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EDL watch

malatesta32 said:
from what we can gather here: coaches got smashed up, 'irish' pub windows put through, march rerouted by plod and organisers, MAFA etc came over to lend support but liverAF short of numbers. fash are crowing away as this is the 1st time they have had anything to cheer about for ages following the infidels washouts and the general decline of edl, bnp etc. they have also expressed surprise at the numbers and it seems like folk from most groups turned up:
'Casuals , Football Firms , Ex Soldiers , SDL, EDL, CXF, NWI , NEI'
a rare moment of solidarity for them but as said earlier, nothing winds em up like ireland.
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Ive been visiting family in Wales this weekend and been a bit incommunicado but I'd like to add a few things to what appears to have taken place this weekend.And that primarily is not to get into a blame culture or feeling guilty about it. The fash/loyalist/lumpens will occasionally have their day. Its whether they can repeat it week after week and I dont think they can. Yesterday was FA Cup 5th Round a lot of teams not playing, Liverpool playing today and as most of these EDL morons are in the main 'lads' who use these events as another string to their hooligan bow. They are a mob, poorly led and random. On occasions this has happened before...Bloody Sunday in the early 90's when C18 managed to muster 300 assorted hooligans to attack the commemoration march..also some early Manchester Martyrs marches (and a few later ones) where they would also get a decent turn out. The BNP may be now seen to be getting out on the streets to rival the EDL and I believe its what their members want as at heart they crave for this type of activity..its fundamental to fascism. But lets put it in perspective...anti fascists are in a bit of dissarray but not totally in a mess. We do need to sort out where things need to happen...this is without the UAF type of opposition which will lead people into cul de sacs. But there is a bidding war going on at the moment for the anti islamist vote...and each of the various groups are pecking away. The EDL are moronic and have a base appeal which is more akin to hue and cry than to political allegiance. If as said in previous posts even they were suprised at numbers then this might legitimately be considered a one off...and it will hurt but its not a major setback..we will lose sometimes..but what did we lose. Lets think about it. Far more important is the ability and resilience to defend our day to day activities which the EDL have been targetting. If we were to be unable to carry out even the simplest of things then we would be in trouble. ie the ocuppy groups...the CP stall in Glasgow..even UAF meetings that have been targetted. As it is now the BNP are in a financial mess and about to be embroiled in more scandal. The EDL go into next weeks Hyde event cockahoop and will probably eclipse the BNP on the day. What will be the response of the left/antifascists?..Do we want to put ourselves on offer again? I would say that events are moving too fast for us at the moment..not that we need to reflect but that we need far more understanding about how we go about it. We also have to consider the police and the dynamics of surveillance and infiltration which I know has affected activists in MCR recently. But we also have to listen to the call of grass roots activists who say engage and meet them at their level. Have the argument in the pub etc. A call should go out soon.
 
Inigo Montoya said:
I think LiverAF have a great website, write excellent analysis and organise some good events...

Though Liverpool Antifascists cannot and will not condemn the use of force in self-defence, we are not looking to initiate violence. In fact, we hold that it is possible for the vast majority of physical resistance to be entirely peaceful. As our previous actions have demonstrated, it is entirely possible to block the fascists from view or to drive them off the streets altogether without throwing a single punch. - http://liveraf.wordpress.com/what-we-do/
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Weasel words.
 
Antifascists have to acknowledge that we don’t win every time. The reason why the fash got such a turnout was probably cos of soccer etc but it wasn’t organised. They were lucky like they sometimes are. They always get angry over anything irish. At 1 martyrs march yonks ago I was amazed at how enraged they were when they tried to attack us. They promptly got bounced off the pavement by AFA/RA of course but boy, were they miffed! I was at a meeting where Adams was speaking and they were going mental on the streets all night after it. BNP are trying to harness the energy on the streets that EDL etc exploit as they are damaged financially - £850,000 in debt says Griffclops – and political work is boring. Street hassle is much more fun! This is why BNP are out on EDL stuff ‘unofficially.’ Antifascism shd not be consigned to the backburner but shd be organised for when neccesary. Like yesterday – tho to be fair it didn’t seem like it was going to be much. The worry is that they will try to recreate it in Hyde next week. MAFA be warned! And well done for those who turned out.

