800 joined the Unite Against Fascism-called demonstration in Leeds today (31 October 2009) to oppose the English Defence League.
Called as a rally in defence of a ‘multicultural’ Leeds, the anti-racist demonstrators were penned in by the police. Any idea of challenging the fascists directly was written off by the UAF leadership. UAF’s tactics on the day show that they learned nothing from the events in Manchester: it’s unlikely they’ll apply the lessons of Leeds to future demonstrations.
But there was a clear mood in the crowd to directly confront the EDL and a few hundred protestors were able to break through the police lines. Unfortunately a lack of coordination and clear leadership meant the splinter was eventually halted by the police just short of the EDL's meeting place.
Returning to the main demo we were told by Weyman Bennett of UAF that a march would take place to reclaim City Square (the EDL's rallying point). But this depended on the police first dispersing the EDL. The ‘wait for the police’ approach would have meant marching on an empty square, a useless gesture that was greeted by jeers from the rally. The rally included a large number of young people and a group of young Asians who were at the forefront of pushing for a march. Despite Weyman's promise a march never happened: we were left waiting for an ever-lasting 'ten minutes' for a police signal to go. After nearly four hours the demonstration had dwindled to the point where there was no one left to march.
On the other hand the EDL had a rally and march in the centre of the city with hundreds looking on. They were able to propagate their nationalist, racist views from behind a police line unchallenged. If Manchester showed the risks of allowing the EDL to run free on the streets, in Leeds they gained a platform to spout hatred. The anger at UAFs current approach seen in Leeds will mean a serious rethink for many would be anti-fascists and the need for a militant working class antifascist organisation becomes all the more urgent.
More coverage and comments to follow. Please post your views/experiences.
Comments
"UAF off our streets" & other questions
Hi Mick
I think the replies above have dealt with most of the points you made but I will just clarify on a couple of issues.
On the issue of the "UAF off our streets" chant. As far as I know no one we brought with us joined in and if we had it would have been wrong. I actually argued against this chant with some of the people around me but they were very agitated about "UAF stewards handing one of their comrades to the police". I would like to believe this accusation is not true. Please can you clear this up?.
On another issue. You say: "it should be noted that Leeds Awl did nothing whatsoever to build yesterday's rally or any other UAF event.". This is not true. We were handing out leaflets publicising the UAF counter demo pretty much from from the moment it was announced. I was handing out UAF leaflets outside Leeds Arts College & the BBC on the day nick griffin was on Question Time to which your comrades can attest as well. We set up a face-book event for this before the UAF one was set up & passed a motion through my Unite the Union in Leeds to mobalise for the demo and get the regional TUC involved (the branch then got cold feet because of police warnings and did not release the Unite banner for the day). The difference is when we called for people to fight against fascism we try to address the racism and the venality of the main parties that has allowed fascism to grow whereas UAF gets New Labour, Lib Dems and tories to speak from your platforms and stifle any criticism of them in the name of cross class unity.
Finally I just want to bring up an issue not mentioned so far. I have been made to understand the police made house calls on chief UAF organisors (including possibly yourself) to basically try and get you to stop organising the demo and on top of this the police banned the feeder marches. To your credit you continued anyway. On top of this the police sent out an email to all students in Leeds and turned up at mosques and community center's to dissuade them from joining the UAF rally. On this issue though UAF has not kicked up the fuss that needs to be kicked up about the police trying to stop our protest from happening.
Dave
Three points
Firstly, I'd like to reiterate the point that there was **NO** UAF presence in London on Saturday. The planned Islamist march was cancelled, so the EDL just wandered around the Trafalgar Square/Picadilly Circus area. Some Muslim liberals, British Muslims for Secular Democracy, held a protest against the Islamists who hadn't showed up, but with no clear anti-EDL slogans - so actually protesting against the fascists was left to small group of British and Iranian socialists and anarchists mobilised by the AWL. This despite the fact that the day before we'd been called racist by SWPers on Facebook for also protesting against the Islamists.
Secondly, I'd like to register my shock - yes, after ten years of observing the SWP, I am genuinely shocked - at the fact that a Lib Dem councillor who put on the UAF platform despite the bin workers' strike. This is surely a new low in the strategy of popular frontism. Mick, do you defend this?
Thirdly, Popper:
1. New Labour is indeed reactionary, racist, war-mongering. However, it is not fascist. It's fairly easy to tell this by the facts that a) it has not mobilised a mass movement on the streets to smash the left and the workers' organisations; b) we still have legal trade unions (severely restricted yes, but legal), the right to protest, to publish socialist newspapers etc; c) we still have free elections (in so far as elections under capitalist democracy are ever really free). New Labour is a right-wing social democratic party that has degenerated into right-wing liberalism and even conservatism. It is not fascist - self-evidently.
2. The fascist elephant charging around the room here is actually the BNP and associated movements, who you seem to be implying are not fascist. How so? I can accept that the EDL as a whole is not quite fascist, but there are clearly fascists at the core of the movement and it it developing in that direction.
(Btw, I think we'd prefer it if you didn't talk about "coloured people".)
Furthermore, we - the AWL - are against a strategy of 'anti-fascist unity' with the likes of the New Labour leadership, the Tories etc - as made clear above in repeated comments attacking UAF over the Leeds refuse strike. We think that only a working-class-based anti-fascist movement that challenges the status quo and thus these people can be effective. But what you have to explain is how this somehow lets the actual fascists, ie the BNP and the EDL's central cadre, off the hook.
Sacha Ismail
For any organisation to be
For any organisation to be called parasitic by a supporter of Socialist Action (the parasites par excellence)takes some cheek.
The political low point of the day for me was the invitation to the Lib Dems to speak at the rally. 8 weeks into a strike by bin workers against a Tory/Liberal Council threatening to cut the pay of these already low-paid manual workers this was an act of unbelievable idiocy. And politically very dangerous indeed. The big selling point of the BNP is that they are the authentic voice of the white working class who have been let down by New Labour and the other mainstream parties. We on the left and the anti-fascist movement are, according to this story, just part of the so-called 'liberal establishment'. Having a Lib Dem counciller address the rally played completely into that narrative. Most of the crowd could see that and he was roundly booed but the organisers were visibly embarrassed by the booing rather than by the fact that he was speaking.
If you wanted a concrete illustration of why the popular front approach taken by UAF will never defeat the far right it would be hard to better this.After all the advice UAF will give to bin workers and their families at the next council election will be to vote for these parties to keep out the BNP. Clueless!