Poor showing against the EDL today

Simon | 03.09.2011 19:19 | Anti-racism | Culture | Migration

So, the EDL didn't reach Tower Hamlets and had a lower than expected turnout of only around 1200 attend their "big one" demo but, despite the UAF/SWP's bragging it was hardly a great day for Antifascists either. Battle of Cable Street this wasn't...

First the UAF managed to get not only the EDL march banned but their own counter demo and any protest in London in the next 30 days including a planned march against the cuts. Nice work UAF!

As for the turnout today, I was disapointed. I'd say around 1500 UAF/SWP at the main site, a third of which seemed to be locals, the rest of which seemed to be from outside of London. This, wasn't good. Especially for all the bragging by Antifascist groups that they were going to "smash" the UAF and this would be the "second battle of Cable Street"

Fact is the turnout was poor. The local Asian youth were largely nowhere to be seen, bizarrely only emerging in force once the EDL had all gotten back on their buses and left London in order to fight with the Police in Stepney.

Then there's the UAF/SWP/Antifa who in the 70s could muster thousands against the NF. Now, we could barely scrape 1500 together :(

Basically, it was the Police who stopped the EDL today, not Antifascists. We had a poor turnout, spent most of the time penned at the demo sight and did very little to stop the fascists hurling abuse at tourists, attacking Asians and from marching in London.

I only expected better, at least 3000 from Antifa, SWP and UAF alone with similar numbers from the local Asians.

It was disapointing and in future, we really need to do better.

Simon

Comments

Hide the following 20 comments

Agreed

03.09.2011 19:39

I agree, I've only watched from the internet but it sounds like the UAF were very keen to turn up and immediately start the party. They were doing a victory parade through the streets without attempting to get even close to the EDL who were demoing nearby. Confused how exactly they feel they drove the EDL out of Tower Hamlets or blocked them from getting there or whatever they're claiming. It's a show of feeling but a pretty paltry one if we can only get a few thousand out on a fluffy nonconfrontational demo. A counter-demo that size should've been militant as fuck.

So what went wrong? Why is it we can't mobilise en masse any more? We need to work this out right now.

$$$

Y

03.09.2011 19:54

"The local Asian youth were largely nowhere to be seen"
"I only expected better, at least 3000 from Antifa, SWP and UAF alone with similar numbers from the local Asians. "

"So what went wrong? Why is it we can't mobilise en masse any more? We need to work this out right now."

Can you not see how the 'political' organisers have already distanced themselves from the 'local Asians'? As a starter for 10, I would suggest talking to people that are involved in, and affected by, the events.

sgdbsdvf

None of you there then?

03.09.2011 20:25

http://uaf.org.uk/2011/09/victory-over-edl-in-tower-hamlets-they-did-not-pass/

Sonic
mail e-mail: sonic@sonic.com

Comment

03.09.2011 23:52

Some factual errors, the campaign to ban the EDL was conducated by the Hope Not Hate/Searchlight organisation not UAF.

To say it was poor showing when the EDL were prevented from gathering at sainsbury's carpark, train stations, pubs and didn't actually manage to make it into Tower Hamlets (I hear that a few stragglers tried to sneak in during the evening) seems like a good result to me.

I was suspecting a massive turnout, so perhaps room for disappointment, but lots of locals were hanging out in side streets rather than main demo or 'on call' as it were (I mean if the EDL had turned up in Tower Hamlets a lot of people were ready to go out onto the streets at short notice)

Commentator

Return route of EDL coaches caused the fighting in Stepney

04.09.2011 00:27

A number of the EDL coaches returned past the ELM in Whitechapel Road. They shouted abuse at people outside the mosque which resulted in their coaches being ambushed further down the road. One damaged coach was abandoned near QMW and they got on a local bus, which was then commandeered by the police, emptied of the remaining non-EDL passengers and taken out of service to drive them further east. This further enraged locals who used the Green Bridge in Mile End Park as a missile launcher, the police cleared the bridge by baton charges. There was then some debate about was it worth fighting with the police but whilst this was going on news came in that a further coach was coming. The fact that the police were doing nothing to reroute the EDL coaches but were putting resources into attacking local youth inflamed the situation on top of the resentment at the opportunity provided to the EDL to exploit their 'dispersal' (a march albeit 'ketled') over Tower Bridge. Plus the police had moved on firmly in Bermondsey a group of asian youth who had followed the EDL over Tower Bridge, and were being taunted by them, and told that they had nothing to worry about as the EDL had now been taken out of Aldgate and were not going back there. Skirmishing then continued along Mile End Road.

