Though Cowards Flinch

I’ve contributed to a running debate in the letter’s section of the Morning Star:

Last night, my LRC comrade and friend Simon, of Latte Labour (from here I will refer to him as LL) penned a criticism on his blog of my piece on why anti-fascists must fill the political vacuum that the EDL aims to exploit.

The piece is very convincing, and you can read it here, as well as remind yourself of the fantastic, yet worrying, Muslim Ray Guns video, and a number of original images.

LL starts his piece with a quote from Labour councillor David Adley who tweeted the following re Peter Tatchell: “”stop far right Islamists” is completely missing the point of today’s demo. Where were the “far right Islamists” today?”

The point here about an absent enemy is clearly not the crux of LL’s argument, even though he begins with this quote – but rather that it seems inappropriate to mention far right Islamism on the day where many gathered to support Muslims against the EDL. LL develops other themes, some of which I pick up here.

I want to start with a quote, around a 1/3 of the way down the piece which reads:

Carl himself quotes the East London Mosque as saying that the event of concern was the doing of an ‘external hirer’. One wonders what has happened in church halls over the years. And here, I think, is part of what is going on. There is a basic failure to understand the function of a mosque as a fairly fluid community space.

I’m so glad LL picked up on this point, because as it happens one other point of disagreement we have has regard to platforms for fascists. I, for example, will allow far right opinions to be published in the comments thread of my blog if, and only if, they are challenged – either by myself, or by a reader. I don’t take ad hominem argument very seriously, but I do take fascist ideology seriously, and am prepared to challenge it. LL on the other hand has made it clear that spokespeople from the British National Party, for example, should have no platform at any level, lest we take their ideas seriously. For me, taken to its furthest logical extension (a total ban of these ideas being made public in any way) is not only, itself, totalitarian, but would drive it underground and make it harder to track.

The reason I raise this is because Anwar al-Awlaki was allowed to speak first of all – and it has been found true that he was not moderate before his arrest in Yemen in 2006 – and also unopposed and unchallenged via video link to mosque-goers. I contend that had it been Nick Griffin speaking at a church hall for example, the noise would have been ferocious, but not only that – the vicar of the church would not have heard the last of it; giving voice to a fascist, how dare they (and rightly so – no matter the subject on which Griffin, hypothetically, was allowed to speak).

This hypothetical church also has a duty to be a “fluid community space”, but allowing free terrain to a person with demonstrably dangerous ideas is beyond reasonableness. It would be absurd not to expect the East London Mosque (ELM) to abide by these same principles.

Further still, the spokesperson for the ELM at the time did not come out to blame al-Awlaki’s presence as the work of an “external hirer” – instead took responsibility and then implied they had no idea al-Awlaki was as dangerous as he is – an unlikely story.

LL notes at this stage that the details here may not be important – which I contend they very much are – but does say, on giving me the benefit of the doubt (though, there is no doubt?) that it would be “wrong to push the point in tandem with an anti-fascist mobilisation”. It is here that we reach the meat of what LL is saying, and here we come to understand a basic design flaw in the Left’s analysis of the far right.

The English Defence League are dangerous for one reason alone: they are growing in number and with that comes the threat of attacks on innocent people and the prospect of vigilantism – with it a return of violent fascist street gangs, roaming the streets picking on people, probably at random, for their religion and a number of other varying factors (have we not also seen the worrying pictures published by Hope Not Hate of the EDL members carrying armed weaponry – are these people who are against extremism?). They are not, we should remind ourselves, a threat because the convincing and difficult set of ideas they hold.

To be sure, the EDL is largely politically immature. A pertinent question, I think, here is to ask is a political group the sum of its parts or the sum of its party line? If the latter, then is the party line what they tell us, the public, it is, or is it what they tell themselves internally? If the former, then at best the EDL is a group of agitators who have sought to wind up what they perceive as the Muslim enemy with petite tactics (Israel flags, pig masks, songs such as “Muhammed is a paedo”) and street presence (of which one must include the almost inevitable escalation to violence, racism and general threat).

I hope that we all, especially on the Left (which is my tribe), can agree on this analysis of the EDL. In which case, if we can, why are we not honest about our opposition to all forms of extremism, not just the extremism they represent. After all, when the right or far right accuse the Left of being soft on far right Islamism, to the point where we often team up with it (Moazzam Begg is someone who is on record as being unable to discount his own support for the Taliban, their disgusting pursuits and ideologies – who only oppose al-Qaeda on issues surrounding national strategy. But in spite of that is given free terrain, even today – by the human rights organisation Amnesty International [for the Rights based Liberal ticket] and by the Socialist Workers’ Party at their Marxism Festival [for the Trostkyite far Left ticket], for example) there is some truth in that. We don’t exist only to appease the EDL, obviously, but it makes no sense for this truth to be present in their rhetoric. How many, for example, while writing articles and blogs from a Leftist perspective on how vile the EDL are, will be writing about the homophobic threats Peter Tatchell received on that day – on the side of the road supposedly representing enlightened thinking, unlike across the road where the pinheaded thugs lay, pissed – for even daring to hold a banner suggesting Muslims and Gays unite against a fascist mob?

