Friday 15 March was a day of contrast in both Australia and New Zealand – exuberance and militant action by students striking for climate action in both Australia; followed immediately by immense sadness, horror and anger at the mass murder by a fascist at a mosque in Christchurch.
The far right organised a “Yellow Vest” pro-Brexit demo in Leeds on 19 January.
Since it was also a RMT strike day on Northern Trains, a special effort was made by the Leeds labour movement to turn out for the city centre picket.
In Manchester recently, fascists on a “yellow vest” demo abused and threatened a picket line.
About 100 turned out to back the RMT: Labour people, various flavours of socialists, Momentum, Young Labour, and Leeds Anti Fascist Network.
A couple of fascists turned up to jeer and film, but the main yellow vest group stayed clear.
On Monday 7 January, a group calling itself “Justice for Women and Girls”, led by Lee Scheres (aka Lee Baylan), who runs the “Antifa Public Watch” Facebook site, invaded a Leeds Socialist Party closed meeting.
A drunken and wired Lee Scheres and his pals tried to disrupt the meeting, intimidating people, filming them, squaring up to them, seizing papers off them etc. Leeds Socialist Party report: “Bar staff assisted to escort them out of the venue. No one was hurt during the incident.
Drivers in Darlington, Durham, Redcar, Stockton and Whitby working for Arriva have started a week long strike over pay.
On 5 January an RMT picket line of striking Northern guards in Manchester was attacked by far-right thugs connected to the Democratic Football Lads Alliance and the rump English Defence League. It seems the attack may have been an opportunistic action by far-right activists mobilised for a demo of their own taking place in Manchester on the same day.
An Asian striker was specifically targeted, and was called a “nonce”, “child groomer”, and “paedophile”.
In the closing speech at the Another Europe Is Possible conference on 8 December, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle recommended Best for Britain as the group with which AEIP should combine to form a joint campaign in a new public vote on Brexit. Because the speech was right at the end of the conference, no one had a chance to point out that an amendment passed earlier in the day, moved by Ben Towse and insisting that AEIP must above all voice an independent left-wing line, contradicted this proposal. But it did.
Stopping Brexit isn’t anti-fascism
Callum Cant takes issue over the 9 December counter¬demo
The Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) are obsessed with trade unions. When their march was blocked in October, their leadership couldn’t stop themselves from fantasising about beating up organised workers. For many of their supporters, the organisation’s high point was when a DFLA group launched a serious physical attack on RMT members in a pub in Whitehall. The essence of their politics is a hatred of the organised working class.
On Monday 15 October I attended a meeting on behalf of my union branch, Lambeth Unison, to discuss the setting up a local Labour Against Racism and Fascism network.
The meeting was attended by Secretaries and BAME Forum members from 14 South London local Labour Parties, as well as union reps.
The meeting was initiated by activists in Dulwich and West Norwood CLP who had been alarmed by the rise of new far-right street movements in the UK, led by the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), and coalescing around the #FreeTommy movement.
The success of far-right populists across Europe continued in Sweden with a surge in support for the Sweden Democrats who took in 17.6 percent of the vote, coming third against the left and right blocs.
Both blocs have refused to form a coalition with them but with a motion of confidence due for Swedish Prime Minister and Swedish Social Democrat leader Stefan Löfven, Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson believes Löfven will have to negotiate with him.
My conclusions from attending a protest against a “Free Tommy Robinson” rally in London on 14 July were as follows:
• There were two anti-Robinson marches but combined they were still outnumbered by the right-wing mobilisation.
The Unite Against Fascism (UAF) marchers probably had an average age of over 50 and they were overwhelmingly middle class. The march was not stewarded. The Antifa march was younger and had a (purely verbal) stated intention of physically stopping the right.
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