Around 200 supporters of the far-right English Defence League held a march and rally in Slough, Berkshire on Saturday 1 February, but were only able to do so thanks to heavy police protection.
Similar, if not slightly greater, numbers of anti-fascist activists, along with significant numbers of local people (amounting to a bloc that outnumbered the EDL), mobilised to oppose them. Berkshire Anti-Fascists, linked to the national Anti-Fascist Network (AFN), had done hard work in the build-up to the EDL's march leafleting local communities and raising awareness of the event. Their chosen assembly point was called before the EDL's route was announced, and ultimately turned out to be in an inconvenient location, but Berkshire Anti-Fascists succeeded in redirecting their forces to join a protest in the town centre called by the local Trades Council that grew as the day went on.
Despite the heavy police presence in the town, some anti-fascists also managed to convene at the train station (the starting point for the EDL's march) to confront the assembling racists, before rejoining the larger presence on the town's high street.
There were some tensions in the high street protest between those who wanted to remain behind police lines and merely heckle the EDL as they marched past, and more militant anti-fascists (mainly mobilised by AFN-affiliated groups from around southern England, including Brighton Anti-Fascists, London Anti-Fascists, and South London Anti-Fascists), who wanted to attempt to occupy the high street to block the EDL's march.
Despite a number of attempts to do so, numbers ultimately made the difference and the anti-fascist mobilisation simply did not have sufficient numbers to challenge the police for control of the streets.
However, the attempts to take the road did mean the EDL's march was delayed for some time until the police succeeded in pushing anti-fascists back far enough in order that the racists could be safely escorted down the high street to their rally point.
There were a number of skirmishes with the police throughout the day as anti-fascists attempted to advance their position, with shielded riot cops and baton-wielding mounted police acting in a typically violent fashion. The EDL threw glass bottles and other missiles over the police lines into the anti-fascist ranks. One anti-fascist suffered head-wounds that required hospital treatment after being struck with a bottle.
Although some local people were understandably frightened and frustrated by the disruption caused in the town centre (most shops shut and barred their windows, with both staff and customers stuck inside for hours on end), the overwhelming response of local people, including many from the Asian community, was one of immense hostility to the EDL. Local youth showed a real willingness to attempt to confront the EDL. Near the end of the day, a small group of EDLers who had become separated from their main bloc had to be led away under heavy police escort after a large group of local youth confronted them, as well as verbally attacking the police for protecting the racists.
That police are the element with most control over how the day proceeds is now typical of anti-racist and anti-fascist mobilisation. Although anti-fascists were not able to prevent the EDL from marching, activists from within and without Slough, along with non-"activist" members of the local community, ensured an atmosphere of extreme hostility to the EDL in the town centre, and mounted a visible and vocal opposition (both at the EDL's train station assembly point and along the route of the march). Their actions meant that the EDL's demonstration could only take place under heavy police protection.
This was the EDL's first national demonstration of 2014. They mobilised less than half the numbers they managed for their Tower Hamlets demonstration in September 2013, and with internal tensions and splits disrupting their organisation, the future does not look bright for the EDL as an organisation.
Some of the credit for that must go to the Anti-Fascist Network and its affiliated groups, who have ensured that anti-fascist mobilisations now routinely involve real attempts to challenge police control of the streets and to disrupt or at least confront far-right mobilisation, rather than holding static rallies where liberal politicians laud the political status quo.
If AFN groups can build links with local labour movements and working-class community organisations, they could play an important role in further accelerating the decline of the EDL in the months ahead, and, beyond that, developing an working-class, anti-racist answers to the social problems the likes of the EDL seek to exploit.