So, to the challenge of whether it is appropriate or not, my answer is unequivocally: yes. One of the interesting things about the EDL, and neo-fascist, anti-Islamic rhetoric today, is that much of it professes to being tolerant of homosexuality and homosexuals. The EDL even has a gay division of sorts. But Peter Tatchell sees very well what cynical ploy is going on here, and has acted on it. He recognises that at heart the EDL is a “clash of civilisations” organisation that thinks Muslims and Islam is, at its very core, backward. Tatchell refutes this. His aim is to work with the Muslim community, particularly with the gay Muslim community, against the extremism they experience from both sides. Not only are they Muslim-bashed by the EDL, they are gay-bashed by homophobes in their own community, who use Islam as a weapon against them, and not a tool of peace, which it was intended for. Tatchell is standing on the side of those Muslims for whom coming out has meant not only neglect but torment and backlash – it could not have been more appropriate for him to demonstrate who exactly it was he was bellowing against that day, because it shows up the lack of nuance in the EDL’s message, and it is altogether concrete who and what he stands against, lest the Left be confused.

We, as the Left, are against the extremism from all angles, and Tatchell’s placard that day was not simply a message that confronted the aggressors across the road, but provided a box around the ears for the Left, some of whom don’t feel it necessary to challenge hard right thinking of those to whom they give victim statuses. If that isn’t patronising, paternalist, dangerous and, ironically, rather neo-colonialist, then I don’t know what is.

We could come back another day to hold a smaller protest about the Islamist far right (and we should, in the spirit of this – which Peter Tatchell was only one who even bothered to reply to) or we could allow Tatchell to protest in the capacity in which he is known, against extremists on both sides, and from whom Muslims suffer severely.

For LL to say, as he does, that Tatchell’s “words will do absolutely nothing for gay Muslims” is dangerously to forget how much ignoring it, or pushing it to one side, will do – undoubtedly, were Tatchell to stage a protest condemning homophobia in the Muslim community, he would still receive abuse from the Left on the grounds that it is inappropriate while there are still imperfections in the power balance between Muslims and non-Muslims (just one proof of why the Left must readdress its own opposition to far right Islamism). Indeed, as Nick Lowles of Hope Not Hate himself once said: “We oppose the racism and Islamophobia of the EDL just as we oppose the religious bigotry and antisemitism of the MAC.” Was he being inappropriate?

In a press release earlier about tomorrow’s static EDL demonstration, Peter Tatchell wrote:

Islamist fundamentalists mirror the right-wing ideology of the BNP and EDL. In fact, they are far worse. They want to establish a religious dictatorship, ban trade unions and political parties and deny women equal human rights. They endorse hatred and violence against Jewish, Hindu and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Muslims who do not conform to their harsh interpretation of Islam are harassed and threatened. They support terrorism and the suicide bombing of innocent civilians. Not even the BNP and EDL are this extreme.

For a few on the Left, tomorrow’s counter-protest has one minor caveat, in that it will centre around the East London Mosque (ELM).

In 2009, the London Muslim Centre, which is part of the ELM, located adjacent to it, hosted a video link of 9/11 spiritual leader Anwar al-Awlaki, as part of a conference on the “end of days” – advertising poster of which illustrated bombs dropping over a darkened New York City.

A statement by the ELM noted:

A video of al-Awlaki was shown by an external hirer on 1 January 2009 in which he talked about life after death. Nothing controversial or extreme was said in the video.

But as has been pointed out before, would we allow an White Nationalist to deliver an address on something, provided s/he said nothing that could be interpreted as controversial? The answer is probably not.

The other excuse given was the ELM were not aware of al-Awlaki’s extremism. This seems highly unlikely. Many have claimed that after 2006, when al-Awlaki was arrested, he became radicalised, but not before that. However in 2003 al-Awlaki spoke to another audience at the ELM, where he “addressed Muslims on the subject of terrorism arrests in the UK and urged them to never report on or turn over their fellow Muslims”.

He went on:

A Muslim is a brother of a Muslim, he does not oppress him, he does not betray him and he does not hand him over…You don’t hand over a Muslim to the enemies…

But this is just one example of extremely unpalatable views. As Shiraz Maher pointed out:

• In 2005 he translated the works of Yusuf al Uyayree – a supporter for jihadist causes and fundraiser for Chechens. Al-Awlaki wasn’t simply translating innocently; in the editors preface it is noted: “Imam Anwar al Awlaki brings this book back to life in his lecture series on the book.”
• In 2003 he also translated a book called the Book of Jihad – written by a 14th Century jihadist, Ibn Nuhaas. “It is regarded as a classical work on jihad and is endorsed by countless militants today.” Al-Awlaki praised the book and its ideas at this time, chapters of which have titles like: CHAPTER 1: ON THE COMMAND OF JIHAD AGAINST THE NON BELIEVERS AND ITS MANDATE, AND THE STERN WARNING AGAINST THOSE WHO DON’T PRACTICE JIHAD; CHAPTER 7: THE VIRTUES OF KILLING A NON-BELIEVER FOR THE SAKE OF ALLAH

The ELM may have said they had al-Awlaki there for the debate – in which case he shouldn’t address the audience unopposed – but to say they had no idea strikes me as weak.

