Recent days have seen the fascists growing increasingly confident, launching attacks on left-wing and anti-cuts activists without fear of retaliation. Their courage has no doubt been bolstered by the encouragement of their legions of keyboard warriors, and several hours in the pub, but more importantly, the failure of anti-fascists to convincingly counter recent local demonstrations by the EDL and Infidels.

Birmingham

On Saturday 30^th October the English Defence League returned to Birmingham, hoping to avoid a repeat of the previous occasions where their racist thugs were driven off the streets in chaos by militant anti-fascist mobilisations.

Considering recent EDL mobilisations of upwards of 1000 members, the Birmingham turn-out of 400 was poor, but certainly larger than any of their previous efforts in the town. As usual the ‘static’ march was kicked off with a march from the pubs in Broad Street, the ritual scuffling with police accompanied by volleys of fireworks and bottles.

Unlike previous EDL marches, there was no national counter-mobilisation, only a lacklustre regional effort. While UAF performed the usual trick of number inflation to claim 1000 people showed up, in fact the anti-fascist response never gathered more than 200-300 people. It was obvious to everyone there that the EDL march was significantly bigger.

As with Luton and other demonstrations, the local rally organised by UAF and faith groups posed reggae and bhangra music and country dancing as the way to stop the EDL. Clearly the event was the usual UAF compromise with local faith groups and so-called ‘community leaders’ – ensuring that any anti-fascist mobilisation did not make a serious effort to deny the fascists a platform for their racist propaganda.

With around 80 local Asian youth demonstrating more determination to confront the EDL than UAF, the potential was clearly there for a repeat of previous successes in driving the fascists off the streets. However the poor turn-out and uncombative nature of the UAF rally ensured that this was not to be the case.

The EDL will certainly chalk Birmingham up as another ‘success’ – they came, they marched, and they dispersed entirely free from interference by anti-fascists. It is clear the failed strategy of UAF is to blame. Counter-posing peaceful celebrations of multiculturalism to the threat of organised fascist violence means tactical victories for the EDL in the short term, but will lead to disaster in the longer term.

Wherever the fascists are allowed to organise openly and without fear of determined opposition, the confidence of their foot-soldiers grows, and racist violence accompanied by attacks on left-wing and anti-cuts activists increases, as the attacks in Newcastle and Liverpool demonstrates.

Liverpool

Despite the collapse of the BNP’s vote, and the bankruptcy of the party’s finances and ideology, scattered members still work up the courage to go ‘patrolling for leftys [sic]’, which they did in Liverpool in the run-up to their Party conference recently. They boasted on the internet of having found some “protesting outside the LMH building on Lime St/London Road.”

These ‘leftys’ were in fact former council workers who had been protesting since August after being sacked by an outsourced company.

Alongside the comments by ‘Snowy’ – leader of the East-East Infidels – that the fascists should “put all our efforts into opposing everything [left-wingers] do regardless of the issue at hand.”, it is clear that the EDL, BNP and various splinter groups have ditched the ‘peaceful’ or ‘anti-islamisation’ rhetoric to concentrate on the people they perceive to be the real enemies – working class people standing up for their rights and resisting racism, job cuts and austerity carried out in the interests of millionaire bankers and government ministers.

Newcastle

In the early hours of 30^th October, around 30 fascists attacked the Occupy camp in the city centre, after a far-right demonstration earlier in the day.

After throwing bricks and bottles, and assaulting anyone they could find in the camp, one protester was hospitalised, while others were left with minor injuries.

This pre-meditated attack was planned by known fascists, with their facebook satuses encouraging people to turn up and ‘kill some cunts’.

While the EDL, and splinter groups such as the North-East Infidels do not yet have the numbers to drive organised anti-cuts activists off the streets, attacks such as this pose the urgent need for organised self-defence – democratically controlled and accountable to the movements and local communities.

The recent demonstration by the North-East Infidels in Leeds, which brought 300 fascists to City Square exposed the inability of UAF to mount effective regional opposition to the EDL. Opposition to fascism on the streets means organising to drive them out of town, denying them a platform for the violent racism and being honest about the need for self-defence and mass mobilisations to counter the rise of far-right violence.

Read more:

Fascists march in Leeds – socialists fail to unite

No platform for Fascism: what it means and why it works

Luton: UAF strategy ends in a kettle