
Anti fascists mobilised and the whole day misfired for him. Shortly after he left the BNP.
Joe Reilly
Well-Known Member
Not to be overly pedantic, but at issue is not the NF in Dover but the BNP in the North West. The allegation was made the BNP there did not abide by the party's 1994 decision to turn exclusively to electoral politics but continued with the 'march and grow' strategy pioneered by Oswald Moseley in order to 'control the streets'.
Dover, it ought not be necessary to point out, is not in the North West either.
I do live in the north-west of England and am aware that Dover is not here.
As far as I know in my relatively limited experience, there have been no far-right marches up here for a very long time.
Except for the pre-9/11 ones in Lancashire mill towns, prior to BNP growth.
Arbeter Fraynd
Active Member
Given what you and others have pointed out the marches I'm talking about were presumably NF organised rather than BNP. I appreciate the difference between the two, but there were still fascists marching in the streets of Oldham and Burnley in the early 2000s
there was loads of EDL marches when they were popular. you must not have been paying attention.
The EDL are not a traditional fascist organisation, despite their street prescence.
As the Labour Party is not a socialist party, but a party with some socialist's in it.
The EDL are/were a right-wing party with some fascists in it.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Obviously the 30 or so NF that turned up to most of their marches were a bigger threat than the BNP who were getting 28% of the vote in Council elections in Oldham and winning seats in Burnley.
Arbeter Fraynd
Active Member
of course not. where and when am I supposed to have said that?
Arbeter Fraynd
Active Member
I don't really understand the determination here to win arguments that no-body is having. Since posting in this thread I've been accused of thinking the NF were more important than the BNP, of telling the working class to vote Labour (presumably that was what Joe means by the status quo) and of fabricating marches that never happened - all because I tried to discuss my experiences of attempting to work out how to do something about BNP, as an anarchist, at a time and place where there was no visible, radical opposition
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
I didn't say that you had tbh.Its a thread not a private conversation.
Similar threads
