Riots in British cities

[Dunenewt]

Anyone been following the recent riots in British cities concerning the English Defence League and Unite Against Fascism?  On the face of it, it seems like a pretty straight forward battle; Far-right against Anti-fascists, but if you look into it a bit more, its quite different.  So far there have been riots in London, Manchester, and Birmingham, and there's plenty planned for the rest of the country, and numbers are approaching several thousand at each riot I think.

Background of the story is, roughly, the English Defence League was created to counter the constant anti British protests, I think it was one particular one in Luton that triggered it all.  Now, the left leaning media and other organisations are quick to denounce this group as a 'white power group' with racist and fascist aims, but if you actually see the organisations aims, this is not the case.  From a BBC article:

Each demonstration has led to confrontations. But leaders like Tommy are appealing for demonstrators to avoid drink because they don't want to be written off as racist thugs.

In Birmingham last week, the BBC filmed black and white men alongside each other on EDL's lines.

So if it's not exclusively white, is it just a cover for a wider Islamophobia?

"People aren't against Islam, they aren't against anything else other than the funders of terrorism, the sworn enemies of Britain," says Tommy.

"For 10-15 years these groups have gone unchallenged in our towns and cities. Those days have gone now. We will challenge them. Wherever there are terrorists, we will be there."

Doesn't sound entirely unreasonable to me...HOWEVER, as the article also quite rightly points out, BNP activists and actual racist thugs have been attaching themselves to the protests, and trying to incite race riots throughout the towns, and they are the ones that have been gathering all the headlines.  There is a danger that the legitimate aims of the English Defence League are going to be overlooked, and overtaken by the racist BNP backed protesters, which I really hope is not the case.

Now Unite Against Fascism, who themselves also have quite legitimate aims too, have launched counter protesters, but are branding every protester as 'Nazi' scum, which is far from the truth.  Ironically, large groups of Muslim street gangs have also been attaching themselves to the UAF groups, and there have also been many examples where these gangs have been rampaging through the cities during the riots, and attacking any white person in the area, including UAF supporters, and even white families who were out shopping, and I'm sure they didn't stop to ask whether these families were British, Irish, Polish, etc.  The way I see it, UAF are protesting alongside many people who would no doubt prefer the UK to be ruled by 'Islamofascists'.

However, unless the EDL manages to shake off the racist thugs who have tagged along, then the other side will always be glorified by certain sections of the media.

[nemafakei]

"Background of the story is, roughly, the English Defence League was created to counter the constant anti British protests,"

Which ones were these?

EDL is an interesting one. From what I've heard, some of the high-ups in EDL are also BNP high-ups, though I've not done or seen the research myself. It looks very much like a far-right popular front. That's not to say it's populated by the far-right, but just a campaign run partly by them in order to recruit from and hide behind. Two of the that spring to mind are London's Mothers Against Knives (not Mothers Against Knives), a 'union' called Solidarity, both run by the BNP.

That's not to say that left groups don't set up popular fronts, of course, I'm just pointing out that just because an organisation claims to be one thing doesn't mean it doesn't have other functions that it claims not to have and that many of its members/supporters aren't aware of.

[Dunenewt]

"Background of the story is, roughly, the English Defence League was created to counter the constant anti British protests,"

Which ones were these?

The trigger was the protests against British troops returning home in...I think it was Luton. 

From what I've heard, several of the BNP bigwigs are trying to piggyback on the popularity of the EDL, and try to turn it into a far-right group.  These EDL protestors have black, white, Indian, etc, officially, they're just campaigning against the Muslim extremists.

[Dunenewt]

UAF and EDL clash again.

It seems the UAF boss was arrested during the protests for inciting violence.  If you watch the video, in the EDL section you can clearly see Israeli, Polish, and Dutch flags, as well as American, British, Scottish, Welsh, and English flags.  I think the flag with the lions on it has something to do with Lancastershire.

[nemafakei]

That looks very dodgy. What the Mail doesn't tell you is that Bennett and the UAF leadership generally have been quite dogmatic about being nonconfrontational, sometimes to the point of trying to lead protests away from the BNP/EDL, etc.

In fact, it looks like a deliberate act of provocation. The police tactic described is supposed to be used on really violent types in a situation in which they're likely to offend. It is an organised intervention on the orders of an officer of rank with advice that the individual has been positively identified as an imminent threat. The though of Weyman Bennett or Martin Smith (also mentioned in the article) punching someone is hilarious - Smith is sort of like the John Major of the Socialist Worker's Party.

[Dunenewt]

Actually, was talking to some people that were there, and at the protest and Leeds as well, and they said the UAF were on both occasions the more aggressive ones, charging at the the EDL.  One said "I was in Leeds, the day of the EDL protest on my way to the game, and I have to say although I totally disagreed with them, the EDL behaved reasonably well, it certainly wasn't them charging down to try and approach the EDL demo in City Square. Also they DO provide a front for Muslim youth whether deliberately or not, as they do for hardline militants from the left to get close to the EDL. Much like the EDL provides a similar flag of convenience to the far-right and football hooligans."

