Skip to content or view screen version

Report from protest against BNP fascists in South Essex on Sat 24th April.

Re-Sista! | 26.04.2004 00:49 | Anti-racism | Cambridge | London

Villagers successfully prevented the BNP from assembling in Wickford Essex, but the fascists still held their 'fun day'. A report, commentary and some lessons from the day.


ANTI FASCIST PROTEST IN ESSEX. GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS AND SOME LESSONS. By Re-Sista! 24/04/04.
A report on the opposition to the fascist BNP’s ‘family fun day’ in Wickford, Essex on Saturday 24th April, 2004.

THE GOOD NEWS.
Local people from around Wickford, Essex successfully stopped the Fascist BNP from assembling in their village this Saturday morning. Around 100 locals had gathered for a peaceful but lively protest against the presence of the racist and fascist extremists outside Wickford railway station on 24th April. When a dozen or so fascists tried to get of a train, they were forced to cower inside the station for an hour, protected from the jeers and ridicule of the villagers by a thin line of reluctant police. This was brilliant and great fun to watch! A small convoy of four BNP members’ cars occasionally drove past, intending to pick up their fascist fellow travellers from the railway station, but were unable to achieve this. Although the Fascists had applied to the police for a public parade through the village, they were forced to scuttle off in shame instead. The morale of locals opposed to fascism and racism was raised by this small but significant victory, and networks of local anti-fascists emerged strengthened.

THE BAD NEWS.
However, the BNP were able to go ahead with their fascist ‘fun day’ and race hate festival at a private carp angler’s clubhouse about two miles away. About 100 hard core BNP members and their families from across southern England turned up, and unfortunately were able to go ahead with an event that would have raised the fascists’ morale and cash for their euro-election bid. Obviously, the majority of BNP members were not coming by train to the Wickford village re-direction / pickup point, but would be driving straight to the venue itself, having bought tickets in advance. Furthermore the location of the fascists’ venue at the carp fishery, and their plans had been known to anti-fascists for some weeks, and had even been posted on Indymedia a week in advance! However, the organisers of the local protest had decided not to do anything outside the ‘fun day’ venue, but instead chose to move in to Wickford village shopping centre, where they handed out thousands of anti-BNP newspapers to shoppers. The leaders of the local anti-bnp protest announced they had decided against going to protest outside the angler’s clubhouse to avoid intimidating the young children of BNP members.

Therefore, while local protesters successfully stopped a fascist re-direction point in their village, they were unable to stop the main event happening on private land.

COULD MASS NON-VIOLENT DIRECT ACTION HAVE STOPPED THE BNP EVENT?
Perhaps! Imagine! A hundred or more people could have blockaded the entrance to the carp angler’s clubhouse before the bulk of the fascists even arrived. The country lanes are narrow, and lead nowhere else. We could have got there by around 9.30am, and had a pleasant, sunny, counter-festival, maybe with a portable sound system or samba band! Perhaps a committed core of a dozen or so could have chained themselves across the gate. We could have delayed the event for hours. Lots of fascists would not have bothered trying to get in. They would be less determined and less well resourced than, for instance, the organisers of the DSEI arms fair, or warmongers at an airbase.

But could non-violence work against fascism? No, not always! Fascism is after all a creed that exalts in violence and leads to genocide. However, if in this case, at this political moment, the fascists had tried to use their thugs to get through us, they would have destroyed the fluffy, family friendly, respectable image they are trying so hard to project to the public for the elections.

There must be an alternative to the sterile binary opposites of either a bunch of hardened and hooded so called ‘militant’ anti-fascists beating up a few Nazis on the one hand, or hundreds ineffectually waving placards and shouting slogans a few miles away from the fascists on the other!

Therefore this is one of the few situations where mass non-violent direct action could have made a difference. But this would have needed more support from outside. This was not forthcoming from the major organisations.

A LOCAL PROTEST THAT NEEDED WIDER SUPPORT.
The good point about the protest was that nearly all the participants were either from the village or from the close by surrounding towns. There were Fire Brigades Union members from Wickford, local green activists, Unison members, church groups etc. These people must be congratulated for holding this protest, and keeping the fascist party out of the centre of their village.

However, these events happened on the edge of London, where thousands of anti-racist / anti-fascist activists live. But none of these were mobilised. Thus while the BNP held a national event, their only opposition was from these heroic local people! (The BNP was holding two ‘St George’s day’ festivals on the 24th April - one in Rochdale for its northern members, and one in Wickford, South Essex for its southern members).

