Bradford 2010
I went to Bradford with a few others from Liverpool Anti Fascists. It is important to consider what happened there. Lesson one is that organisation is crucial to defeating the EDL and strange and mixed though it was, organisation did happen in Bradford, formally and informally. Further the mood amongst the anti fascist youth was excellent. Hope not Hate played a complex role, revealing again their lack of a class approach but organising quite a campaign. UAF s role was also quite complicated
http://uaf.org.uk/2010/08/uaf-press-statement-on-we-are-bradford/
The UAF comment
“A mixed group of people including white, black and Asian people, young and old, families, shoppers and passers-by, spontaneously turned up on pavements overlooking the EDL event, to show their opposition” is not quite accurate. This was unaligned anti-fascists and local youth with a very few passersby or shoppers. It was this group that responded when the EDL escaped into the crowd.
The BNP suffered serious defeat in the last election. The organisation of effective opposition to the BNP was both necessary and successful. The rise then of the English Defence League, ostensibly committed to “opposing” fundamentalist Islam, presented a different set of problems as they were not an electoral organisation, and touched on issues that could possibly get an echo in the non-Muslim population. The activists of the EDL are a most unattractive grouping, including football hooligans, jumped up “patriots” and bigoted racists.
There have been EDL demonstrations in other areas and an abandoned one in the East End of London. In Dudley and Bolton the police and local authorities and community groups did their best to keep the Muslim youth away from the EDL, including apparently funding trips to Alton towers…
Bradford was different. In 2001 the National Front visited the city. Some stayed drinking, holed up in a pub. As they left, they went into the Asian areas, breaking windows, hurling abuse and threatening the population. Asian youth came out to drive them out, and a riot developed. Asian youth suffered badly in the police intervention and in the courts. Many are serving sentences still. There was also elements of inter communal violence in these riots with a labour Club being firebombed. The threat of an EDL demonstration in Bradford was taken seriously by all who opposed the EDL.
The first suggestion was that there would be a counter demonstration. Then Hope not Hate put forward the idea of a petition to ban the EDL from marching through Bradford and organised to get thousands of signatures for this; http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/The-case-against-a-counter-demo
The government agreed. The Government motives were difficult to fathom. However Bradford does have liberal MP who might have had some sway. The likelihood of a huge anti-EDL demonstration in the city might not have been to the governments liking either.
Hope not Hate/Search Light have organised and claim to have campaigned door to door in Bradford. They have used a “decent people don’t like the EDL” approach rather than take up the BNP or the EDL on class lines. UAF (United Against fascism, largely a Socialist Workers Party front, affected in its politics by its work with Respect and its apparent links to Muslim groups with other than a class basis) called a demonstration which was also to be a “static assembly” like the one allowed to the EDL.
There was a demonstration on the Friday before the EDL and community groups decorated the city with green ribbons and banners to symbolise the opposition to the EDL.
The state organised one of the biggest mobilisations in years. The media had warned most people to stay out of the city and it was indeed like a ghost town, with many shops and cafes closing early or not opening.
EDL supporters on the trains were not allowed to stop at Bradford but taken to other stations and coached in. Once in the city, the EDL were “corralled” in a large fenced area, (actually much bigger than was needed). The area was massively policed, the UAF in their area and the EDL in theirs. Reports are that the UAF area was quiet and the police did not actually kettle them, people could come and go. To add to the complexity, the Trades Council organised yet another festival out of the main centre.
Non-aligned Anti-Fascists were not happy to go along with the twin “static assemblies” or the “keep out of town” advice. The EDL had to be confronted. The police were breaking up groups of more than five or six Anti-fascists as they moved around the city centre. The role of the UAF and HNH meant that coordination was poor – hampered by the inexperience among many of the younger unaligned Anti-fascists who did their best (and in the circumstances did well – their mood was more aligned with that of the Asian Youth and others who joined the demonstration) in trying to organise the willing who were in the streets facing the EDL.
The Northern Indy Media report was to me an accurate report of what I saw. The EDL threw smoke bombs and thoroughly upset the mounted police. It was strange to see the police do what they did. Normally the police would have been much harder on the Anti-Nazis than on the Nazis. They did use horses against the local youth and demonstrators a couple of times, though in a low key way, using the horses to “encourage” people to move back rather than physically pushing them. The police confronted the EDL with massive force. The EDL had their speakers, waved flags (including the Israeli, Scots and, bizarrely, the Netherlands) and chanted hate.
The mood was focused, but friendly. A wedding party arrived at the Midland hotel, piped in by a Scottish piper. The music drew the crowds’ attention and the bride was cheered into the hotel.
A number of EDL who had missed the bus or otherwise arrived late filtered through the crowd, were seen and allowed through the fence into the EDL area by the police.
There were a hundreds of local youth, mainly but not exclusively Asian. There were early teenage girls and boys among the younger groups, less women among the older groups. Significantly, there were very few paper sellers, few chants but lots of quiet chats going on between friends and strangers. Some of the youth were organised into groups acting together and some were Asian and White together.
A few EDL escaped the compound ran into a local shopping area and were caught in the car park by anti-fascists, where to quote Trotsky, their heads were acquainted with the pavement, by Asian youth and a number of organised Anti-Fascists. The EDL were escorted into their coaches by the police and bussed out.
Politically, and for some physically, the EDL had a bad day. Bradford was spared a repeat of 2001. The police had a dry run for future demonstrations. The Youth of Bradford, mainly self organised, did well in defending their homes and defending anti-racism.
The UAF and Hope not Hate placed them selves in a strange political place, and non-aligned Anti-Fascists demonstrated they were clearly an alternative.
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