Anti-Fascist Network

On Saturday, people from all over the country came together to oppose a ‘Free Tommy’ demonstration in London in support of imprisoned anti-Muslim hate preacher Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (AKA “Tommy Robinson”). It was a difficult day, but we stood strong, and our demo was solid. Old fascist faces like Paul Pitt and numpties like Danny Tommo were doing their usual attention-seeking, the police had helicopters and ‘Sieg Heils’ and MAGA hats were out.

The fascists’ turnout was much lower than for “Free Tommy” events last year – last year they got possibly 10,000. Saturday they got somewhere up to 1000.

However, anti-fascists should have been able to comprehensively outnumber them and prevent them from having the run of the streets which were not able to do.

Generation Identity flag waved on stage by Glen Saffer, Yaxley’s bodyguard.

The far-right racism of the “Free Tommy” crowd becomes ever more extreme and whatever paper-thin lines there might have been between outright murderous white supremacism and “Tommy” supporters are rapidly evaporating. They had Generation Identity flags on the main stage being waved by “Tommy’s” bodyguard. Lest we forget, it was a GI-inspired far-right terrorist who had exchanged emails with it’s founder, who gunned down 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand in March. The British branch of GI has even distinguished itself by being censured for being too far-right for a pan-European far-right movement.

The “Free Tommy” crowd were violent, racist and angry. They are increasingly radicalised and absorbed by deranged conspiracy theories.

One of many signs at the demo espousing the batshit QAnon conspiracy according to which Donald Trump is at war with an elite cabal of secret celebrity paedophiles. Or something.

Everyone present should feel really proud for coming out and working together. Make no mistake though, every single person who calls themselves anti-racist or anti-fascist needs to get active. You need to attend demos. You need to organise in your community This threat is growing, fast.

Here we collect some key write-ups from the day

Report from Oxford Anti-Fascists

Yesterday we joined anti-fascists in London to oppose the DFLA and supporters of “Tommy Robinson”, currently jailed for contempt of court after risking a case against child groomers collapsing by disrupting it. Their rally was pictured giving Nazi salutes, and later harassed people of colour driving peacefully through London.

Over 37 organisations and groups supported the callout from the London Anti-Fascist Assembly, including us.

Over 1000 antis (according to news footage) gathered at Piccadilly Circus, and marched through London in a joyful and militant display of anti-fascism.

Several small groups of fascists (15-20) were confronted by or approached our march en route, they fled or were penned in and protected by the Metropolitan Police.

We eventually reached Portland Place, a short distance from the gathered fascists, however the police began pushing our demo before we reached them, allegedly trying to put us in ‘the agreed area’ which of course no one involved had agreed to. A separate protest was there whose stewards also supported the police, despite having no involvement with our demo.

Police rudely harassed our comrades, even calling one comrade, who was simply stood in the demo ‘a badly behaved middle aged woman’.

During this confrontation cops aggressively attacked the people on our front lines, and stole or broke a number of flags, their aggression led to a comrade being stabbed in the side by a wooden pole the cops had snapped and shoved them into, and being hit with a baton ‘accidentally’. The comrades alongside them thankfully prevented injury being done, and street medics attended the minor bruising suffered.

Eventually the police surrendered and used vans to block the road between us and the fash. A group of fash attempted to charge the side of our demonstration but were seen off by our comrades.

Despite demanding we leave, when we announced we would march away and disperse, police refused to let us leave and again aggressively fought our front lines, ‘for our own safety’ eventually we were able to march away, and dispersed peacefully.

Well done to everyone who came out, including the sizeable group from Oxfordshire, and thank you to everyone who supported the demo in other ways.

London is Anti-fascist!

No Pasaran!

Later in the day the “Free Tommy” racists roamed across central London attacking anyone they didn’t like the look of. They abused an an anti-hunting ‘Stop the Cubbing’ march because they thought they looked like anti-fascists. A bus driver was abused and his bus kicked because the crowd thought he was a Muslim. The “Tommy” supporters also surrounded and attacked cars on Whitehall. One car got attacked because it’s driver and passenger were “fucking p*kis.” The fascists also attacked a group of Sudanese socialists they came across supporting the struggle in Sudan.

Report from rs21

Yesterday, supporters of fascist agitator Tommy Robinson targeted a Sudanese demonstration outside Downing Street. Hundreds of far-right thugs surrounded the demo and harassed attendees, jeering racist abuse at Sudanese attendees and “socialist scum” at rs21 members.

Sudanese demonstrators were turning out, as they have done for months, to oppose the murderous Transitional Military Council in Sudan and the complicity that it counts on from Britain and other states. rs21 members attended to show support and solidarity with that struggle; yesterday, our support and solidarity was also needed against the far-right violence and racism that threatens Sudanese and all migrant communities here in Britain.

In the course of attacking Sudanese demonstrators, fascist activists also attempted to tear down and destroy an rs21 banner, which calls on the British left to organise solidarity with the struggle in Sudan. We retrieved it and will continue to bring it proudly to demonstrations of the Sudanese diaspora. We urge the left in all its forms to come along as well! You can keep up with Sudanese revolutionary demonstrations in London by following the pages below. If you’d like to show solidarity, we encourage donations to our comrades at the Sudanese Workers Alliance for the Restoration of Trade Unions, who are fighting to push forward the revolution in Sudan and to win solidarity for it internationally.

Sudanese Workers Alliance donations: https://bit.ly/2OAW77c

Sudan Uprising UK – https://www.facebook.com/SudanUprisingintheUK/

East London rs21 – https://www.facebook.com/EastLondonrs21/

Solidarity with MENA Workers – https://www.facebook.com/MenaSolidarityNetwork/

BUILD FOR THE FUTURE

The media have reported 24 arrests. As far as we are aware at present there were no anti-fascist arrests, so we assume those were all Tommyoids.

In the context of murderous white supremacist attacks occurring with increasing frequency and our headless government lurching ever-further to the right into the arms of the openly racist Trump regime, the danger of the far-right whether on the streets or in the corridors of power cannot be overstated.

We need to work harder to build a bigger and more diverse anti-fascist and anti-racist movement to stand up to the far-right. Some days we will win and some days we will lose, but the price of doing nothing is too high to be considered.