Gerry

were any of the above commentors in london today

04.09.2011 00:34

and to the first commentor the reason why numbers were poor is because wankers like you spend to much time being pc warriors and not enough time on the streets

does it matter

Comment

04.09.2011 00:49

In answer to enquiry. Yes, I was in Tower Hamlets today, but not a local, active in anti-fascism in my locale. The part where we broke Theresa May's march ban and marched through Tower Hamlets was quality, chanting at the police, 'your job's next'.

Commentator

Comment

04.09.2011 00:59

Reports by TOWER HAMLETS ALARM

http://towerhamletsalarm.wordpress.com/

Commentator

Good point

04.09.2011 01:11

Aye, if people spent less time questioning things and more time just running around keeping themselves busy with whatever the SWP's leaders decided was important this week, everything'd be fine.

Uninspired

Simon is wrong

04.09.2011 06:41

Simon expresses a one-eyed perspective, as if the irrelevant UAF distraction was the only thing going on.

The mixed crowd at Aldgate East may well have been larger than theirs. If not, it was close. It included quite a few local youth. It is described in an equally inaccurate account on Indymedia London as "a breakaway". How can you break away from something you've never been to? Is atheism a "breakaway" from the Church of England?

It is a pity that most of that crowd didn't try to get round the side of the EDL via Commercial Street, Wentworth Street and Middlesex Street which remained possible for as long as the slow-thinking and obviously not local cops left that route open. People preferred to be sort of facing the EDL, even though they were out of sight and guarded by an impenetratable army of cops on Whitechapel High Street. Quicker thinking and flexibility would have got us there.

Lessons for the future:

Have maps if you're not local
Send scouts to investigate what's not obvious
Act quickly if there's an opportunity. There is little debating time.

The area by Aldgate station seems to have been the cops' third choice of site for the EDL rally. They had previously started to mass at two other places, but then retreated from them.

Adding up the estimated numbers, it's hard to make the total EDL presence more than 900.

As for local youth allegedly "not tuning out". Well, they have also seen the irrelevance of the UAF. I assure you, they were out alright, for the most part extremely well organised, and dispersed in guarding various areas. They were on the streets in numbers and highly visible. Nowehere in Whitechapel, Wapping, Stepney or Bethnal Green was safe for the EDL, whether en masse or as mere stragglers. It was thanks to people NOT going to dance to the UAF's tunes that this was the case.

In the evening, many of them moved to Whitechapel Road / Mile End Road, as things kicked off there with the EDL coach. (Coaches? Not sure. Wasn't there when that happened.)

In general, the ALARM blog is a much more comprehensive account of the day's events than Simon's restricted-view-went-home-early miserableism.

If either the UAF or Hope not Hate claim credit for getting the march banned they are in cloud cuckoo land. After the riots last month, it was always going to be banned anyway. Will they claim credit for the weather, too?

Stoppyoldgit

More details and a bit of history

04.09.2011 07:23

Just to add that when the UAF rally in Valance Road was over, some people came from it to join the crowd at Aldgate East. OK, you could call those people a "breakaway", but the gathering at Aldgate East had already been boiling for the best part of an hour by then. Those arriving from the UAF rally were held back at the junction with Osborn Street first by police, then by a line of stewards. Most of that crowd stayed behind the line of stewards and eventually drifted away. Others just walked round the end of it and DID join the crowd at Aldgate East. By then, a large number of people who had been in that crowd were roaming up and down Commercial Street, trying to find a route through to Middlesex Street, but all the side streets to the west of Commercial Street were now blocked (even one which is a dead end -DOH!) and many people got stopped and searched at this stage. These were the routes which had been open earlier, but not enough people made it round to Middlesex Street before the cops cottoned on.

I congratulate those who had the initiative to move west from the UAF rally to try to confront the EDL, especially those who took no notice of the stewards and DID join the main crowd at Aldgate East. It would have been good to see you sooner, comrades, but better late than never. Next time, eh?

History note:

Aldgate East isn't Aldgate. The old name for that spot, where Commercial Road meets Whitechapel High Street, was Gardeners Corner. It was here in 1936 that the drivers parked their trams nose-to-tail to form a barricade against police and fascist attempts to reach Cable Street. The police did get there by routes further south but were comprehensively trashed after prolonged fighting. So the fascists never made it at all and were dispersed through the City from Tower Hill, where they'd been waiting for the police to "clear the route". Some of them got caught by anti-fascists streaming out of the Cable Street area to chase them after their police protection was broken.

Stroppyoldgit

1936

04.09.2011 09:30

Some memories of Gardeners and stopping the fascists in 1936.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zmGD4nRirM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGZ7oOwDGxE

Stroppyoldgit

EDL Nazi Salutes in London yesterday

04.09.2011 09:57

Other EDL spotted with Nazi tattoos

Warwick

Stupid, inaccurate post

04.09.2011 11:18

The blunt fact is the EDL numbers were well down, EDL were outnumbered by Anti-Fascists, and EDL never marched in Tower Hamlets... a success on all fronts!!

