March for England: Brighton Counter Demo

Han Solo | 21.04.2010 20:35

This Sunday (25th April) bizarre patriotic group the March for England -

http://marchforengland.000a.biz/ will be marching through Brighton.There will be a (UAf) counter demo, meeting at Victoria gardens from 10am onwards.

The march is scheduled to start at 11.30 am and proceed to the King and Queen pub on Marlborough Place. (opposite Victoria gardens)

Last year around 100 people also marched from Brighton station to the King and Queen pub on Marlborough place, waving St Georges Crosses.. There were no counter demos as people took the group at face value i.e as patriotic flag wavers rather than racists. However a few who did attend to observe the event said that racist abuse was directed from within the crowd at passers by.

The March for England link to the EDL and United British Alliance websites (and they haven't got a long list of links) -

Meet 10 am Victoria Gardens

Han Solo

Comments

Hide the following 11 comments

UAF wank wank wank..

21.04.2010 22:56

well, its UAF organising the whole thing so don't expect anything rpoductive- it will be waste of time at best ("unity" thingy at the park with Labour MPs- how great1) and total fucking disaster at worst- genuine militant antifascists would do well to stay clear of that joke.

antifascist

UAF

21.04.2010 23:21

A really childish title, grow up and put forward sensible political argument.
I also have my doubts about the uaf leadership and a recollection of a long history of their obvious mistakes in the actions or non actions or deliberate misdirections of choice they make. Think before you post next time, there are plenty of other websites you can make childish remarks, just don't make thme on this one

Merlin

Britain is multicultral which is why this counter protest should'nt be done

22.04.2010 00:11

Britain is multicultral right so how come when the english celebrate their culture the UAF counter protest. Other cultures are allowed to be celebrate but why are the UAF racist against the English. Just look at ST Patricks day they are allowed to celebrate it.

trhyth

Point?

22.04.2010 00:26

What's the point of this "counter-demo"? What exactly are you "counter-demo"-ing? A march in honour of St. George on.... St. George's Day???

And why? Cause "a few observers" said there was racist abuse directed at passer-by's? So do you "counter-demo" everytime, anywhere there are reports of racist abuse? Doubt it.

I don't see the point in the UAF's march at all. All they are doing is causing trouble while there is no need to do so.

Vega

Hey, thanks to the UAF the English Defence League are attending in numbers.

22.04.2010 01:05

The MFE are a small group of people who do peaceful marches on St Georges Day and other small events. They marched [strolled] peacefully through London a few weeks ago and the police didn't bother attending.

Thanks to the UAF making a mountain out of a molehill the EDL are now putting out messages for people to come and fight the UAF...messages from Joel Titus included "I'm taking my socks, with pool balls in".

Well done.

[However when it comes to childishness the MFE have stated on their website : "This is nothing to do with Paul Ray".]

If the UAF hadn't made a song and dance over this it would be a non event....there is too the London UAF protest in Barking on the same day so half of London UAF will be at this leaving Brighton with reduced numbers which is going to be interesting if hundreds or even thousands of EDL turn up.

Classic.

anon

Really?

22.04.2010 12:57

Nice try "anon" but anyone familiar with the EDL's forums knows that they have been trailing this Brighton event for months now (hence the counter-protest)

Do you really think if we just go hide under our beds and ignore the EDL they will just go away?

Sonic
mail e-mail: Sonic@sonic.com

Oh and ps

22.04.2010 13:56

March for England have a links page on their website, why not have a look

http://s15.zetaboards.com/March_For_England/pages/links/

The EDL are listed twice, once under "blogs" and once as "friends" (along with casuals united)

But of course saying they are connected with the EDL is merely SWP/UAF propaganda!

Sonic
mail e-mail: Sonic@sonic.com

madness

22.04.2010 20:29

The NF - that is the NATIONAL FRONT - are in Birmingham 24th april!

And you lot choose to protest against this lot?

Pathetic!

The NF for christs sake!

brummie

Please don't go

22.04.2010 21:37

I beg of you, do not go ahead with this.
While MfE are not politically where I am at all (class struggle libertarian communist), and they are a pro-nationalist group if people mobilise against this kind of thing - likely to have a lot of public support - it's only going to go towards hardening the participants in MfE into more EDL, racist politics. It can only be a counter-productive disaster.
We've got to accept reality - the majority of people don't have an internationalist perspective - and act accordingly: don't call anyone nationalist, or just patriotic, racist/fascist! We need to mobilise against fascism for sure. We need to make the arguments within the working class for internationalism, yes. We don't need to make ourselves seem even more out of touch and irrelevant than we already seem. ffs

Jane

So we're supposed to just ignore nationalist demonstrations then??

23.04.2010 10:35

So we shouldn't oppose nationalist demonstrations in case we drive them towards racism? (and if you check out their website, and who they're associated with its very obvious they're not just vaguely patriotic people organising a family fun day) Maybe we shouldn't oppose racist demonstrations in case we drive them towards fascism? Or fascist demonstrations in case we "harden" them into nazis? This is a small group of nationalists, they do not have "a lot of public support", the last one they did here was around 100-150 people. They (at the very least) tolerated people shouting racist abuse on their last "non-racist" demo, and I don't want them and their racist/fascist friends walking freely through my city again. And good luck to anyone opposing the NF in Birmingham, but nobody's suggesting people shouldn't go to do that. This is local to me, tha'ts all...

anon

ban both marches

24.04.2010 16:38

Due to the march for england and the UAF, the Scouts' St. georges day parade is cancelled. This is due to fears of violence between the two sets of marchers.
Both of these marches should be banned or moved to a different location, (middle of the Channel would be good). Its a shame that a youth activity that has taken place in Brighton for years is stopped due to a right wing party hijacking the day...