UK Communities Mobilize to Defend Themselves as Police Fail to Stop Far-Right Attacks Spurred by Viral Misinformation

Following the tragic murder of three children, a viral campaign of far-Right misinformation pushed by neo-Nazi groups like Patriotic Alternative, far-Right grifters such as Tommy Robinson, and amplified by Elon Musk on Twitter, has led to a series of confrontations between the far-Right and antifascist community members across the so-called United Kingdom.

As the anarchist newspaper Freedom reported:

It was inevitable that the far-Right would exploit the horrific events in Southport. In the aftermath of the attack on a Taylor Swift-themed dance event, in which three children died and others were left in critical condition…Disinformation has swirled around the killings. In the hours after the attack, large social media accounts, including those of right-wing X-ers Andrew Tate and Darren Grimes, stated that the attacker was either an illegal immigrant or a Syrian refugee. However, as far as we know, the UK-born attacker was neither. Other accounts, like the (literally) fake news site Channel 3 Now, were cited by conspiracy theorists and used to call for martial law and mass deportations…Today’s far right is not dominated by one group. Instead, we saw an amorphous network of conspiracy theorists, anti-migrant activists, explicit fascists and hooligans mobilise from across the country.

Despite communities quickly mobilizing in the face of far-Right violence, racist mobs have taken to the streets “throwing bricks, setting fires, smashing windows, threatening mosques and attacking hotels housing asylum seekers.” In one city, white supremacist rioters even set up check points to check the race of motorists passing through an area. In two horrifying instances, racist rioters set fire to hotels housing migrants, in an attempt to literally burn them alive.

As Hope Not Hate reported:

Sunday 4 August witnessed two arson attempts on sites of temporary asylum accommodation. One was in Rotherham, where close to 1,000 protesters overwhelmed a seemingly ill-prepared South Yorkshire Police Force before pushing a wheelie bin inside and setting it alight. The other was in Tamworth, where a mob stormed a Holiday Inn and torched the hallway, and sprayed racist slogans such as “fuck p***s” and “get out England” on the building.

In addition to Southport and Hartlepool earlier in the week, Rotherham, Sunderland, Hull, Stoke, Liverpool, Middlesbrough and Tamworth endured the worst of the violence…Bristol, too, saw ugly scenes as anti-fascists bravely positioned themselves between far-right thugs and the entrance to a hotel which was being used to temporarily house asylum seekers.

Elsewhere, other far-right demonstrations either failed to materialise or were dwarfed by antifascist counter-demonstrators. In the end, the far right were either heavily outnumbered or failed to show in: Cardiff, Doncaster, Wrexham, Swindon, Nottingham, Preston, Leicester, Torquay and High Wycombe, among others.

This week, following initial clashes, community defenders are organizing to hold the streets against continued calls by far-Right and neo-Nazi groups to violently target and attack “immigration-related charities, advice centres and solicitors,” and there are signs that more far-Right demonstrations are being organized in the near future.

As London Antifascist Assembly wrote in a recent post to social media:

In less than 24 hours we will all be on the streets in our local areas countering the racist, Islamophobic, fascist threats against London’s people. It’s still not yet clear how strong the far right presence will be in the majority of the places listed as potential targets for Wednesday evening.

The response from people across London has clearly been massive and the work which we have seen going on in community chats and organizing groups, has been incredible. We will all have to be on our toes tomorrow, as the police will be out in force, desperate to keep people under their thumb. Guides to your legal rights are circulating widely: read them, and be prepared to resist police bullying.

The situation is very chaotic and figuring out which bits of information are accurate, which are made up, and which are exaggerated will be tricky. Rumors of all kinds have been flying all week and tomorrow will see a lot of this. Be wary of misinformation and fascist trolling: Not only is it very easy to misread a situation and accidentally start a rumor, but also the far right will be building on the shock and fear created last weekend by exploiting peoples fears of acid attacks, stabbings, and arson.

Lastly, people going out tomorrow should remember that while organizations are a part of the fight against fascism, no single group or party can ever claim this movement as their prize: You are the ones doing this, you are the ones fighting fascism, and you are the ones who will eventually defeat it. Don’t let SWP style figureheads or attention seeking liberal influencers claim leadership in the weeks and months to come.

Good luck tomorrow. The enemy is trying to scare us all into submission, particularly the most marginalised amongst us. Together we must all show them that London is Antifascist.

