funny how union support always seems to end up being the presence of a banner (complete with irrelevant slogan in this case) or some rubbish placards, rather than actual support.

let's not forget how much money they're bunging fascist nu-labour

...funny how union support always seems to end up being the presence of a banner (complete with irrelevant slogan in this case) or some rubbish placards, rather than actual support.

let's not forget how much money they're bunging fascist nu-labour

Spot on!

I could simply never bring myself into association or protest with those hypocrites that sit in the back pocket of NuLab as they bomb, kill and are in the middle of instigating a police state complete with ID cards for us all; how can any supposed anti-fascist for that matter?

Sickening really.

Regarding the comments above, about crappy unions pushing their own agenda - that's pretty much the sole reason why I didn't turn up to this, because I'm buggered if I'm helping the authoritarian left in their quest to seize power on our behalf. (Gee, thanks, but no thanks.)

Don't you get it? Waving a bunch of banners with stupid, irrelevant, self-serving slogans:

a) Makes opponents of fascism look completely moronic - just there to push some other reactionary, ulterior agenda with no basis in reality, offering an "alternative" that with the exception of racism, is almost every bit as shit as that which you supposedly oppose.

b) Makes the fash think that the worst that can happen is that a bunch of Trots and union cling-ons will turn up and give them extra publicity, because as everybody knows, "there's no such thing as bad publicity".

I mean, has it ever occurred to you that you are actually HELPING these pondlife? Because that's what you're doing, and they're laughing all the way to higher and higher levels of working class support!

The BNP should be worried - but not about a bunch of spineless, banner-waving fuckwits, with their own self-serving, boring-as-fuck, authoritarian plan about the way the world should be run.

Just stop doing it - it gets us all a bad name! If you want to oppose the BNP and other fash scum - try actually OPPOSING them, rather than just furthering their cause by pretending to, in order to further yours. (Which it doesn't anyway - it makes you no better than the people who pretend to oppose each other in parliament, when in reality they're just furthering their own careers.)

I am 100% anti-fash, but you bunch of union parasites can fuck off every bit as much.

Opposition to fascism? Your irrelevant, pseudo "opposition" is one of the main reasons the BNP are doing so well these days - congratulations!

I just feel sorry for anyone who turned up to show some genuine, selfless opposition, only to have their actions hijacked like this.

A bit like the fucking Maoists and zombie neo-Stalinists who hijack May Day and every anti-war rally, but then, that's what we've come to expect from you unthinking cultist drones and your "leaders" - leeches and dividers of the workers movement. You are every bit the same as the bastards you claim to oppose, and you are doing their work for them.

Fuck the authoritarian left, and fuck self-serving unions.

u can always back out of political fund as many are doing,
there was a NHS meeting yesterday also& I know more than half of the good activists in Notts in all areas are union members & or part of many independent workers cooperatives.
You can be member of unison,rmt,fbu, etc & also a member of IWW if you want a really radical edge.
The IWW was biggest threat to USA capitalism in a war era at the start of the last century & is growing again globally!
It is anarchosyndicalist in structure although people with similar beliefs are welcome if they can work with consensus& cooperation which works as the merry men & women proved in direct actions at Faslane nuclear blockades recently
iww.org.uk
We hate the war, did & are doing our best to stop it, hope you dont live under a bridge Larrs,

Johnny Mason
Industrial Workers of the World
east midlands

OK, so you've all demonstrated your ability to slag off the Trots. Well done. You to can now shoot fish in a barrel.

Question is, does anybody have any actual suggestions for what people should be doing? How we should be OPPOSING the BNP?

I mean this as a serious question. Radical posturing's easy, but it doesn't get us anywhere.

Theres alot of hard,hard work being done by good people, some of the organisers & band members playing at mayday are in IWW too.
Turn up & help the good people at mayday & at demos like this, please dont moan,
New labour & G8 are a democratic front,just like "soviet democracy" was for the politburo. Check my previous articles on indymedia for more information
My mum & my gran a primary skool teacher where sent to gulag at start of world war 2 by Stalin for being related to my austrian-polish grandad who was fighting in RAF. But if the nazis had caught them they could have ended up with their brains bashed out, a prefered SS method of killing babies according to one of my uncles who witnessed it. My main annoyance is reserved for those who created & funded the setting for world war 2 controlling fuel& other supplies. The bankers & oil oligarchs like the Methodist Rockefeller family, who like Stalin where known to bomb their competitors & allies. They set the current oil grabbing strategy many years ago with Henry Kissinger associates etc & one of their next major meets is happening as far as far as independent research knows in Istanbul just before G8 & another major meeting in Washington next year.
Theres no way Bono or Mr Gore can make these blighters look good.

