The first outing in London today for the newly minted right-wing alliance the United British Patriots does not bode well for their attempt to supplant the EDL as Britain’s premier right-wing street movement. The demo was called in the name of the English Volunteer Force (EVF), but was supposed to be a multi-organisational ‘unity’ march on Parliament of all the fascist splinter groups who make up the UBP. It was always very confused being a demo about everything and nothing with no clear agenda. As it turned out they pulled somewhere around 100 for their much-hyped big day.
Overall the day was a good one for anti-fascists. There was a noisy anti-fascist crowd that was quite up for it and tried to get close to the fascists. The EVF would likely have been lightly policed and able to do their full march route down Whitehall had it not been for anti-fascists mobilising. As it was, they were considerably more constrained by the police than they could have been. Rather than the racists parading their bigotry amongst the crowds of multi-racial families that populate central Westminster on a Saturday afternoon, they limped along largely unseen behind a wall of cops.
Anti-Fascist Network 