But all this aside, tomorrow should be about going and protesting against the EDL – for you’re unlikely to hear them make a coherent separation between Islam and jihadi extremism (as I had the fortune of finding out on the comments thread of this blog entry).

Further, we cannot ignore the fascist presence inside the EDL.

In sum, going back to Peter Tatchell’s earlier press release:

The failure of anti-fascists and the left to speak out against Islamist fundamentalists has created a political vacuum, which the EDL is seeking to exploit and manipulate.To be credible and effective, opponents of the EDL need to be consistent by also taking a stand against the Islamist far right.

Only this way can we offer a principled alternative to the EDL, which isolates and targets the extremists without demonising the whole Muslim population.

This is a guest (re-)post by Bob From Brockley.

I originally posted a version of this post last Autumn. I have asked TCF to re-post it for me (slightly edited) because I posted it at a very busy time at my blog, so it got very little debate, and I wanted to test it out away from my comfort zone. But I am asking now because I think the situation is becoming more and more critical for anti-fascists. The continued decline of the BNP is a positive but it has opened the space for the re-emergence of more emphatically Nazi sects, while its ideas and narratives have infected the political mainstream as authoritarian xenophobic politics spread beyond the fascist fringe. Meanwhile, the English Defence League has seen a continued violent rise based on a style of politics the BNP long ago abandoned, and could well form the nucleus of a new far right alignment. These changes pose the questions of militant anti-fascism more urgently than ever.

Waterloo Sunset has published a very helpful critique of Searchlight’s announcement of a brave new era for anti-fascism. Searchlight call for a re-thinking of the reality of fascism, and a step away from some of the old orthodoxies of militant anti-fascism. Like WS, I agree that there is some truth in the analysis of the changing situation put forward by Nick Lowles and Paul Meszaros, and like WS I am far from convinced of either the newness or the wisdom of the new course they chart. But I am far from sure what the right course is.

As WS points out, the aspects of the new Searchlight analysis which are correct were actually set out very clearly a decade and a half ago by London Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) in its Filling the Vacuum document, which led eventually to the self-dissolution of AFA and a turn to community politics. In short, the battle against the BNP on the streets had been won by the early 1990s, but the BNP were winning a cultural war in the communities where white working class people felt let down and abandoned by mainstream society, and in particular by the left and the Labour movement.

But, as WS also points out, the way to engage those communities is not to enter the political mainstream, or to do the Labour Party’s business and re-connect the electorate in those communities with the political machine which abandoned them. That only further sacrifices our credibility.

The way to fill the vacuum, instead, is to build the grassroots initiatives that take seriously the real concerns of such communities – especially now, in an age of rising unemployment, financial crisis and unfairly imposed austerity. (These grassroots initiatives look different in every locality. The relationship with the Labour Party, trade unions and so on will be negotiated differently depending on local circumstances. Meszaros and Lowles are right about the need for flexible, local solutions informed by local knowledge.)

Related to this is the issue of who the constituency of this sort of activity should be, something which, as WS notes, is skirted around in the Searchlight text. They talk about “the community”, “real people”, “real communities”, “ordinary people”, “real ordinary people”, “the mainstream”, “the anti-BNP voter”, “Mr and Mrs Smith”, “the public mood”. But this vagueness contrasts to the more specific constituency identified in the analysis of the BNP’s growth: “The BNP was building inside communities and tapping into widespread discontent with the political system. More significantly, and often ignored by many, the BNP was engaging in a cultural war that was successfully drawing upon a loss of identity and meaning among many white working class people. By carefully nurturing an image of itself as victim and speaking up “for the silent majority” the BNP could offer a new white nationalist identity to people who felt let down and abandoned by society.” Those who are experiencing a loss of identity and meaning, who feel let down and abandoned by society, are a very specific constituency, and it is them, and not “Mr and Mrs Smith” that anti-fascists need to engage with.

But where does that leave militant anti-fascism? Is its job over? The key problem with the Searchlight analysis of militant anti-fascism is to reduce it to the philosophy of “No Platform”. In my view, this is simplistic and misleading.

“No Platform” is a policy that relates primarily to student unions and trade unions. For a student union, for example, No Platform means using the power of the union to keep fascists off campus – denying them a platform in the college or university. For council workers, it might mean stopping council premises being used by fascists.

No Platform is sometimes counterposed to “free speech”, but No Platform is not historically a policy of calling upon the state to ban fascists, but rather of using one’s own resources to deny them a platform in one’s own institutions. If I tell someone that in my house, in front of my kids, they should refrain from swearing, I am not infringing their free speech in general, just saying what the rules are in my house. No Platform, historically, was never about bans and police actions; it was about people setting the rules in their own houses.