 
malatesta32 said:
Antifascists have to acknowledge that we don’t win every time. The reason why the fash got such a turnout was probably cos of soccer etc but it wasn’t organised. They were lucky like they sometimes are. They always get angry over anything irish. At 1 martyrs march yonks ago I was amazed at how enraged they were when they tried to attack us. They promptly got bounced off the pavement by AFA/RA of course but boy, were they miffed! I was at a meeting where Adams was speaking and they were going mental on the streets all night after it. BNP are trying to harness the energy on the streets that EDL etc exploit as they are damaged financially - £850,000 in debt says Griffclops – and political work is boring. Street hassle is much more fun! This is why BNP are out on EDL stuff ‘unofficially.’ Antifascism shd not be consigned to the backburner but shd be organised for when neccesary. Like yesterday – tho to be fair it didn’t seem like it was going to be much. The worry is that they will try to recreate it in Hyde next week. MAFA be warned! And well done for those who turned out.
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MAFA no longer exists.

Main EDL page are saying there was just 58 of them in Liverpool.
 
Statement from LiverAF:

For anybody in any doubt, yesterday was a significant victory for the far-right. They are actively pursuing a Mosleyite strategy of controlling the streets, and gaining in confidence as they do so unopposed. That LiverAF managed to get the same turnout on its own, unannounced, as the public call out did at the demo the other Monday is a terrible indictment of the current state of anti-fascism. Everyone who views it as too small a threat, or would leave the job to others, or thinks UAF an adequate response to this, THIS is where your way of thinking leads us.
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Red Storm said:
Just seen a 32csm statement on it. I don't know if its public yet so I'll wait for someone else to post it.
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I don't agree with the 32csm and other republican groups. But I hope the antifascist movement back them up next time with sufficient folk in marches as the fash will have gained confidence from this attack and won't stop with the republicans.
 
manny-p said:
I don't agree with the 32csm and other republican groups. But I hope the antifascist movement back them up next time with sufficient folk in marches as the fash will have gained confidence from this attack and won't stop with the republicans.
Click to expand...

Just for the record I wasn't saying I do or do not support the 32csm or any other Irish republican organisations.
 
manny-p said:
put your cards on the table bro.
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I like to keep my hand close to my chest in public.

The Gaughan Stagg Cumann of the 32csm would like to salute their comrades from the manchester Anti fascist movement for their efforts against the fascist who took to the streets of Liverpool yesterday and their continued work against this element in our societies today.

The cumann will continue to work side by side with the anti Facist representatives who choose to stand firm and challenge the Fascist on our streets.

Beir Bua
Click to expand...
 
from libcom:
'First hand account from my comrade
"What happened was the RFB leadership (Sinn Feiners) capitulated to the police and turned back from the route into the city centre, thus handing the fascists a victory. Trust me from earlier experiences the fascists were not up for clashing with a determined opposition but this is not what the RFB represented, much to the disgust of the aforementioned 20 or so Manchester antifascists who turned up to show the fash what anti-fascism is really about. A shame on the RFBs and the Liverpool anti-fascist movement."
 
malatesta32 said:
from what we can gather here: coaches got smashed up, 'irish' pub windows put through, march rerouted by plod and organisers, MAFA etc came over to lend support but liverAF short of numbers. fash are crowing away as this is the 1st time they have had anything to cheer about for ages following the infidels washouts and the general decline of edl, bnp etc. they have also expressed surprise at the numbers and it seems like folk from most groups turned up:
'Casuals , Football Firms , Ex Soldiers , SDL, EDL, CXF, NWI , NEI'
a rare moment of solidarity for them but as said earlier, nothing winds em up like ireland.
Click to expand...
Bloody Ireland, full of extremist muslims it is.
 
This liverpool stuff only appears so important because your focus has been so narrowed down to anti-fascism. It's irrelevant. It doesn't mean the wind has changed on far-right street activity - it means nothing at all in the wider political picture. It might send about 200 people down a cul-de-sac of pointless reactive militarisation to a threat that means nothing to anyone beyond the narrow focus. Whole world of w/c politics concerns and interests out there - dig in.
 
it's a mixture of both though isn't it. fact is the left just doesn't have the base in working class areas, nor does it have the means and wherewithal to protect itself currently.
 