It would ALWAYS be better if more people attended any anti-racist demo, but whoever posted this thread IS talking shite because Antifa didn't even exist in the 1970s, ditto for the rest of their analysis

Marcus

not that bad really

04.09.2011 11:27

Personally I think it went ok I'm not a massive fan of the UAF, but for once they didn't do much wrong. They weren't responsible for the ban, but when it was announced they moved their demo from wevers field to the heart of Tower Hamlets, which was good. As a result the EDL were never allowed anywhere near where they wanted to be. Admittedly it was the police who physically stopped them, but if it wasn't for the antifascist presence that wouldn't have happened.

I'm pretty confident if they had of broken their kettle they would have been run - the police were protecting the EDL from the community. Having been to a few EDL more often than not it is the other way around - we need to sort this out.

Stoppyoldgit was pretty much spot on with his account as far as I'm concerned. Not so sure we could have got around the sides so easily though. Although at first those roads were open, we didn't have the numbers, by the time we had any crowd worth moving cops had massed on corners. The couple of times we did manage to move a sizeable crowd cops started grabbing people and mosque stewards told people to go back. Unfortunately the locals kids are gonna listen to them more than some random white guy in a black hoody.

Yes if we had 3000 up for it antifascists we might have been able to do more, but that aint the reality and anyone who expected that obviously doesn't have a clue. To get anywhere near that requires networking and lots of boring work.

Local autonomous antifascist groups need to form - even just 5 mates in a pub is enough. Get an email and phone number, start doing some research, put on a benefit gig and contact other antifascists groups in your region (including the UAF - you don't have to like them to coordinate with them). Next EDL demo organise transport and go - just a car or two, or group train tickets is fine, you're less likely to get pigged anyway.

If every keyboard warrior does this there will be thousands next time, but I won't hold my breath...

bob

First of all I was there...

04.09.2011 12:55

Second, sure the EDL were stopped from enterting Tower Hamlets but it was because of the Police, not due to opposition from counter-demonstrators. There was not enough there to physically stop the demo if the Police had wanted to move the demo into TH itself. Like I said, the turnout from the locals was especially disapointing, I expected 2000 or so from them alone.

Okay, I will admit their were some successes. The setting off fire alarms to disrupt the EDL was good work for example but it wasn't as big a success as some are trying to claim.

Low numbers, the EDL did march, the EDL not confronted until after the demo when one bus was attacked. Fact is it should have been much bigger and much worse for the EDL than it was.

It was basically a walk in the park for them with no sense of urgency or threat at all which is only going to encourage them to march in more pre-dominantly Asian areas since they'll think they're untouchable.

Simon

troll post?

04.09.2011 13:03

It seems to be a tactic of fascists (and other groups) to post negative and morale-sapping articles pretending to be from their opponents. From what I heard it was an excellent day for anti-fascism.

anon

doubtfully EDL troll

04.09.2011 15:01

I may be wrong but I seriously doubt Simon is an EDL troll. From what I saw most of what he said was accurate I just think it was overly negative without offering solutions. Maybe the intention is to motivate others into turning out in future, but I think we need to build the infrastructure first.

Non of this bullshit posturing - networking, traveling and building for next time.

EDL had a bad day really. From what we saw they just about managed 4 figures. For their "big one" that needed "two years of warming up" that's pretty shit. They're mostly trying to argue that they got about 2 inches into TH.

bob

@ Simon

04.09.2011 16:07

You really must get over the notion that because many people didn't see the UAF gig as relevant, useful or worth being at they didn't turn out. You comments are offensive to the majority who WERE out yesterday and merely illustrate how out of touch the UAF are.

The EDL bus was stopped because there were people mobilised all along Whitechapel and Mile End Roads, and it only took a couple of phone calls from Whitechapel for them to be up and waiting.

No, local youths and others were NOT going to leave their areas wide open to fascist or police attack just because the UAF turned up with a sound system on the back of a truck and, I presume, some (no doubt very boring) speeches. People were out, active and ready over a wide area and many of those who came from other areas went to help where their friends were or to do pre-arranged jobs in places it sounds like you were never at.

The extent of autonomous organisation for territorial defence yesterday was greater than I anticipated and very impressive indeed. You should try to catch up with what really happened and what people were prepared for if it had happened, rather than bemoaning what didn't happen and was never going to, for good reason.

Stroppyoldgit
Homepage: @Simon

Definite troll

06.09.2011 08:35

Yes he's a troll. I'm not saying that anti-fascism shouldn't actively welcome relative newbies, but anyone who was interested in this subject would know that Antifa didn't exist in the UK in the 1970s

Martin