I am not a fan of dialectic marxism, it annoys me & I dont believe the revolution happens unless we make it happen,
We have to be there to make it happen, people are daft, they can see that we are trying to keep it real & those that don't we need to educate.

Guys, regardless of the effectiveness of their strategy these people should be commended for at least getting off their arses and taking some form of action. I was there, and i have to say i didnt find it that much of an effective protest. Many antifascist movements often contain more politically central members than normal, and they dont often have the protest experience that less centralized groups have. Clearly there is much to learn from events like these. HOWEVER, It serves absolutely no-one but the fascists to have these petty debates over unisons involvement or the various merits of antifascist actions. If a protest is ineffective in places, and clearly in this case it was, then strategy must be rethought as to how to deal with fascism, not a discussion of the relative merits of the political outlooks of the groups involved.

Some silly comments from Larrs and anti-authorian whoever s/he is. Fortunately there are some anti-authoritarian/ anarchists who show some commitment to opposing the BNP.

The demonstration was not the most effective or exciting one in working class history. But how much worse would it have been, if this area had seen the first fascist councillor ever take up her post without a whisper of protest (apart from under the breath mutterings that 'I am not going to do anything because I am so pissed of with New Labour, ...trots, ...my parents ...blah, blah')

A lot more needs to be done, yes, and a meeting will be held next Thursday evening. If you want details email NottmstopBNP at yahoo.co.uk

If anyone has real proposals instead of some of the empty hot air in some of these comments please come along

Things we will be discussing are:
• supporting anti-BNP campaigners in Brinsley where the BNP's councillor, Sadie Graham is based and there have been racist attacks on her Sri Lankan neighbour (now moved)
• campaigning against her in her office of councillor, making sure that she is unable to use it to help build the BNP
• campaigning against the BNP throughout the region in the areas where we can now see they have been working

built then burnt your right,larrs I bet your probably not a troll I agree with a lot of what u say, but we must work to stop fascism everywhere despite annoyances of some.

If only fash realised how top capitalists use them to keep in power then dispose of them after use.Bush family links to Nazi Germany are well known.
One reasonably well known example is that in 1934 General Butler in the USA turned down & exposed an attempted fascist coup widely reported at the time, funded by Morgan bank. Chase Morgan Bank is controlled by the methodist Rockefeller family who still have major influence of Exxon mobil, once just a small part of John Rockefellers sns empire.
Soz cant get my links up know,having computer probs, but proof of unofficial history is still documented in libraries, the internet etc if you care to look.

Quote "If a protest is ineffective in places, and clearly in this case it was, then strategy must be rethought as to how to deal with fascism, not a discussion of the relative merits of the political outlooks of the groups involved"

First things first, the strategy employed by Unite Against Fascism is based around the idea of stopping the BNP and fascism as a whole by voting for anybody but the BNP.

Beacuse the UAF have no class analysis of fascism and seem to think it just springs from the minds of a few racists and bigots they dont have the first idea of how to tackle it.

If we are going to defeat fascism were going to have to defeat the hierachical system that fascism defends, its no good just waving banners at the members of fascist parties, even if the bnp were to disappear fascism and fascist forms of government would still exist. We need to take away the ground the BNP organise on by organising resistance in our communities not simply against the BNP but the existing government and every government that enforces the interests of a profit economy at the expense of the working class and the environment.

Rather than going into a long winded plan of action here (really dont have the time) i'll leave you with a couple of sites that are worth visting.

www.fashwatch.org
www.brumstar.org
 http://libcom.org/history/1985-2001-anti-fascist-action-afa

clearly this is not the last word, rather a work in progress.

if there was 40 of your lot and four of the bnp,s and you didnt see sadie graham why didnt ya give the bnp ers some hassel instead of shouting and making noise during a minutes silence for a dead councillar or was that the easiest way for cowards
. 10 to 1 and ya took the cowards option .....you lot made yourself look a right bunch of cowardly idiots hahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhahahhahahahha

aaarrh barty babe, well done, but we still one world war 2 didnt we, are you a fash sucker?
well done to people that got there, next time be aware of bullshit from biased media like evening post & idiots who lap it up. Lord Rothsmeres legagy of aiding & helping Hitler & ridiculed holocaust deniers with Daily Mail lives on with evening post