What happened was that No Platform took on the status of a fetish, an absolute value, and a life of its own, in ways that had absolutely nothing to do with the wider ethos of anti-fascism. We see this reflected in two very different ways. For many anti-authoritarians, anti-fascism became a lifestyle choice; the hoodie and scarf became a uniform; and anyone outside the charmed circle of the antifa milieu was not trusted.

On the authoritarian left, in the white collar unions and student unions dominated by the SWP, we see calls for BNP teachers to be sacked, or agencies like the EHRC taking the BNP to court over its membership rules – meaningless, bureaucratic, legalistic interpretations which rely on the state and disempower citizens, while allowing the BNP to paint itself as the heroic victim of censorship.

Meanwhile, in the real world – in the world of the internet and YouTube and Facebook, where platforms for hate endlessly proliferate; in the a period when the BNP have achieved a wider support base of people who are in no sense fascist; and in an age of increasingly sophisticated policing and surveillance – the ideal of No Platform has become meaningless.

Ironically, coinciding with the concept’s irrelevance, the SWP front Unite Against Fascism (UAF) has re-discovered it with a vengeance, probably noting that they can gain competitive advantage in the anti-fascist market by making “militancy” their USP. Hence childish actions like throwing eggs at Nick Griffin, which might be fun but have zero or negative effect.

Militant anti-fascism, however, never meant just street fighting. AFA, for example, saw it as a two-track strategy: physical and ideological confrontation, the latter less spectacular but taking up at least much of the organisation’s energy. To list just a few examples I can recall, in London and elsewhere, we did a huge amount of work with football fans, organised carnivals and local history workshops, developed a political response to knife attacks in London, did estate-based work in issues like housing transfer and anti-social behaviour. This approach was also that of our predecessors, as you can see if you read the autobiography of Joe Jacobs for instance.

Another challenge for militant anti-fascism is how to deal with forms of fascism that don’t look like the old NF did – forms of fascism that fester among “oppressed” minorities, among people that hate the BNP. When this challenge was recently posed by Carl, it was totally failed by both UAF and Searchlight. But when it was posed in the East End in the summer of 2010, more positive results were seen. Whitechapel United Against Division mobilised working class white and Bangladeshi local people to protest both the Islamists and the EDL. And the statement “Against fascism in all its colours”, condemning both, was signed by a wide range of local organisations, from the Bangladesh Welfare Association to the Brick Lane Mosque to the Whitechapel Anarchist Group.

This points to a neglected part of the militant anti-fascist story. A large part of the history of militant anti-fascism in Britain, from the Jewish East End in the 1930s to Southall and Brick Lane in the 1970s and 1980s, has been communities defending themselves from violent attacks. With the BNP’s turn in the 1990s from the battle for the streets to the battle for the ballot box, that sort of violence was less common. But with the rise of the EDL since 2009, Asian communities are once again under attack. If anti-fascism is to have any credibility with these communities, and especially their youth, an appeal to “Mr and Mrs Smith” is not the right approach. And this opens a space that reactionary jihadi groups are happy to move into. Anti-fascism, then, needs to fill the vacuum in white working class communities, but also drive a wedge between angry Muslims and the far right Islamist political entrepreneurs appealing to them. Doing both at once will be no easy task.

In conclusion, I agree with Meszaros and Lowles that we urgently need to re-think the old dogmas in new times. But I don’t think they offer us the tools to do so.

In an interview with Robert Philpot recently, Maurice Glasman – blue labourite – said the solution to building a working class-friendly Labour party can be done by re-creating:

a party that brokers a common good, that involves those people who support the EDL within our party. Not dominant in the party, not setting the tone of the party, but just a reconnection with those people that we can represent a better life for them, because that’s what they want.

Firstly I can see what he means. During Labour’s Blairite years (as of yet not entirely shifted), the task was to capture the hearts and minds of Middle England, while taking support and votes from working class communities for granted (not expecting the far right fringe to cause as much fuss as they have).

For Glasman, trying to re-engage Labour back to those communities will not mean taking a typically left-of-centre approach. 

The “family, faith, flag” mantra of Glasman’s has obviously had some traction with Ed Miliband. In the Sun today can be found an interview with the Labour leader where apparently he declared ‘Red Ed is dead’ “in a bid to dump his left-wing image and win back Sun readers”.

But Glasman’s words are purposefully ambiguous. Are Labour supposed to engage in a battle of rhetoric, repeatedly saying the things that an academic has supposed working class communities want to hear? Or should Labour’s main task be to drop the liberal elitism of old and concentrate on restoring community cohesion in parts of the UK forgotten by metropolitan politicians?

If it’s the latter, and I hope it is, then Labour should have nothing to do with debates set on the EDL’s terms. The party of the working class should be promoting those things which make communities better and safer; creating social spaces where families feel better connected with each other and where mutual trust between all groups be allowed to flourish.