You're doing the same - identifying the w/c with the left , and then narrowing the left down to counter-protests to the edl's counter protests. This is just the result of the narrow focus - and the finger wagging in the post higher above - the blood is on your heads type stuff, get a fucking grip. This is all irrelevant.

You have the answer in your post actually - look at how you get influence in w/c areas, what ties you and the community together that they'd destroy this sort of thing? It's not isolated anti-fascism like this.
 
Let's have a bit of perspective please, all these events in Liverpool show is that the fash are still just about capable of making a nuiscance of themselves, nothing more. With sufficient preparation and a bit of hard work the fash in Liverpool yesterday could've been seen off, but based on previous years absolutely no-one, not even them, were expecting a large counter-demo at the march in Liverpool. It's caught a lot of people off guard, but it's not as if they're in any danger of making political progress with these tactics. The people who are involved in this ad hoc scouse fascist alliance are the absolute lunatic fringe, the dregs of the far-right, they're never going to appeal to the vast majority of people, working class or otherwise. Also, compared to the humiliations the EDL and other groups have endured over the last few months, like Tower Hamlets or the pitiful NWI demos, this is nowt.

The politics of the north-west is also a bit different than the situation nationally, as Nick Griffin is re-basing the BNP in that area to get him re-elected to the EU parliament. I agree with the sentiments already expressed that they're going back to the streets, partially because that's what the remaining members really want, and because there's nowhere else for them to go because of the failure of the BNP electorally. So, they're just clinging onto the coat-tails of the EDL and the other assorted fascists, who operate in a loose coalition in Liverpool and elsewhere in the region, and they'll be backing up the demonstrations in Hyde that are coming up. Over time I suspect this will fragment into infighting and the kind of nastiness that went on in Newcastle recently with the National Front, SDL and NWI, but it's something to be keeping an eye on.

As an adjunct to this there's the EDL documentary coming out. They're obviously doing a lot of their recent stuff with this in mind, hoping it will breathe life into an organization that looked like it was going to collapse by the end of last year.
 
butchersapron said:
You're doing the same - identifying the w/c with the left , and then narrowing the left down to counter-protests to the edl's counter protests. This is just the result of the narrow focus - and the finger wagging in the post higher above - the blood is on your heads type stuff, get a fucking grip. This is all irrelevant.

You have the answer in your post actually - look at how you get influence in w/c areas, what ties you and the community together that they'd destroy this sort of thing? It's not isolated anti-fascism like this.
Click to expand...

Hold on a minute. Anti-Fascism isn't being suggested here as an end pursuit in itself. What the Liverpool situation shows is that you need to organize properly to protect your own political initiatives. Remember the 70's squads were originally put into action to defend the political work the SWP were doing because the Fash were trying to turn them over constantly.

This was extended when they kicked everyone out, and later AFA was launched as broad based group that would confront the fascists and protect marches, meetings, paper sales etc. Granted that AFA also took an offensive position too and disrupted Fascist activity wherever it arose. Nevertheless that tends to be the nature of Fascism....it doesn't accept any political debate or opposition, so the fact that they're present within the political arena will mean that you have to "keep the boot on the neck of the snake" so to speak.

I don't see fascism as a distraction, and I'm sure neither would anyone who was going about their political activities with the threat of them coming down on your back.

Sure effective anti-fascism does take up a lot of time and resources with intelligence gathering, monitoring etc etc. and god knows there were folks involved in AFA and RA who you'd consider full-time in that regard. But it's all done with the wider political picture in mind, and that is to allow progressive working class politics to live and breathe. We can start the other debate about what or how those politics should be defined, but I'm sure you understand what I mean.

I'd agree that the incident yesterday shouldn't be overblown, but neither should it be completely dismissed. As laughable as the EDL, BNP and fellow travellers are it'd be incredibly stupid to sit back and allow them to gain too many easy victories, which someone said earlier, will only allow confidence and numbers to grow.
 
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