Rival fascist groups the EDL and the Infidels tried to hold demos in Leicester and Rochdale today. It seems the cold and declining size of the rallies persuaded most of the fascists to stay at home, no doubt winning their crusade somewhere on the internet.

The Infidels’ Rochdale demo was all the more pathetic considering the splinter group’s hype about making 2012 ‘the Year of the Infidels’. All talk, in other words.

Money talks and bullshit walks. And this applies even more in the messed-up world of Britain’s fascist fringe. Although EDL turnouts are decreasing, it has still got at least enough financial backing to keep Tommy Robinson’s coke habit on the road.

The fact that the fascist demos are generally getting smaller is to be welcomed. As police repression of protests is increased, the fascists have no one to fight and end up fighting themselves. This is driving a wedge between the moderate, racist wing, and the hardline fascists whose tactics are shown by their attacks on the working class movement.

Nevertheless, despite a handful of exceptions, for example Bradford and Birmingham, anti-fascist forces have not been able to prevent the EDL from marching. UAF remains hamstrung by its reliance on trade union and labour money – sticking to mobilising around ‘celebrating’ diversity, when the fascists attack ‘diversity’ with boots and fists.

Labour and the trade union leaders are not going to support a mass working-class movement to defend our communities against racism and fascism. This is because such a movement would be a reflection of the wider working-class resistance to attacks by bosses and politicians.

Fighting racism goes hand in hand with defending maternity wards. The bosses are whipping up nationalist shite so we invent enemies amongst ourselves, instead of uniting against the parasite 1%.

Fascists will grow in confidence as the ruling class is forced into more and more extreme measures to subdue opposition to its privilege. Wherever fascists organise, racist attacks rise.

The response of the ruling class to any dissent or opposition to its cuts program has been uncompromising: hundreds jailed and seriously injured during the Student movement, restrictions on the right to protest and punitive sentences for those involved in the August riots.

The violence of the fascists, and the violent reactions of the state are two sides of the same coin: a reflection of our society, where violence is monopolised by one class and used to achieve the exploitation of another.

Any movement against the cuts must be a movement that rejects all the ideas which the bosses use to divide us. It must be prepared to build the democratic forces capable of defending our communities and campaigns from the violent attacks of the police and fascists.

Read more

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No Platform for fascists: what it means – why it works

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Racism: not just a bad idea

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How not to defeat the fascists

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