 

While these events are taking place in an area that normally isn’t covered by It’s Going Down, being that the US based far-Right is watching these events very closely, we think it is paramount to not only take note of what is happening, but offer material support and solidarity to communities under attack. Moreover, we know that the demonetization of migrant workers, refugees, and asylum seekers – propelled by online conspiracy theories, policies of both corporate parties, and the mass media – is a core project of those who wish to protect and strengthen entrenched class and racial inequalities which lie at the heart of the capitalist settler-State.

Over the past several decades, we’ve already seen the militarization of the border, multiple horrific mass shootings by white supremacists under the guise of resisting the “Great Replacement” conspiracy, and elites and corporate media attempting to score political points by manufacturing a fictitious threat of “migrant crime.” In short, what happens in England, may soon hit our shores here.

What follows is a collection of reports from anarchist and antifascist groups across the so-called UK, detailing mass community defense in the streets against the far-Right. As the following reports show, antifascist mobilizations, both by community members and organized antifascist groups, have directly saved lives, especially as police have been unwilling and unable to prevent attempts by the far-Right to carry out acts of extreme organized racist violence. For more updates and future reports, be sure to check out the Antfascist Network, Freedom, Red Flare, and the Anarchist Federation.

August 2nd

Report from Sunderland from the Northeast Anarchist Group on August 2nd:

The scenes in Sunderland last night were horrific to watch, and the fact that the far-Right think they can be so bold is indicative of much needed antifascist work to be done.

On a slightly more positive note, members of the community and those who helped organise the callout stood in solidarity outside nearby Mosque’s and the Sunderland Jami-Masjid, which almost definitely contributed to the far-Right being forced back into the city centre.

There is also a locally organised cleanup happening right now – we can and we will fight back, the police and the fascists are not our friends, only we can protect one another.

August 3rd

Report from Manchester Antifascist Collective from August 3rd:

The events of Saturday 3rd August took place in a climate of rapidly accelerating far-Right militancy. Before we address its specifics, we feel it is worth presenting our analysis of how this militancy has reached an arguably unprecedented level, at least in the last decade.

The current explosion in far-Right demonstrations follows the tragic attack in Southport that took the lives of three young girls and injured multiple other children and adults. Immediately, far-Right disinformation was spread in local Southport chats that alleged the attacker was a Muslim who came over on a small boat crossing, with neo-fascist groups such as Patriotic Alternative (PA) and the British Movement (BM) seeking to inflame tensions.

This disinformation was deliberate, calculated and blatantly parasitic, with the Southport-based nazi David Adams (who is currently active in both PA and BM) entering the local chat to promote PA before promptly leaving.

The riot in Southport saw a police van set on fire outside of a mosque in an attempt to burn it down, and subsequent protests in Hartlepool, Hull, Liverpool and unfortunately Manchester have seen direct attacks on Mosques and Muslims despite the confirmation coming that the attacker was a Christian born in Cardiff to Rwandan parents: everywhere however has seen a dramatic upsurge in racist and fascist violence both around and outside of the demonstrations.

In light of this blatant lie, the far-Right have doubled down on their racism, arguing that it’s no longer even about Southport but a generalized cry to protect the figural women and children from an imagined ‘invasion’ of ‘fighting age males.’ Notably, these demonstrations have been predominantly male, and have seen an alarming amount of youth get sucked into violence through influence from fascist adults that will inevitably lead to criminalization and further radicalization towards the Right.

We therefore understand this movement as having moved past it’s opportunistic parasitic phase, where a tragedy was shamelessly used to propel the fascist movement: it has now entered a period where the fascists no longer ‘need’ Southport, but will reference back to it as part of a wider political ‘justification’ that also includes events, figures and positions like the Romani resistance in Harehills, Tommy Robinson’s supposed ‘persecution’ and deliberately manipulated figures about migrant crime rates.

The media and government’s coverage of these far-Right thugs as ‘protesters’ is a calculated decision to legitimize their ‘concerns’ obscuring the fascistic nature of their views which risks emboldening and normalizing their tactics.

With regards to Manchester on Saturday, we saw the extent of the state’s response to the upsurge in far-Right militancy: Keir Starmer’s new police powers that followed Southport were fully applied to antifascists and ultimately led the GMP to facilitate the violence of the far-Right demonstration.

From the beginning, multiple crowd control pens were set up that neither demonstration entered, and this meant that antifascists spent the entire day kettled by the GMP with helmets, batons and padded gloves ready, alongside intelligence gathering officers and mounted police behind them for any breaks. The GMP were far more concerned with protecting the fascists ‘right’ to march and harass marginalized communities in the centre of Manchester.