At the moment the EDL is a force that undermines this work. At home it presents itself as a necessary part of the argument on religious extremism. On the streets, their conflation of the moderate, non-violent Islam – that most Muslims in the UK subscribe to – and radicalist elements preached by Anjem Choudary and his small clan of jihadis, cause the very ruptures to society that community cohesion tries to mend.

The Labour party did make a pact with the devil in neglecting its traditional support base, the price of which will be paid for quite some time. But the EDL are no representation of today’s working class communities either.

Some of what Glasman is talking about is rather interesting, but he is in that early stage of influence, trying to capture headlines with bombastic statements. We can ignore a lot of it, and this is one case in point.

The English Defence League is a strange beast politically. I’m unconvinced that it can be seen as a classic fascist organisation and it has drawn much of its support and organisation from outside the existing far right in Britain, its origins lie in right-wing football firms motivated into political action by anti-Muslim sentiment.

I’ve generally thought it useful to compare the EDL to the previous time football firms entered the political arena in significant numbers, in opposition to Irish Republicanism in the early – mid 1990′s. During this period certain football firms mobilised large numbers to attack events of republicans and their perceived sympathisers, notably the London Bloody Sunday commeration march in 1993. Like EDL marches participants in anti-Republican gatherings were pretty sure what they were against, less sure what they were for.

Recently, this got me thinking about the curious mutual disinterest between two political groupings that, on paper, seem to have a lot in common: the EDL and loyalism.

Far right groups on the UK mainland have always viewed loyalist groups with the kind of wide eyed admiration usually associated with primary school kids meeting Premiership footballers. It was what they aspired to be; successful political groups combined with well organised militant wings to deal with opponents.

It’s worth noting that this admiration was not usually reciprocated but when it was, such as by former National Front member Johnny Adair and his Shankill C Company, British fascists responded enthusiastically. Some went much further than cheerleading from the sidelines and got actively involved in ‘The Troubles’, longstanding NF activist Terry Blackham was jailed during this period for gun-running.

Given that much of the EDL’s support is drawn from right-wing English football fans it’s not difficult to see what they have in common with loyalism. Both like marching, flags, the Queen and some EDL members even enjoy sectarianism (here’s the EDL’s token Asian member Adbul having a sing-song for instance). Chanting ‘no surrender to Al Qaeda’ is not a million miles from ‘no surrender to the IRA’ and the main EDL website is peppered with rhetoric borrowed from loyalism, the repeated use of ‘no surrender’ and the abbreviated form n.s. is a bit of a give away, and the general theme of defending Britain from a terrorist threat.

It’s interesting then that the EDL have made absolutely no effort to cultivate links with loyalist groups in Northern Ireland or on the UK mainland, even those who have previously been closely involved with the far like the British Ulster Alliance (who used to advertise in Blood & Honour magazine). They failed to send any sort of delegation to the Twelfth of July marches or the parade in Southport, a traditional summer holiday destination for British fascists.

There’s also the sister organisation of the EDL the Ulster Defence League. While the EDL has been successful at building up a profile, a sense of momentum and attracting thousands of supporters to marches it’s counterparts in Scotland and Wales have been poor relations, unable to gain any traction and heavily outnumbered by counter-demonstrators on their rare public excursions.

The UDL has not even been able to gain these lofty heights. Apart from operate a rarely updated Facebook page (it’s currently advertising a march in Dudley that took place last April) and briefly running a website it’s not clear that the UDL does anything at all.

This could be of course because they are a sensible bunch who have correctly realised that Northern Ireland has more pressing problems that being overwhelmed by non-existent scimitar-waving, sharia-imposing hordes but I suspect not. The sentiment is certainly there, here’s their mission statement illustrating standard loyalist rhetoric:

The Ulster Defence League highlights the threat to our shores from Militant Islam Extremism.The U.D.L is also highlighting the Extremism we face from republicans in our own Lands. Ulster knows only too well the realities of living with terrorism and its consequences. Our spineless Government prioritise the Human Rights of Terrorists before the basic right for Britons to live without fear in our own country…

NO SURRENDER – HANDS ACROSS THE WATER. FOR GOD AND ULSTER.

Thankfully this isn’t accompanied by any action. Why not though?

It’s not a question of an unwillingness to travel. EDL supporters have made it to Amsterdam, and plan to return there on October 30th, and popped up in New York a couple of weeks ago. A short ferry trip to Belfast is surely not too difficult to organise.

The unwillingness of loyalist organisations to play ball hasn’t much to do with it either. Most loyalist groups were uninterested in an array of British far right groups propositioning them in the 80′s and 90′s and that didn’t stop fascists from repeatedly asking them them out.

Instead, I think that the seeking international allies in the American and wider European anti-Muslim movement and ignoring the traditional preoccupations of the far right shows why it’s difficult to place the EDL in the British fascist tradition. It’s a different beast.

This may not be a satisfactory answer to the EDL ignoring loyalism. Any alternative explanations gratefully received.