The well resourced ‘Unite Against Fascism’ was contacted months before the protest. However, they refused / neglected to publicise it and mobilise their London supporters, or even advertise the protest on their website. They were thus fairly useless. The organisations that make up this new ‘united front’ were also contacted and failed to respond. Thus neither the old ANL nor the National Assembly Against Racism showed any interest. The editor of ‘Socialist Worker’ had pledged support when asked about it in front of local activists at meeting on fighting racism in East Anglia. However, the paper he edits then refused to mention the protest or mobilise its readers for this protest. The new labour president of Essex University Students Union sits on the steering committee of Unite Against Fascism. He did nothing either, not even coming on the protest himself; let alone mobilising the unions resources in support of its anti-fascist policy. Even worse were some so called ‘militant’ ‘antifa’ style anti-fascists, first alleging that this anti-fascist protest was a special branch plot to trap them, and then saying the situation was not right for their style of confrontation! Other more fluffy direct actionists in London were also informed but did not show.

Thus NOT A SINGLE LEAFLETT was produced by Britain’s anti-fascist, anti-racist or socialist movements to mobilise for this, and local people were left alone to face a South of England wide gathering of the BNP.

A handful of South London SWP activists and others were mobilised against a squalid NF march in Bermondsey on this same day, but there was not even a similar mobilisation from North London groups to go to Essex. Obviously a lot of effort went in to mobilising against Le Penn in Manchester and Birmingham for the following day, which was more important. But the Le Pen action was organised at much more short notice than the Essex one, which was known about months ago. We could have had a coordinated weekend of action, with different regional mobilisations against manifestations of the growth of fascism. But this chance was lost. But we must and will get this sorted and improve the movement!

SOME LESSONS FOR THE FUTURE.
If we had a well organised movement which encouraged democracy and participation from its activists, things could have been better. Some sort of regional activists council could have debated the alternatives mentioned above. Information could have been shared. A proper strategy could have emerged. A properly accountable ‘leadership’ of national organisations could have been pressured into giving us national or regional publicity amongst activists, thus mobilising hundreds more.

All this is possible in the future. And will be necessary as the fascists become a bigger threat. If another world is possible, first we must get to grips with understanding how ‘another left is possible’!

Never-the-less, the action that did happen outside Wickford rail station on Saturday was inspiring, and shows what could be possible on a bigger scale.
Keep on Keepin’ On! Till the fight Is Won!











Re-Sista!

Comments

Hide the following 17 comments

The BNP are only exercising their democratic rights!

26.04.2004 07:16

The British National Party are only exercising their legal democratic rights. You people keep on about democracy all the time, but when people you disagree with excercise their democratic rights you call for them to be stopped. I suppose you would also abolish voting too if too many people voted for the "wrong" parties.

Democrat


Oh how bleak...

26.04.2004 07:52

What a bleak outlook you seem to have. The answer you are so ernestly looking for happened right in front of you. The locals who mobilised!! This is the way forward.

As for slagging the 'hooded militants', I'm sure we'll bring a smile to your depressed chops in the not too distant future!!

Antifa.


Oi, fake "democrat"!

26.04.2004 10:24

If enough people voted for the "wrong" parties like the BNP and they got into power, they'd abolish voting themselves because they are FASCISTS.

Fucks sake you sad bastard, these people are not nice people. You might recall the disaster that engulfed Europe the last time Nazis were "democratically" allowed to seize power.

There is nothing more absurd/pathetic than the sight of neo-nazis and their sympathisers (yes YOU, "democrat") bleating on about "democratic rights".

Hint: the BNP does not believe in democracy. Its members/leadership are drawn from the worst elements of criminalism and hooliganism. Its all there. Look it up.

zero tolerance for fascism


guide to public order situations

26.04.2004 11:18

check out the guide to public order situations at
 http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/manchester/porder.pdf (in downloadable format)
or
 http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/manchester/porder.htm

anti-fa
- Homepage: http://www.earthfirst.org.uk/manchester/porder.htm


Nice one Re-sista!

26.04.2004 12:14

Spot on.

Not every confrontation should be met with violence.

Up 'ere in the north we've 3 BNP on Calderdale Council, in 2 wards. We've got to handle the anti BNP vote campaign sensitively, we know who they are and where they live. We've got to win back the estates from both the BNP threat and the crack dealers.

With the pack mentality of the lads who the BNP have as footsoldiers (footy violence scrapping in pubs etc)we don't need the kick off.

Betcha never hit any fash,antifash... you sound like one of these metropolitan dweebs who talks the talk but never quite walks the walk..

norvernantifash


Oooo errrr

26.04.2004 14:31

And you Northernantifash sound like you need to learn what solidarity means, or are you in the SWP?

Another hooded type..


children

26.04.2004 15:41

please

teach


Democracy

26.04.2004 16:01

"If enough people voted for the "wrong" parties like the BNP and they got into power"

Now there's an interesting comment and perhaps a clue to what is at the heart of many of the postings on Indy Media. Here we have a political party (although one with abhorent policies) which others decide is "wrong". Who are we to say ? What makes our views any more valid than those of a skinheaded mouth breathing BNP thug ?