In the second half of the day, Hijabs were forcibly removed and Muslim women spat on, whilst crowds chanted “Allah is a pedo:” this was entirely preventable. Our decisions were far from strategically perfect, and we have much reflecting to do, but it must be stated that a policing operation of this size and force was unprecedented in recent years. The far-Right, led by the vaguely unknown Richard Bebbington of Ramsbottom, Bury, were wholly unorganised and it was only through the actions of the police that they managed to gain some sort of unity.

In other attempts to spread their hatred, we responded to information they were planning to ‘protest’ at two migrant hotels in Salford on Friday 3rd, this consisted of 4-6 of them, observing the hotel and police presence from across the road for a few hours before calling it a day. More recently, last night after intelligence that a more confrontational visit was planned to another migrant hotel in greater Manchester, community mobilization saw 120+ antifascists and community members coming in solidarity within an hour of the callout whilst around 15 young lads hung about in the field next door trying to provoke a reaction and ultimately calling it off as another failure. These events show the fragility and unevenness of the far-Right’s current strategy and the importance of community networks and mobilizations in defending against their hatred.

We call on antifascists everywhere to get organized and prepare to physically defend our communities. We especially call for local mobilizations, neighborhood antifascist crews and stronger community links to push the fascists out when they arrive on our doorsteps. The State and the pigs can never keep us safe: if anything, they pose an equal but different threat, and only we can protect us.

¡NO PASARÁN! – Manchester Antifascist Collective

Report from Bristol Antifascists from August 3rd:

Yesterday (Saturday 3rd August 2024), Bristol Antifascists joined with antiracist and antifascist groups from Bristol and the South West, along with hundreds of Bristolians, to oppose a far-Right “Stop the Boats” protest.

We want people to understand up front: hundreds of normal Bristolians held the line yesterday against a brutal, sustained assault by fascists trying to attack a hotel housing migrant and asylum seeker families with very young children. The police absolutely failed in their duty to protect these families.

Disorganised, incompetent and hopelessly outnumbered by fascists, Avon and Somerset Police and the other forces brought in from outside the area would have, if left to their own devices yesterday, allowed a pogrom to happen.

At this stage everyone is familiar with the murders of Bebe, Elsie and Alice in Southport on Monday (29th August 2024). Our hearts are broken for these little girls and their families and loved ones. We cannot imagine the pain they are suffering at this time. We wish a speedy recovery to the other children and adults injured and traumatized by this attack.

Far-Right and fascist groups are using this tragedy, and the categorically false story that the attacker was a migrant or asylum seeker and a Muslim as an excuse to carry out violent pogroms against those members of our communities around the country.

Bristol Antifascists and our comrades joined a static, peaceful, counter-protest of around 700 people at 6pm at Castle Park. Throughout this hour small groups of fascists and far-Right attempted to provoke or even attack people around the edges of the protest. By around 7pm a larger group of around 100-200 fascists had gathered nearby in Castle Park. The fascists had clearly been drinking all day, and full of Dutch courage were keen on violence, attempting to March directly into the static-counter protest next to St Nicholas’ Church.

What ensued was a series of attacks against the static protest by fascists as they repeatedly broke through the hopelessly thin police lines. We faced full cans of beer and cider, glass bottles, and large stones being thrown and a series of direct physical assaults by groups of pissed-up and coked-up wannabe hard men, who were repeatedly sent packing by far better organized counter-protestors and antifascists. Even with horses and attack dogs, the police were far too outnumbered and far to disorganized to effectively control the fascists, and collective self defense was the only thing keeping everybody safe.

Eventually the fascists had retreated to Bristol Bridge. Knowing that they were believed to be intending to head to Redcliffe Hill, where the Mercure Hotel housing migrant families is located, a quick decision was made by a total of around 200-250 counter-protestors to head around via Queen Square to the Hotel to protect it.

When we arrived the police were all but completely absent, with a handful of cops on bicycles who had followed us being the only visible presence. Conscious of our potentially scary appearance to residents at the hotel, we made certain to demonstrate our solidarity and love for them, with waves, thumbs up, and heart signs exchanged between antifascists and residents of the hotel. It was really notable just how many of the residents are very young, primary school aged children. The downstairs lobby windows are covered with kids’ drawings and paintings.

A group of counter-protestors formed a line and linked arms across the hotel entrance while still more of us formed into a tight bloc on the grassy area in front of the hotel. After about 30 minutes a group of around 80-100 fascists, who had broken away from the police on Bristol Bridge, marched up Redcliffe Hill and immediately began to attack us outside the hotel. Again, the police were wildly outnumbered and unable to effectively defend themselves, let alone anyone else.