Who will defend Ulster? Not the UDL

After all the hype, ominous predictions and sleepless nights for West Yorkshire Police officers with good memories the English Defence League’s self-proclaimed ‘big one’ in Bradford was a damp squib.

The EDL promised what they couldn’t deliver. They wanted a turnout of several thousand and the opportunity to provoke Bradford’s Asian population into a re-run of 2001. Estimates for numbers on the day range between 700 and 1000. Any figure falling within that range is a disappointment for them.

Along with an encouragingly poor turnout, the EDL reportedly fought with police and each other in their giant playpen set up for them in the city centre. More great publicity lads, keep it up.

The turnout at Bradford seems to confirm what I’ve suspected for the last couple of months, that the EDL is losing momentum. The demo received huge publicity in the run up to the event and took place on a Bank Holiday when few people will have had work commitments.

The EDL tacitly acknowledge this, releasing a statement today containing none of the usual boasts about a huge turnout and humiliated opposition. Instead there’s an extended whinge about how neo-Nazis keep turning up to their peaceful demos and causing all the trouble.

Attendance appears to have peaked at the demo in Bolton earlier this year where 2000 turned out. Since then their ‘march and grow’ strategy has run into problems.

Since their first outing in Luton last year the EDL has relied on each demo being bigger than the last. While sister organisations in Wales and Scotland were unable to gain any traction, in a just few months the EDL went from being a serious irritant to residents of Luton to a group capable of calling a demo anywhere in England and expecting to see a thousand people turn up. Where’s it going wrong for them?

More of the same

One of their problems is the same as that encountered by the Stop the War Coalition. Not only are they running out of locations to march in but the demos all follow the same pattern. Endless, similar demonstrations eventually start to demoralise people, no matter how strongly they feel about the issues.

Add to this the fact that most EDL supporters have little previous political involvement and so are more likely to be prone to cynicism and defeatism after setbacks. A dud demo (such as the second outing at Dudley or the failure to show in Whitechapel) can have a big impact. Following the demo at Dudley the EDL leadership in the form of Tommy Robinson (otherwise known as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon) released this complaint:

The mood of members seems to have been somewhat low since the Dudley demo. Ok lets look at this yes we had one bad demo we were screwed over and lied to by the Old Bill. But one bad demo is all compared to how many good ones guys?

Tough luck Tommy, you’re only as good as you’re last game remember.

The other factor which will potentially put the brakes on the EDL is the leadership themselves.

It’s best to characterise the EDL as a loose coalition between elements of the far right and football hooligans. This involves little in the way of organisation, people are mainly mobilised through existing personal contacts and Facebook. Apart from a general hostility towards Muslims there’s little ideology involved.

The EDL leadership are keen to change this and have been trying to link up with the wider anti-Islam movement in Europe and the genuinely deranged right-wing fringe in America. For example, one of their main Stateside groupies is blogger Pamela Geller, whose book they are touting on their website, who actually seriously claimed that Obama was the secret love child of Malcom X. I think the wider agenda of some of these fruitloops will go down like a pint of cold sick with most supporters of the EDL.

Where do they go from here?

Back to Luton. The next big EDL demo is scheduled for the town where it all started. I’d be surprised if this went ahead. All marches in Luton were banned for three months last year following their last mobilisation there. A static demo is more likely.

The EDL isn’t going to disappear. If the momentum doesn’t pick up again in Luton (large-scale confrontations with Asian youth in the town isn’t unlikely) they’ll gradually dwindle back to the status of irritating rather than threatening mob, albeit one with the potential to act as an immediate focal point if something major happens, a repeat of 7/7 for instance. Without the excitement of a big demo less politicised supporters will drift away.

The other possibility is that contacts with the wider anti-Islam movement progress beyond the flirting stage and a smaller, more defined organisation which has a wider range of political positions than ‘Muslim bombers off our streets’. Since they are already infatuated with Dutch politician Geert Wilders it wouldn’t be a huge leap for them to graduate into the political arena.

What isn’t going to happen is a swing to the right. Most of the organised far right has been looking on the EDL with barely concealed envy or salivating at the prospect of all those young men joining a demo with them at the helm.

Eddy Morrison (who comments online as ‘Erik Eriksson’) the current leader of the National Front is fantasising about the latter. Thankfully, apart from the BNP whose interests lie elsewhere at present, no fascist group in Britain has the organisation capacity or the competence to organise a piss up in a brewery. I have more chance of becoming England manager than the hapless muppets of the NF taking over the EDL.

I would tentatively guess that in 6 months time EDL demos will be attracting about the half the number they do now. This shouldn’t be any grounds for complacency. The rapid rise of the EDL could easily be repeated in future and, with the added bonus of brand recognition, there’s no reason why their numbers would stop at 2000.

A comment on Duncan’s piece on goings-on in the BNP got me thinking. It’s all very well, ran this comment, people gearing up to protest the latest march of the EDL or the BNP, but what about actually getting something done? This is much less ‘sexy’ (so runs a certain strand of opinion) and therefore attracts less attention than marching all over the place.