That's the problem with democracy - people get to choose

Roger


Same thing in Brum

26.04.2004 16:25

It was a similar story in Birmingham yesterday. See my report which I
just submitted and should be published shortly. 3 hours of nice music
and speeches but the promised coaches to where the BNP were partying
never materialised, so it was left to a few of us with cars to track
down Griffin in his bunker. We didn't get close but at least we tried.

Sue Blackwell
mail e-mail: s.a.blackwell@bham.ac.uk
- Homepage: http://web.bham.ac.uk/sue_blackwell/politics


Shucks!!

26.04.2004 16:41

norvernantifash *Betcha never hit any fash,antifash... you sound like one of these metropolitan dweebs who talks the talk but never quite walks the walk..*

nice one 'Punchy'-you certainly got them minerals!

Now put ya feckin' glasses on and read tha'post again!

(And pack in playing with the rough boiyz coz youz might get hurt)


No fuckin'platform!!!!

Et tu twatsky??


BNP are not Democratic - They are fascists!

26.04.2004 18:10

They are using the 'democratic' system to organise, nothing more!
People who bleat about democracy should take a long look at the parlimentary democracy they are defending- There is no participation, freedom of speech or justice there! Just capitalist puppets! Labour- Tory - BNP = No fucking difference!!

All politicians are parasites- Organise your own communities NOW to resist fascism!

Fuck democracy! Fuck majority statist rule!
Viva Anarchy- For an end to power & heirarchy!

another Antifa


,.,.,

26.04.2004 20:54

Talk about free speech and democracy are completely irrelevant to this. Democracy means you can protest about whatever you like. Thats what these ppl are doing. Protesting against fascist holocaust deniers. They haven't banned the BNP, they haven't made illegal talk of fascism or holocaust denial, they have protested in revulsion against them. These protests also help stop the BNP and other Nazi holocaust deniers gaining any respectability for their views, which is their tactic.

This is like the people who claim they have to give the views of holocaust deniers because of free speech, when free speech in reality means the government doesn't ban everything, not that people, or newspapers, can't not include something.

fgfg


[none]

27.04.2004 09:24

For more public order stuff check out
www.freebeagles.org

Also, do you have details of the 'carp angler' who hosted the BNP. It might be worth letting PISCES know at  pisces@pisces.demon.co.uk as they fight fishing and also are very much against fascism.

FtP


Free Speech for Fascists? No way!

27.04.2004 10:27

Free Speech for Fascists? I hadn't realised that we were oppressing this section of society. I hadn't realised we had so much control of the media that we could bestow that right upon those who pleased us.

When WE have the right to free speech, when we can say what needs to be said, when we aren't discriminated against, when we have media resources that match theirs (circualtion-wise and finance-wise) then it will be a level playing field.

Till then all your bleating about it is a waste of time.

It needs to be said that the right has absolutely no intention of giving us freedom of speech. This is even worse than the ideal world even in Crony Blair's eyes. Their version of free speech is one where you can say anything you like, and then get jailed for it.

Furat Al-Samaraie
mail e-mail: fantastic_furat@yahoo.com


Who makes it right?

28.04.2004 00:16


Roger queries: >>

Who is to say? You are! and I am! Each person who comes across political material of any strip must decide for themselves whether it is "right" or "wrong" (but better to find more intelligent adjectives such as "harmful", "destructive" or "friendly"). Each person must decide and it so happens that most folk have realised and decided that BNP is "wrong", "destructive", "harmful", "anti-social".

I say my views are more valid/useful/friendly than those of a skinheaded BNP thug.

sean

sean


Shame on you!!!

28.04.2004 10:55

My compliments:you call yourselves top of democracy and after this you forbid to speak.It's realy terrible!

88


Mmm. the last post signs themselves '88', what could that signify, I wonder?!

28.04.2004 20:14

The previous poster whines on about democratic rights for the BNP et al., a common theme posted here by fascist apologists under other aliases. They also claim that the BNP is not fascist, or neo-nazi, etc. But then they sign themselves 88 !
The numbers 88 and 18 are significant for neo-Nazis. In their underground world, the numbers correspond to letters of the alphabet. 8 = H. geddit?
So 88 = HH, ie, Heil Hitler,
and 18 = AH, ie, Adolf Hitler. Thus the name of the Combat 18 terror group.
I know that this sounds barmy, but I kid you not!
You can see this used all the time if you survey white power neo-nazi discussion boards (if you can stomach the nauseating shit they write).
So thats a bit of a givaway, isnt it, funny little mr 88 ! eh! And the BNP is supposed to have changed its spots! Daft nazi shit for brains!

Re-Sista!