For a sustained period of around 15-20 minutes, antifascists stood firm, defending ourselves and each other from a constant, intense assault of fists, kicks, bottles and stones thrown at us by fascists intent on attacking the hotel and its residents. The handful of police present flailed, hitting people seemingly at random with batons, and occasionally PAVA-spraying groups of people.

When police enforcements finally arrive in the form of attack dogs, horses and extra officers, the fascists lost their bottle and retreated to the other side of Redcliffe Hill. They remained there in rapidly dwindling numbers, occasionally hurling the odd insult or glass bottle at the counter-protestors, but ultimately unable to muster another attempt at attacking the hotel.

The majority of the 200-250 counter protestors stayed outside the hotel to protect it until around 9pm when Green Party Bristol City Councillors who had began encouraging people to leave telling them that the police would now have the situation under control. Bristol Antifascists want to make it clear: this was wrong of them. The police had demonstrated a total lack of ability to defend the people housed in the Mercure Hotel or to contain the fascist threat in our city. There was still the potential for fascists to regroup and try again to attack the hotel. Around 50-60 people chose to stay at the hotel as it got dark. We’d received a request from parents inside the hotel to keep things quiet as they were putting young children to bed, and we happily obliged.

At around 10pm, as larger numbers of police arrived at the hotel, those of us remaining decided the time was right to quietly leave as a group and then disperse in a safe area in town. However, this wasn’t before the police decided to reassert their authority after a frankly humiliating day for them. While people were largely sat quietly on the grass or stood around chatting in front of the hotel entrance, a group of cops in riot get suddenly pushed their way to the front of the hotel, hitting, shoving and shouting at counter-protestors for no apparent reason. Fine. Let them believe they’re in charge. Whatever keeps them quiet.

Despite clear confusion and a lack of communication between different groups of police trying to send us in opposite directions, we eventually left the Redcliffe Hill area, and quietly disbanded, blending back into the now quiet night of the city we live in and love so much.

We want to drive that point home: the media and politicians and police will talk about “protestors” and “the public” as though they’re two mutually exclusive groups of people. We are the public. This city is our home, and the people who live in it, of every race, ethnicity and religion are our neighbors and friends. So too are the residents of the Mercure Hotel. Bristol welcomes migrants and refugees, and we will fight for them if we have to.

Yesterday showed the power and importance of community self-defense. Normal Bristolians put themselves in harms way to protect their neighbors in the Mercure hotel, and we stopped a violent, racist mob from doing harm to the families inside. The police were beyond useless, and it was the bravery, moral conviction, and community solidarity of the antifascist counter-protestors that kept the fascists at bay.

Again, we are the public. Outside of this we’re normal boring people, with normal boring lives, and normal boring jobs. Antifascism is and must be a community effort, and as this flare-up of far-Right violence continues, we are going to need everyone to step up and do their part to keep our communities safe around the country.

Every day is the Battle of Cable Street. Keep fighting it.
Always Antifascist. No Pasaran.
Love and Solidarity Forever.
Bristol Antifascists.

Report on mobilization on August 3rd in Bristol from anarchist newspaper Freedom:

Castle Park in central Bristol was already bustling when we arrived early, about 700 of us according to Bristol Antifascists. The word was that fascists had already tried to start fights with locals. About an hour into our counter-protest, we caught wind of their arrival and moved in large groups to the entrances by Bristol Bridge and Temple Meads station at the edges of the Park. They were spotted arriving from the east so we marched up to face them, about 50 yards behind a thin line of police horses and officers with batons.

The fascists hadn’t anticipated how many of us would show up, but they arrived drunk, angry and looking to fight. Proving to them that they were outnumbered, we chanted “We are many, you are few. We are Bristol, who are you?!”.

They were eventually charged by police horses, but roughly 100-200 fascists moved to convene on the hill. We held our ground facing a shower of glass bottles, cans of beer and rocks. A couple of times I watched anti-fascists blocking cans from hitting police officers standing between us.

We fired into action, coming to the aid of a black man who was attacked, and running down to Bristol Bridge to make sure they couldn’t spread any further. I watched police on horses shocked and confused at the spread of the crowd, completely inept at dealing with the fascists. I watched my friend face down a police officer with an attack dog strategically lost in the spread of people around him. We pushed the fascists down High Street, St Nicholas Street and Bristol Bridge until they were bottle-necked and out of steam. After a while, we realised that the police had held them in the exact direction they wanted to go—towards the Mercure Hotel currently housing refugees.

