Anti-Fascist Network

So it turns out that Tommy Robinson’s friend and Sunderland organiser Billy Charlton is soon to be in court on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography.

In September 2019 he received a 21 month sentence for stirring up racial hatred during his campaign that was supposed to be against rape and violence towards women. Turns out he is just another nonce and strangely enough Robinson’s crew seems to have quite a number of them.

Since we first posted this online, it seems like we have seriously upset a lot of far right specimens. Responses vary from “this is all fake news” to “but what about the…”. It seems like nonces and other sex predators are bad only if they are brown. The truth is that the ranks of far-right organisations are riddled with all sorts of sex offenders. It must be something about the ideology that attracts these sort of people.

Check this list for the full unsavory details:

https://malatesta32.wordpress.com/2019/01/21/2019-far-right-sex-offenders-update/

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.

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Facebook event

UPDATE: LOCATION ANNOUNCED – 10:30 PICCADILLY CIRCUS

Tommy Robinson is back in jail for contempt of court. In an attempt to stoke anti-Muslim sentiment he livestreamed a child sexual exploitation trial, which could have resulted in those guilty going free.

The far right will be marching in London on Saturday 3rd August under the banner ‘Free Tommy’. His supporters are trying to use his imprisonment as a recruiting tool, painting him as the victim of a conspiracy. We’re going to be there to oppose them.

Tommy Robinson is part of a far-right movement spreading violence across the globe. From an increase in hate crimes to the mass shootings of Christchurch and Pittsburgh, racists and fascists are getting bolder by the day. Their words and politics are regaining mainstream legitimacy. Donald Trump and Boris Johnson parrot their words. In the US, migrants are detained in concentration camps and in the UK the ‘hostile environment’ harasses migrants through a brutal system of detention centres and deportations.

Tommy’s part in all of this? To whip up hatred against Muslims and refugees, to spread fear and to help radicalise the Finsbury Park van attacker to the point of murder.

Join us on the 3rd of August in Central London, when a coalition of anti-fascists, feminists, migrant solidarity groups, unions, and many more groups and unaffiliated people will come together to oppose Tommy Robinson and his vicious politics.

¡NO PASARÁN!

Watch our Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Check out this new short film featuring AFN members Brighton Anti-Fascists talking a little bit about what they do and why they do it.

Like what you see? Get in touch with your local group and get involved.

In March we published an article about the DFLA Polish Division. We revealed open neo-Nazis in their ranks and how they worked as a personal security for Gerard Batten and Stephen Yaxley Lennon AKA Tommy Robinson.

After we published it, the DFLA responded by stating that “an official investigation” would take place related to information they had received about Nazis in their ranks, suggesting that they knew nothing about this before we brought it to their attention.

Just how much investigating is needed to find out whether guys with swastikas and Combat 18 tattoos are Nazis or not, we are not exactly sure. We fail to see how the DFLA leadership couldn’t spot that the ‘sound lads’ from Poland at their general meeting and at a social afterwards were covered in Nazi tattoos and that they didn’t have a single look at any of their Facebook profiles.

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“I despise Nazis as much as I despise Islamists.” – Tommy Robinson, October 2013

“The DFLA shuns the failed extremist politics, particularly far-left and far-right groups” – The DFLA, Mission Statement, 2019

“[Living in the UK] is now like living in … Nazi Germany” – Gerard Batten, UKIP leader, Dorset 2018

The Anti-Fascist Network has received evidence from anonymous sources within the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) that the DFLA have recently inaugurated a chapter of organised Polish Nazi hooligans. Furthermore we have learned that this group, that includes open Nazis in its leadership, was approached by the organisers of the #Panodrama event, held in Salford on the 23rd of February 2018, to provide security for Tommy Robinson and Gerard Batten, the leader of UKIP. We outline our information below.

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Sunday was a successful day for anti-fascists.

The ‘Brexit Betrayal’ March

Tommy Robinson’s attempt to officially link up with UKIP and use the Brexit chaos to springboard himself into position as leader of some sort of right-wing Brexit resistance appears to have stalled somewhat. The ‘Brexit Betrayal’ demo seems to have got about 3000-5000 people out and didn’t really have a lot of energy. Despite a coming together of UKIP, the DFLA, Tommy’s fan-base and the Brexit vote a mere two days away, it failed to muster the energy or numbers that we had feared.

A few days prior to the demo Tommy Robinson had said: “If we pull off Sunday you will see the launch, and the momentum will build, for a revolutionist populist party and political movement in this country”.

Thankfully this didn’t look like the beginning of a far-right revolution. Compared to the ‘Free Tommy’ demos earlier in the year or DFLA demos from last year, this was small numbers. 3-5000 people turning out for a fairly explicitly far-right Islamophobic demo in central London is however, still very disturbing and not to be treated lightly.

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Main Facebook event

Here’s the latest on what will be one of the biggest and most important mobilisations against the far-right this year.

Tommy Robinson and UKIP , supported by the DFLA have called a ‘Brexit Betrayal’ demo on Sunday 9th December. They are currently believed to be planning a re-run of the route of the October 13th DFLA demo from Park Lane to Whitehall, but new details may emerge over the next days.

The counter demo to this that was originally called for Parliament Square is now meeting at 11.00am at Portland Place, outside the BBC. This is supported by a large coalition of groups from across the left including Momentum, Plan C, Feminist Anti-Fascist Assembly, Global Justice Now, ourselves and many others.

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Facebook event here

Serial hate-monger Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (“Tommy Robinson”) has called a “Brexit Betrayal” march in London on Sunday December 9th in an attempt to stoke right-wing anger over the Brexit crisis and manoeuvre himself into position as leader of the angry, ‘betrayed’ Brexit voters.

Yaxley-Lennon has recently got himself appointed UKIP leader Gerard Batten’s “special advisor”. This finally seals the deal of UKIP’s steady march further and further right. Now they appear to be happy to be associated with an ex-BNP member, football hooligan, EDL founder and serial fraudster. Not that surprising given their recent history, but still a significant point – a political party that won the last Euro elections is now so closely linked with Tommy Robinson.

This is a critical moment. If at a moment of national crisis with everything up in the air, a racist Islamophobe like Tommy Robinsion is allowed to position himself as the representative of everyone who voted for Brexit and foment a right-wing backlash with himself at the front of it, far-right politics will be pushed even further into the mainstream.

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by London Antifascists

There’s no doubt about it, #stopdfla was a good day out for anti-fascists, and an absolutely terrible showing for the Democratic Football Lads’ Alliance. Over 1000 militant antifascists from a broad coalition of groups mobilised for a vibrant, proudly anti-fascist unity demonstration which didn’t allow the police or the fascists to set its agenda. It went, for the most part, where it wanted. The addition of another 500-800 participants on a Stand Up To Racism rally in Old Palace Yard meant that, for the first time in London in 2018, anti-fascists outmatched what the far right were able to pull onto the street. The Unity demo’s call out was for Portland Place at 12pm, and ten minutes after noon the numbers of anti-fascist protesters, ranging from seasoned to newly recruited activists, was quickly growing. Soon afterwards, a large and dynamic contingent of women and non-binary anti-fascists approached the meet up point to join the Anti-Fascist Network grouping, and our numbers swelled. Anticipation among the crowds grew, and despite intel suggesting a potential risk of the demo being attacked by fascist hoolies at the meet up point, everyone assembled safely. We’re confident if they did happen to be in the area they’d have taken one look at our numbers, how organised our blocs were, and thought better of it.

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