[Edric O]

It seems the UAF boss was arrested during the protests for inciting violence.  If you watch the video, in the EDL section you can clearly see Israeli, Polish, and Dutch flags, as well as American, British, Scottish, Welsh, and English flags. I think the flag with the lions on it has something to do with Lancastershire.

Actually, that multitude of national flags has me even more worried than before. What is supposed to be the message here? Why those countries and not others? If they just flew English flags or the Union Jack, that would be understandable - lots of groups do that. But now it looks like they're calling for a Judeo-Christian crusade against Islam.

[Dunenewt]

The Israeli flags were to show solidarity with a country UAF hates, the Dutch flags were in support of Geert Wilders, I guess, and the Polish, flags, there's hundreds of thousands of Polish in the UK, so it wouldn't be far fetched for there to be a few Poles campaigning against Islamic extremism.

[Edric O]

the Dutch flags were in support of Geert Wilders, I guess

I hope not. Supporting someone who wants to ban the Qur'an doesn't exactly improve my image of the EDL.

[Dunenewt]

Well, that was just a wild stab in the dark, but its not half as bad as the things you see at the UAF protests.  Its nothing like Antifa here on the continent, which actually campaigns against fascism, UAF is an absolute joke.

[athanasios]

I am a bit concerned. I try to find if there is any connection (secret services?) between these riots and the 3 bombs that exploded here in Athens (immigration department, χρυσή αυγή offices (http://el.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A7%CF%81%CF%85%CF%83%CE%AE_%CE%91%CF%85%CE%B3%CE%AE), house of the immigrants president).

[nemafakei]

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/03/22/edl-the-police-and-our-misleading-mainstream-media/

Here's an interesting commentary on the day, questioning the police line of an 'EDL majority'.

There's also a bit of a difference between the EDL 'behaving themselves' and the UAF 'behaving themselves'. When the EDL march, they basically get a police escort. When the UAF march, they tend to get police aggression. For the UAF to 'behave themselves', i.e. not get into any clash with the police, their best bet is not to turn up. The EDL just have to not do anything so blatantly outrageous that the police with have no choice but to take them on.

From what pictures I've seen, the EDL were given tonnes of space, for their numbers, and UAF were tightly packed - the police had a plan for the day, and they were going to enforce it at all costs, irrespective if the assumptions on which that plan was based bore no relation to the facts on the ground. Clearly GMP learnt nothing from the Met's dire work at the G20 last year - or the subsequent critical police reports on it.

[Dunenewt]

Because from what people are saying United Against Fascism when it suits us and look the other way when it doesn't were the people going after the fight!  I'm getting my information from eye witnesses who were there.  There's a great video on YT of Bennett frothing at the mouth, he can't wait for the fight!

[nemafakei]

http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2010/03/eyewitness-report-from-bolton.html

Another interesting one. This suggests that the police are resorting to using arrests to find out info about the UAF. Not sure about that. The UAF isn't a secretive organisation, so it's not like they need to. On the other hand, the Police often have a hard time grasping the fact that many left groups can be pretty easily tracked if you're prepared to just read the minutes of their meetings.

As you might expect, I can't really comment on impression your friends got on who was 'going after the fight' or not. UAF is, as the name suggests, a fairly broad group, and many people on a UAF demo won't be formally members or affiliates. Likewise, an EDL demonstration is going to consist of a core group of organisers, plus other groups like Combat 18, and the various organised and unorganised football groups, plus some people who've genuinely been attracted to it (the first three can't account for 2000 people without quite a few more coaches than I'm prepared the believe). Amongst UAF and EDL, there are obviously more cautious and more aggressive elements.

However, that doesn't have any bearing on the responsibility of the police to do their job properly. As usual, the police seem to have been more concerned with running heavy-handed interference operations than with keeping things calm and facilitating the demonstrations.

[Edric O]

Likewise, an EDL demonstration is going to consist of a core group of organisers, plus other groups like Combat 18, and the various organised and unorganised football groups, plus some people who've genuinely been attracted to it (the first three can't account for 2000 people without quite a few more coaches than I'm prepared the believe).

Wow, there's an actual group called Combat 18? Can they be any more blatant than that? Well, I suppose they could all dress in brown...

(For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you should know that the number 18 is a very common feature of neo-nazi symbolism, because the 1st and 8th letters of the alphabet are A and H. You can guess what they stand for. If there is a political group using the number 18 for no apparent reason, it's likely they are neo-nazis.)

[Dunenewt]

Yes, that's true, another common one is 88, for HH (Heil Hitler).  Unfortunately I was born in 1988, so there are sometimes misunderstandings!