With the police in the way, we, now less than half our original number, sprinted through the streets of Bristol, chanting “Bristol is antifascist” while onlookers ate restaurant food, round through Queens Square and over the bridge to Redcliffe. Comrades handed out bottles of water and energy bars to each other on the way, checking in on each other, keeping close as we weaved through traffic.

I’ll never forget what I saw when we arrived—after hearing reports police were planning to protect the hotel with vans and riot officers—a small line of antifascists linked arm in arm at the door had made it there first. Cops on bicycles were trying to catch up with us, but no other police were in sight. For about 30 minutes we cheered, with the refugees thanking us through the windows of their rooms. They were overjoyed—children and parents were waving and smiling and making hearts out of their hands to us. I cried. “Refugees are welcome here”, we chanted. We weren’t sure if the fash would show up, but sure enough, they trudged their way up the hill towards us.

We formed lines to ready ourselves, standing shoulder to shoulder as tight as possible to ensure they wouldn’t make it through. A comrade behind me got hit in the head with a can. Another next to me got punched in the face. One fascist, who had blood gushing down his already-red face, led the pack from the road to try and get to the hotel door, but never made it through. We defended ourselves and each other and the hotel, and we would’ve continued if we needed to. The moments flash by in my memory—it certainly didn’t feel like 15-20 minutes, it felt like it was over in minutes before police horses arrived again.

That intense attack was the last time we came into contact with one of the groups of fascists, but we still had the police to deal with. After hours of letting the fascists linger on the side of the road, with us stood firm on the other side, the police eventually formed a semi-circle around us. Local Green Party councillors worked with the police to tell us it was safe to leave, that the police had it covered and had pushed the fash back to Temple Meads. But after the ineptitude of the police response until then, about 50 of us stayed steadfast. We complied (too much) with the police, letting them through to the hotel to use the toilets (even though we weren’t allowed in ourselves). As they built their numbers around us we remained linked arm in arm by the hotel doors through to sunset.

The night ended violently. Another group of fascists—the police—decided bully tactics were the way to disperse us. They randomly targeted one comrade in a mask, enforcing section 60, singling them out and grabbing them by the arm to pull them from the group. We pulled the comrade back into the group, but by that point, the cops decided to swarm us. Countless officers split the group in two, pushing most of us closer to the fascists despite telling us our ‘safe’ exit was in the opposite direction. Most officers fell into line, oblivious about what had happened, confused and unsure what to do next. After another 15-minute stand-off with the police, we fanned out knowing we had done our job successfully.

We the people defended our city on Saturday. Not the cops, not the politicians. What was likely an organised pogrom attempt by fascists was fended off by the Bristol community linked arm in arm. The shoddy police response is another example that they are never the safety or protection they claim to be. On Saturday, we showed the power of our community.

We stand ready and prepared to do it again. We will show fascists they will always be outnumbered, they will never be welcome here, and they should be scared to show their faces.

~ Cristian Talbot

Report posted to Organize Magazine, a publication of the Anarchist Federation about a mobilization in Hull on August 3rd:

Promo for the counter-demo only began – as far as I’m aware – on Friday. A friend (member of the Hull Communist Group) messaged me that the fascist rally was happening. We had a look at the promo from the fascists: a facebook event called “Enough is Enough”, shared to a group called the “Hull Patriotic Protestors”, and seemingly mostly led by someone called John Francis. It said their rally began at 12:00, so we decided on 11:30. He kept me updated as he made a quick poster and sent it to the SWP and Co-operation Hull. I shared it with friends, with a Queer group and to a friend who’s part of the Hull anti-raids group.

I arrived at Queen Vic Square a little before 11:30, with three comrades alongside. One of us recognised members of the Stand Up to Racism / SWP group, so we joined up with them. When we go the the square there were already between 50-100 of the fascists rallied, with flags and speakers making speeches on the platform. There were no police. Since there were less than 10 of us at this moment, we didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves. More people started joining us: individuals who had come alone, Co-operation Hull’s group, a small group my friend spotted with a “Hope not Hate” placard in the crowd. The University’s RCP group also arrived. I think we ended up with 60-70 people in total.

While we were gathering, due to their numbers growing into the hundreds and the police being absent, we kept a lower profile, holding up our banners and placards but not beginning chants or songs yet. We took position on the benches at the edge of the square. At 12:00, the police van turned up and they ran out, forming a ring around the fascists. None of them had any riot gear. The SWP began setting up the speakers they’d brought and we began our chants. This grabbed the Far Right’s attention. A sea of faces turned towards us as we shouted “Refugees are welcome here.”

