Full write-up of the weekend's events from Manchester Antifascist Collective:
(this is gonna be long, sorry spy)
MANCHESTER ANTIFASCIST COLLECTIVE STATEMENT ON THE EVENTS OF 3/08
The events of Saturday 3rd August took place in a climate of rapidly accelerating far-right militancy. Before we address its specifics, we feel it is worth presenting our analysis of how this militancy has reached an arguably unprecedented level, at least in the last decade.
The current explosion in far-right demonstrations follows the tragic attack in Southport that took the lives of three young girls and injured multiple other children and adults. Immediately, far-right disinformation was spread in local Southport chats that alleged the attacker was a Muslim who came over on a small boat crossing, with neo-fascist groups such as Patriotic Alternative (PA) and the British Movement (BM) seeking to inflame tensions.
This disinformation was deliberate, calculated and blatantly parasitic, with the Southport-based nazi David Adams (who is currently active in both PA and BM) entering the local chat to promote PA before promptly leaving.
The riot in Southport saw a police van set on fire outside of a mosque in an attempt to burn it down, and subsequent protests in Hartlepool, Hull, Liverpool and unfortunately Manchester have seen direct attacks on Mosques and Muslims despite the confirmation coming that the attacker was a Christian born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents: everywhere however has seen a dramatic upsurge in racist and fascist violence both around and outside of the demonstrations.
In light of this blatant lie, the far-right have doubled down on their racism, arguing that it's no longer even about Southport but a generalised cry to protect the figural women and children from an imagined 'invasion' of 'fighting age males.' Notably, these demonstrations have been predominantly male, and have seen an alarming amount of youth get sucked into violence through influence from fascist adults that will inevitably lead to criminalisation and further radicalisation towards the right.
We therefore understand this movement as having moved past it's oppourtunistic parasitic phase, where a tragedy was shamelessly used to propel the fascist movement: it has now entered a period where the fascists no longer 'need' Southport, but will reference back to it as part of a wider political 'justification' that also includes events, figures and positions like the Romani resistance in Harehills, Tommy Robinson's supposed 'persecution' and deliberately manipulated figures about migrant crime rates.
The media and government’s coverage of these far-right thugs as ‘protesters’ is a calculated decision to legitimize their ‘concerns’ obscuring the fascistic nature of their views which risks emboldening and normalizing their tactics.
With regards to Manchester on Saturday, we saw the extent of the state's response to the upsurge in far right militancy: Keir Starmer's new police powers that followed Southport were fully applied to antifascists and ultimately led the GMP to facilitate the violence of the far right demonstration.
From the beginning, multiple crowd control pens were set up that neither demonstration entered, and this meant that antifascists spent the entire day kettled by the GMP with helmets, batons and padded gloves ready, alongside intelligence gathering officers and mounted police behind them for any breaks. The GMP were far more concerned with protecting the fascists 'right' to march and harass marginalised communities in the centre of Manchester.
In the second half of the day, Hijabs were forcibly removed and Muslim women spat on, whilst crowds chanted "Allah is a pedo:" this was entirely preventable. Our decisions were far from strategically perfect, and we have much reflecting to do, but it must be stated that a policing operation of this size and force was unprecedented in recent years. The far right, led by the vaguely unknown Richard Bebbington of Ramsbottom, Bury, were wholly unorganised and it was only through the actions of the police that they managed to gain some sort of unity.
Whilst antifascists moved to defend the weekly Palestine march, they were swarmed by police from every direction. A contingency of police officers remained in Piccadilly Gardens in attempts to funnel the disorientated fascists together, however the fascists were able to spread far and wide accross this area and the police, completely outnumbered, stood by whilst marginalised people were attacked.
Antifascists returned to Picadilly Gardens following the end of the Palestine march, and witnessed the inability of the police to properly contain the fascists or protect the public, although at this point outnumbered we regrouped and attempted to remain present and vigilant engaged in community solidarity support and protection where possible.
The far-right crowd continued to drink and sniff cocaine throughout the day until the majority of their energy dissipated in a kettle outside the art gallery on Mosley St that followed the failed looting of a Sainsbury's. Small groups however continued to roam throughout the evening, with one group getting kettled in a Wetherspoon's and another waiting until late in the night to attack REM Bar in the Gay Village.
Make no mistake, Starmer's new powers do nothing to stop the growth of fascist street movements: they only serve to empower the authoritarian state against any street movements, including those for Palestinian liberation and the struggle against fascism.
In other attempts to spread their hatred, we responded to information they were planning to 'protest' at two migrant hotels in Salford on friday 3rd, this consisted of 4-6 of them, observing the hotel and police presence from across the road for a few hours before calling it a day. More recently, last night after intelligence that a more confrontational visit was planned to another migrant hotel in greater manchester, community mobilisation saw 120+ antifascists and community members coming in solidarity within an hour of the callout whilst around 15 young lads hung about in the field nextdoor trying to provoke a reaction and ultimately calling it off as another failure. These events show the fragility and uneveness of the far right's current strategy and the importance of community networks and mobilisations in defending against their hatred.
We call on antifascists everywhere to get organised and prepare to physically defend our communities. We especially call for local mobilisations, neighbourhood antifascist crews and stronger community links to push the fascists out when they arrive on our doorsteps. The State and the pigs can never keep us safe: if anything, they pose an equal but different threat, and only we can protect us.
¡NO PASARÁN! - MAFC
. They are all linked, knuckledraggers of the world united. Fartage is besties with the bastard, and Bannon has his fingerprints all over creating chaos worldwide. Putin's bitches, along with Tommy Many Names etc. Vile bastards.
