The British far-right… February 23, 2012
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
In a period of depressing news it hardly seems fair to add more to the pile, but this is important. Liverpool recently saw two manifestations of far right street activity in the form of protests by EDL and BNP supporters.
At the most recent one an Irish Republican march was diverted and effectively shut down.
In both instances the response from anti-fascists was much less strong than might have been expected. Numbers were poor.
This points to a weakening of anti-fascist organisations in the UK and a diminishing capacity to take on a threat from a BNP which is swerving away from an electoralism that forced it to keep its public face somewhat in check and an EDL which is inchoate and itself suffering from splits further rightwards.
The blog linked to above provides an excellent overview of the situation, and as the person who pointed me to it notes:
…it’s worthwhile raising awareness of it. I was speaking to someone today and we agreed that momentum is key to a lot of the far-right groups- they have young supporters who they need to keep active. They are mobilising around an attack on a white teenager in greater Manchester this weekend. The active anti-fascist street opposition is nearly gone… Plus in Liverpool they have united around street activity (Nick Griffin is still MEP for that area by the way) and really took the republican march by surprise.
The Anti-Fascist movement has become too inter twined with the establishment in Britain. Look at the UAF, it sponsors and supporter list reads like a dinner list at Westminister. The anti-fascist movement became a middle class phenomena and as they pounds tighten up they have less time to act. It really is all part of how the left moved away from Working Class areas over the last 30 years.
A threat to the Occupy Liverpool camp last night did not materialise after all. Liverpool anti-fascists did mobilise though.
As yet unconfirmed rumours that Ajax fans clashed with the EDL in Manchester on Deansgate.
The swerving away may from electoralism might also be due to the fact that once elected, BNP councillors did absolutely nothing for their electorate. Support for the BNP is stalling precisely because of this. Sure they can call all their nutters out to try and shut down a march or organise a counter rally to get the blood flowing the cheeks of anti-fascists, but at the end of the day they can’t and are not interested in putting in the work towards actually helping working class people.
That’s very true. The political limitations of their approach are huge. And probably an inability to do anything useful.
Another time Ive noticed anti-Irish racism not get the same coverage as other minorities in Britain. I think we have discussed the issue here before in regards to Scotland but it still really unerves and worries me how it seems to be tolerated a bit more. Well done on posting this and looking into it it seems no one got badly hurt it seems, luckily enough
I think you’re right actually.