The first egg hit my friend in the eye. He spoke to a police liaison officer to make sure they were aware. No reaction from them. More and more eggs started being thrown – clearly some of fascists had come prepared to throw food at people. I got showered with a sack of flour at one point. There was a point where they seemed to run out of eggs and that’s when random food (oranges, chips) started being tossed at us, along with cans of beer and plastic bottles.

Individuals from the Far Right also kept getting through the police line to get into our group, to shove or threaten us. The police would tow each one away and deposit them back at the rally to the cheers of their mates. At one point, one of them appeared behind my friend, put his hand in their hair and said “You want to take a walk with me.” This man was later seen assaulting an elderly man when the riot started and is a known local thug.

Timings were a complete blur at the time, but around 12:30-12:40, a group of them trickled out from the police line and gathered round to the right hand side of us. I ran over to hold our line. This was how the riot began. In moments, many of them were pouring over to that side, clustering behind us where Paragon Street meets Vic square. Police were rushing to meet them. The rioters aggression began to focus on the cops. There was a moment of chaos and then police were shoving and grabbing my friend and me, shouting “Walk”. We did, but our comrades had vanished and the two of us were suddenly in the riot, surrounded by the people we’d been facing off moments before. They were running down Jameson Street, where a new police line seemed to have formed ahead of us. We tried heading down there, but there was clearly no way of crossing the clashing rioters and cops. To either side of us, shopkeepers were locking their doors. I was wearing an ancom flag and held a placard saying “The murderer was not a refugee” as well as both of us having been very visible on the demo, so we didn’t completely avoid their attention. I remember a young woman screaming at me that the murder was a migrant. I shouted back that he was Welsh. An older man started asking me if I work. I answered yes, then he shouted something along the lines of “And you want your taxes to pay for the invaders”. I answered “Yes” and shouted that they’re “selfish c*nts.” Another guy said he wasn’t selfish, that he was fighting for his grandkids. Who was I helping? I shouted back that I’d help anyone, everyone I could.

My friend said they could smell smoke. I sniffed. It smelt of chemicals, closer to smoke from fireworks than of wood fires. A man, on his way to rushing up to the police line, saw us and ran up. He said he’d seen one of our guys hit and his glasses had been knocked off. “I have them. Can you get them to him?” I said yes and he pressed the glasses into my hand. I thanked him and he ran down the street to riot.

A woman ran up to us. I thought I recognized her from last year, participating in a demo led by Alec Yerbury, a split from Patriotic Alternative. She said we had to get out of here, that we weren’t safe, why were we among them. She said to come with her to the police. We ran back down Jameson Street, to the edge of the square where we’d been stood. “Protect them” she shouted at the cops. The cop responded with an abrupt “No” and that they couldn’t “waste resources.”

We ended up circling back around along roads that seemed to have quietened, to further up Jameson Street, where our comrades were waiting for us. Everyone was safe. The police had shoved them, shouted at them to run, saying “They will kill you!” so all of the counter-protestors except the two of us had run up Jameson Street ahead of the rioters.

We briefly went down Jameson Street to see the riot going on. It wasn’t an structured line between police and rioters, but instead just a cluster of noise and action. There were a couple of funny conversations we had with the Right, where they started trying to debate us – “define what racism is” – then having a go that we couldn’t have a “reasonable discussion,” all in the middle of a riot with us splattered with eggs and flour that their compatriots had thrown at us.

Here our action ends. We retreated, established where everyone was and left in groups. An International Carnival was scheduled for today; it was meant to parade through the city centre but the police had rerouted it yesterday and then ordered for the parade to be cancelled completely today. We joined its starting point out of the city centre, where it was being held as a stationary event instead.

News and social media showed that the rioting continued all day and into the night. In the city centre, fires were being set, shops smashed and looted. There it looked possible that it had morphed into more generic looting and rioting, whereas there were a set of fascists who targeted a hotel housing refugees, then moved up Ferensway and then headed down Spring Bank, where many Muslims and people of colour live, including a mosque.

When we had walked past the mosque on our way out of the city centre, there were many local men standing ready to defend it, with three cops to the side. When two of us were circling back into the city centre to retrieve my friend’s bike, we glimpsed a crowd of around 30 rioters making their way up Ferensway, led by a man wearing a England flag shirt and a traffic cone on each arm.