Such opinions are regularly levied at various lefties occupying students union councils up and down the country. They’re too concerned with Palestine, say the centrists and right-wingers, and not concerned enough with what’s going on in our own university, with our own students etc. The truth is a little different, I think. This comes out when lefties propose solidarity demonstrations with unionised university staff, and even the ‘soft’ Left tend to shy away.

Yet the situation is a little more muddled than a hard left/everyone else are cowards dichotomy. It’s true, being out marching against the BNP and the EDL is unlikely to lead to new council housing and services of itself (which, most of the left now agrees – a little belatedly, are what we need). On the other hand, it can lead to networked community groups powerfully in tune with local opinion and able to stand up and fight for the needs of their area.

National and international issues are somewhat different to the able local campaigns that have grown up around fighting the BNP and the EDL, evidence for which comes from several of the last major engagements.

While the Stop the War movement developed strong local contingents, these seemed to fade out when it became apparent that marching wasn’t really doing much and that there wasn’t a plan B.

The movement against the war in Lebanon didn’t develop such roots, nor have more nationally orientated campaigns such as Youth Fight for Jobs.

It is this last, which is backed by several of the more militant unions, that really got me thinking about whether or when we can draw distinctions between ‘campaigning’ and ‘getting something done’. My new union is likely to be PCS, which is a strong supporter of YFJ (as am I, for the record) and which carried the following statement on its website:

“[YFJ] was unanimously backed by PCS delegates at this year’s Annual Conference. Activists from our Young Members Network have already played a significant role in the campaign by marching through London at the time of the G20 Conference, having motions passed at the YFFJ launch meeting and being elected to the steering committee.”

The claim to a significant role in the campaign amounts to being part of a march, passing motions at YFJ conference (though I didn’t attend, let it be said that the majority of things which tend to go through are worthy-can’t-we-all-yawn-and-let-it-pass-without-speaking type motions) and getting a few people elected to the steering committee.

Which is great. Marches are confidence-building, awareness raising endeavours, if costly. Representative institutions are great. Yet…if I’m honest, I suspect that the sort of people who get elected to steering committees here have a bunch of other committees and national committees and executive committees to their name. The same faces, different venues.

On the ground, in PCS, despite the representative institutions of the union acknowledging YFJ and perhaps – perhaps! – a few people in different locations being interested in it, the vast majority of union members don’t know it exists. It hasn’t contributed anything to them, nor (though a laudable goal) to the young unemployed. From the point of view of the union, YFJ hasn’t done much to be proud of.

Which is sad, but not unexpected nor necessarily bad socialist strategy. It’s sad because it’s hard to stress enough to young people the supreme importance of seizing control of unions immediately and making them relevant by using them as forums through which to change the nature of their working environment.

It’s not unexpected because the last period has seen key upheavals across universities in the UK. Labour’s cuts were beginning to take effect over the last year, leading to movement by UCU against the plans laid out for workers. Con-Lib cuts are likely to bite harder, and with nuclei of students and staff willing to resist to the utmost – including occupation – it’s no surprise that an organisation based more on students than young workers will turn in that direction.

It’s not bad strategy because pulling people together in campaigns such as this fosters the engaged attitude on which solidly unionised workplaces rest, and it’s a lesson that the people involved will carry with them.

A jaundiced view of left politics might suggest that interest in the issue of top-up fees and the like is really sustained by the desire of so many campus Lenins to occupy their university and rise to fame, or by the ease with which national demonstrations can be swapped for actually finding a tactic that will stop the introduction of higher top-up fees. It’s one of the ‘sexy’ issues allowing for maximum posing and minimal cerebral engagement.

I disagree. Quite the opposite; a renewed focus on top-up fees springs from the development (in coordination with and by various socialist groups including Socialist Students / YFJ) of a new layer of socialists who have been on the front lines of cuts and pickets, and who see ever more urgently the need to oppose this government in the arena that they have experience building up campaigns and support.

This is an important prelude to getting anything done. If we don’t pursue tactics that can reach people at their current level of political awareness and engage it in battles relevant to them, we’ll never get them to take on the additional fights we think will help. So a lot of people dislike the BNP intensely, based on the political consciousness they do have – but they don’t see how they can fight the root causes of fascist sympathising – so we take the one and build it into the other by succeeding at the campaigns we do fight.

If we can’t do this, then we’ll end up no better than the professional politicos in London, building their email campaigns on well-meaning supporters but ultimately speaking into a vacuum where real mass action is concerned.

That’s why I’m happy to be part of a Left that can appeal to the local – residents against the BNP – and the internationals – young people concerned at global injustices – and which has the wherewithal to bind them together.

A descriptive account of the SDL rally and counter-protests in Edinburgh today.

Lessons from Glasgow

Scottish Defence League members from Leeds, Scotland.

After much anticipation and preparation, today was the day of the English Scottish Defence League’s second outing.  They had first appeared in Glasgow last November, with a generous estimate of 80 turning up to find themselves outnumbered by about 50 to 1, consequently finding themselves kettled in a pub by the police for their own safety.

