Talking with the far right in Sheffield

Files for the leaflets used by anti-racist protesters in Sheffield can be found at the bottom of this page to base your own local anti-racist resources on

‘Raise the Colours Sheffield’, a far-right campaign putting up England and Union flags on lampposts, held a protest outside Sheffield railway station on Saturday 4 April, alongside streamer ‘Ryan Rampage’.

Stand Up To Racism did their regular static counter-demonstration. Most chants were a-political, including “There are many more of us than you” and “Who’s streets? Our streets!”, while police penned in both protests.

‘Raise the Colours’ framed their demonstration as not just against immigrants, but also about the cost of living. In their advertisements they asked three questions:
1. Why can’t a working man get a house, yet “asylum seekers” get put up in 4 star hotels?
2. Why are our elderly neighbours being stripped of their winter fuel payments, while an “asylum seeker” from war torn France gets taxpayer funded mobile phones and trips to the circus?
3. Why are our single mothers resorting to food banks, while an “asylum seeker” from war torn France eats like a king, being given banquet style meals three times a day?

This led other anti-fascist groups to adopt a different approach, focusing on engaging passers-by and speaking directly with protestors on the ‘Raise the Colours’ demonstration. Both the Sheffield Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Committee and SCARF (an autonomous antifascist group) produced and distributed useful leaflets countering far-right narratives and putting forward working-class politics.

South Sheffield Anti-Fascists set up a cake stall near the far-right protest. This proved effective as it confused the police and created a welcoming and non-threatening space that made it easier to speak with members of the public.

They also set up chalk boards for people to write down what they like about living in the UK, which worked well as another way to engage and talk to passers by.

Somebody had put up green flags reading “Blame the Billionaires” on lampposts near the train station, which was useful in making the far-right appear more isolated.

Conversations with those attending the far-right protest revealed recurring themes, one person asked if our anti-racism also applied to the Caucasian race and went on to quote a statistic about 20,000 young women and girls who had been raped. This was regularly brought up in our conversations to people on the demo as a throwaway statistic. We have not been able to verify where they got the 20,000 number from.

The people who brought the statistic up seemed to feel that nothing was being done about sexual assault and rape. They felt that the left didn't care about it, or anyone else apart from them. They also thought that the main perpetrators were migrants. They seemed to think that a group of migrants were systematically carrying out mass-rapes and sexual assaults. It was good to be able to point to our demands on sexual violence and rape, but it was difficult to make headway on that issue.

We had quite a long conversation with a young man who seemed to believe in the great replacement theory, though he never used those words explicitly. He was afraid that specifically Muslim migration would allow a Muslim majority to establish a state like Iran in the UK.

Most people agreed with us on economic issues, like nationalisation, welfare and pay rises. One man said he was leaving his trade union, saying it was not protecting him, but we didn't get any details out of him about what had happened.

The main sticking point in our conversations was immigration, and we didn't manage to push anyone much on that. They all think migrants are the cause of the country's problems. Attempts by us to talk about cuts to services usually caused them to pivot the conversation to something else.

Despite the challenges, the conversations were well worth having for several reasons. People were angry, some people just wanted to rant at us. Others were rude and standoffish, some anti-racists reported having far-right demonstrators shouting “Lefty alert! Lefty alert!” shouted at them, but no one tried to act violently towards us.

None of the people we spoke to were hardened fascist cadre, they appeared to have been radicalised by a combination of different conspiracy theories.

However, organised fascist elements were certainly present. Neo-nazi activist Ryan Ferguson was seen holding a British Union of Fascists pendant and making a, “Aryan Fist” salute (a nazi salute but with the fist closed). [Pictures have since come out of Harry Jackson, in the cross t-shirt, doing the nazi salute on the demo. See @just.barold on Instagram]

If we use this tactic again, and it's worth doing, then we need to develop approaches on how to engage protestors. This was partly a listening exercise and the way you try to get through to someone who has had their mind rotted by conspiracy theories is not the same as having a rational political argument.

There are other contexts where this tactic could be useful, such as anti-migrant protests outside hotels in former pit villages and towns with strong labour movement traditions, where far-right groups are gaining a receptive audience.