Reflection:

The police response was surprising. I’m sure for Leftists in other cities, the aggression of the police towards us would be expected, but at previous Hull anti-fascist protests they’ve been far more reasonable and seemingly sympathetic towards us. Strange decisions were made – turning up long after the fascists had begun their rally, no preparation for a riot despite news from elsewhere in the country – and then I think their loss of control caused them to become more aggressive and emotional than I’ve seen previously. A riot is unprecedented in Hull and this must have affected the police response. Also, there was no one on our side who had established rapport (or were able to) with the police. In previous actions I’ve attended, the Trades Union Council have taken a lead in organising and – not being far left – they were able to communicate with the police more easily than us.

It was disappointing how outnumbered we were. I’m impressed at how many anti-fascists attended on less than 24 hours notice, but there were between 300-500 at the far right rally. This is many more than any far right demo I’ve seen in Hull. However, I think the organisers wanted to achieve an obviously Right-wing, but dignified protest. John Francis was pictured wearing a “Stop the Boats” shirt. The Queen Vic statue and platform were covered in British and England flags. I think they wanted a show of strength and controlled aggression, to embolden everyone else in the city who could agree with them. It’s true that violent right-wingers will be emboldened. I fear were going to see an increase in hate crimes. At a bar where one of my friends works, the next day someone called asking if the staff were of English ancestry.

But they ended up on drunken, deranged riots, causing a lot of damage to the city that won’t disappear quickly. I think most of the general population are afraid and horrified. I expect there are people who are socially right-wing and could be sympathetic to the “Stop the Boats,” “Muslim grooming gangs” talking points, but who would be horrified that local Muslim areas have actually been terrorised. Many people are going to be afraid. In the coming days and weeks, I’m planning to participate in clean-ups. (Re)building solidarity and community could be more important that the action of a counter-demo.

Editors Note. As mentioned in the piece, Hull would later see sprawling violence with “foreigners” being mobbed in their car and the Kurdish owners car lot next door being entirely trashed. As was a wide variety of small independent stores and chains such as Lush, Shoezone, O2 and Greggs.

Report posted to Organize Magazine, a publication of the Anarchist Federation about a mobilization in Preston on August 3rd:

Friday night, a message pops up in my (S’s) local queer Discord server: a far right protest has been planned at the Preston Flag Market for tomorrow, and the council have put out a notice asking people to stay away and stay safe. Shortly after that, the Preston branch of Stop The War shared a poster for a counter-protest Unity Rally. Initially I had assumed this was organised by Stop The War Preston & South Ribble, but this was not stated on the poster, and they made it clear that they were just sharing this call to action. I decided I would go to the counter-protest and take my camera, to document what was happening in and to our communities. While I was scoping out the area and taking some test shots, I ran into a friend, another anarchist-feminist trans woman, and we spent the day together hanging out, helping someone in need, and shooting photos. These are some of the things we saw.

The far-right protest consisted mainly of a small group of younger people who occupied the Obelisk on the Market Square.

The counter-protest was about five times larger, and included members of the local branches of the Socialist Workers Party and Stand Up to Racism East Lancashire.

At one point, one of the protesters, donning a Union Jack flag as a cape, wandered through the space that had formed in the middle of the square, and started to taunt the counter-protesters. Police presence was moderate at this stage, and things were mostly calm. It felt more like a bunch of people standing around than a rally or demo. Which is fine, since we want peace in our communities. I didn’t manage to hear what words were said, but eventually they stalked back over to their group.

Later on, the protesters kicked off. A few eggs were thrown, and a glass bottle, and at one point they ran off the Obelisk and down the side of Turtle Bay. Some banged on the windows in an attempt to smash them. At this point, the police took a more active role, and here we see a gaggle of officers bundling a protester into a van.

Everyone poured up the street from the square and onto an intersection on the main road. The movement was brisk but calm, right-wing agitators and left-wing locals woven together in the crowd.

Once the different groups had moved to the main road, they seemed to fragment again into little clusters dotted on all corners of the street, like party-goers sticking with their friends in a nightclub. The police tried to pull apart some of the different contingencies and keep people out of the road. Life went on calmly.

One of the protesters got a bit aggro with H: She baselessly accuses me of starting on her, attacking her. That tends to represent how a lot of transfemmes get attacked.

and splashed her with energy drink. The police moved in to pull our groups apart and try and restore some calm, even though my friend had been assaulted. To any established order, a nullifying peace is more desirable than a fight for radical justice.