There were two main lessons that people came away with from that encounter.  First, that it had been a great victory for the anti-fascist movement, providing the confidence necessary to organise in future.  And second, that there was a split in the movement over tactics.  Broadly there appeared two groups: one led by the UAF/SWP under the banner of Scotland United, which favoured a parallel rally, hosting speakers from the Tories, SNP, Church of Scotland and others, and to that end actively opposed any idea of direct confrontation with the SDL.  And one led by a range of activists from the SSP, anarchist groups, student groups and others (including, it must be said, individuals from UAF/SWP), which favoured direct confrontation via a march on the SDL position wherever it may turn out to be.

Fortunately and unfortunately respectively, these will once again be the two main lessons that people come away with from today’s encounter.

The combined march towards Royal Mile.

Preparation and March

Almost immediately after Glasgow there were rumours that Edinburgh would be the next destination, and so the Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance (EAFA) was established to organise those preferring the tactic of confrontation.

Needless to say that plenty of anti-fascist/anti-racist posters went up around the city from both the EAFA and the UAF, as well as many city-centre shops carrying leaflets on their counters.  Indeed, such was the saturation that it led a Conservative councillor to complain that anti-fascism has become a “polarising influence” — Tories on the ball as always!

Each group, of course, was advertising its own event.  The UAF/SWP rally was to occur at 11.30am and march through the city centre, while the EAFA organised to meet at 9.30am before heading wherever the SDL turned up.  Coincidentally, the UAF/SWP decided to start advertising for students to gather at 10am instead, just down the road from where the EAFA were meeting [Update: it looks like this was a combination of two groups; the UAF and an autonomous student group that had arrived there].

This proved to be a mistake on their part, as the EAFA decided to join up with this group at around 10.20am while they waited for news on the SDL’s arrival.  This turned, consciously or otherwise, into an entryist manoeuvre, as they soon got news of the SDL’s location and marched off with the entire group in tow.

Anti-Fascists headed by the EAFA move towards the SDL position after temporary confusion.

This is where the UAF/SWP’s role became a damaging rather than a building one.  Having failed to stop the entire group marching off, they set themselves up further down the road with a loud-speaker to try and convince as many people as possible into staying with them.  While this first attempt failed entirely to halt the enthusiastic crowd it did succeed in sowing the seeds of confusion in the majority who were not there with a group, but rather as a response to the posters, media coverage and word of mouth.

Having heard (accurately) that the bulk of SDL members seemed to be having a morning drink near Holyrood Parliament, the march entered the Royal Mile, where the police quickly mobilised to prevent any advance.

This is where the battle of the two groups commenced, as the UAF/SWP sought to take advantage of the police lines and confusion to peel people back to their rally, while the EAFA and others sought to find a side-street past the police lines.  Throw into this a sighting of SDL members in the Bank Hotel — a pub right in the centre of the march (the building in the above photo) — and misinformation being introduced about where the SDL were and what was happening by prominent UAF members, and it isn’t difficult to imagine that things were getting a little chaotic.  Eventually the sizeable EAFA group found their side street — barging past a single hapless police officer, who must have been unfamiliar with the story of King Canute — and took the bulk of the protesters with them.  However, it was noticeable that with two factions competing for loyalty, many unaligned protesters simply gave up and drifted off, weakening both.

The SDL find that the latest stop on their world pub tour is just too good to leave.

Kettling the SDL

Despite the commotion a significant group moved forward with the EAFA and eventually reached the pub hosting the SDL — about 80 of them in total [update: The Scotsman is reporting 40].  At this point, echoing the scenes of Glasgow, the counter-protesters trapped the SDL in their pub.  Now it just became a question of the police holding their ground until buses arrived to remove the SDL from the area.  This took some hours, with increasing numbers of police flooding into the area and drones flying overhead, but eventually it happened and the SDL piled onto their buses — though not before they had all their details and photos taken.

Division appears in the SDL rank and file as one brave fighter forgets to swear at passing protesters.

There can be little doubt that the day was a success for the EAFA.  Their spotters found the SDL early and the EAFA led a significant group to trap them in a relatively out-of-the-way pub before they could meet up or hold their rally.  Other SDL members found themselves confronted by break-away groups of protesters and escorted or kettled by police — reports of which arrived from both the train station and 20 minutes away at the Grassmarket.  This will hopefully set the SDL back and discourage any future rallies in Scotland, as well as establish the organisation necessary in Edinburgh to engage in future events.

It is only a shame that a rather grotesque public factional fight cost some of the momentum along the way.  It must surely be seen as  imperative to sort this situation out beforehand if the SDL return, with an acceptance that while the UAF’s passive rally is a good way to involve those who wouldn’t want to be involved in an EAFA-type strategy, it shouldn’t be pursued at the expense of those who are willing to carry out the important work of direct confrontation — and certainly not at the expense of a march which is already on its way.