A couple of officers chatting to a group on the other side of the street. For many people, it’s not clear from their appearance what they believe or what they want. Throughout the day, some people engaged in constructive dialogue, or at least attempted to. It makes me wonder how we can reconfigure protest / counter-protest events to facilitate discussion and prefiguration.

Later on, the most vocal of the protesters started to chant and rally their troops again, but their contingent was small. At this point the counter-protest had essentially dissipated, as the job of demonstrating the insignificance of the right-wing, both to them and their supporters, and to our community and ourselves, was mostly complete. Here we see some police officers recording video evidence of the protesters.

They decided to move on to the park, and H and I decided to follow them down and keep an eye on them. The police remained on the main road. Their demo was a fizzle, and I felt like we had leisurely chased them off.

Our Monster-wielding antagonist then appeared from across the street and attacked H:

She sprayed the entire contents of her can in my face, repeating her accusations from earlier. (Every accusation is a confession, after all). When I refused to cede any physical or verbal ground to her, she then began swinging without a second thought, initiating a physical confrontation.

I decided to stay back and document this, and record evidence – which worked, as the attacker’s friends eventually convinced her, after several bouts in a car park, that she was incriminating herself.

The group moved off and dispersed before the police arrived; we heard talk of them reconvening in Avenham Park, but, thankfully, didn’t see any evidence of this happening. We met up with someone else from the counter-protest and wandered down to the park together. We saw some of our agitators slide past us later on, shielding their faces from our biological and mechanical eyes. And then we just camped out on the grass, at the edge of a free party that was going on, completely unrelated to everything else that had happened earlier in the day. Not bad for a summer afternoon in these meteorologically and politically uncertain times 😊

August 5th

Sheffield Antifascist Network report from August 5th:

A statement can’t do justice to the horrific scenes in South Yorkshire yesterday.

We want to thank everyone who turned up in Sheffield and saw off the fascists. But now isn’t a time for celebration. What we saw yesterday and the reports from comrades on the ground in Rotherham comes nothing short of attempted murder.

And now we are seeing new threats and calls to action from the far-Right to target those that support asylum seekers. We cannot let this stand unopposed. To our comrades; stay safe. And to those who threaten our communities; let it be known ¡No pasarán!

Report from the Anarchist Communist Group (ACG) on Plymouth, Devon on August 5th:

At least two hundred fascists faced us tonight, and I would estimate three hundred antifascists were present.

The Stand Up Against Racism counter-demo began at 6pm, and there was already a notable fash presence, despite their own demo (riot) not being due to start until 7pm. The police presence was light, and a group of 30 or so anarchists patrolled the outskirts of the counter-demo, and were needed to forcibly remove a number of fash that attempted to infiltrate the counter demo to attack/heckle speakers.

As the clock ticked towards 7, more and more police vehicles began to surround us, but worryingly, we seemed to have small groups of fash on all sides of us, just standing around, seemingly unnoticed by the police. Just before 7, it became apparent there was a very large fascist presence moving south towards us on Armada way. They were stopped by a line of police, and chanting began from both sides. As far as I could tell, they were completely drowned out by our side.

Towards 8pm, the lead fash elements began to try and break clear of the police, making their way along Royal Parade, the small black bloc group followed them – and found ourselves directly face to face with punches being thrown for a few moments, until the police managed to get back in between us again. A stand off then ensued on the corner of Whimple Street, and before long we found ourselves under a barrage of beer cans, bottles, and rocks the size of my hand.

Some time later, the fash moved to the opposite end of Armada Way, towards the Theatre Royal, attempting to get around the police to get at us again. We continued to shadow them, and again had to meet them head on before the police could separate us. A giant anarchist continually put himself in the firing line in front of the counter-protest, leading hand to hand fighting whenever the fascists broke through the police – he took punches from multiple people and carried on battling despite blood dripping from his nose.

The fash then began chucking more rocks and flares at us, but continued to be drowned out by our chanting. At around 9pm, the stewards decided to call an end to the counter-protest, leaving those of us that remained heavily outnumbered and under a barrage of missiles, and probably in danger of being overwhelmed without the police presence. Multiple people surrounding me took blows from rocks and coins thrown from the north side of Royal Parade, and hilariously, the fash brought out some fireworks – and hit themselves with them far more than they hit us.

Towards 10pm, the police forced the fash back up Armada Way, putting them out of projectile range. By half 10, we couldn’t see them, and the remaining anti-fascist group began to thin out.

We held the square throughout, and the anarchist contingent was at the front ready to face them for the duration.

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