The English Defence League headed over to Aarhus, Denmark on Saturday in an attempt to kick start a supposedly continent-wide anti-Jihadist movement.

In reality less than 200 members of various European Defence Leagues actually bothered to turn up (with 50 countries in Europe this averages out at an impressive 4 members per country). The far right was greatly outnumbered by an anti-fascist counter-demo – with about 4,000 people coming out to oppose them.

A slightly farcical day out for Brighton’s EDL contingent (laughably calling themselves ‘The Mighty Brighton Infidels’, today (Saturday 17th.) Firstly they turned up outside the launch of Fighting Fascism, a rousing history of the fight against the fash in our seaside town. Why the EDL, who of course are in no way fascists, would want to disrupt a meeting about the historical struggle against fascism in Brighton is of course anyone’s guess. Having failed to disrupt that in any way (although one anti-fascist who confronted them got nicked) they made their way to the regular Saturday afternoon Palestine Solidarity Campaign stall in central Brighton’s central shopping area Churchill Square. According to one eyewitness from the stall “They were barely able to get to chant the “L” in “E, E, EDL” before the cops were on to them and pushing them away from the totally unfazed PSC who were all giving as good as they got.” The police then pushed the seven racists into the area usually reserved for buskers and a large crowd of over two hundred mostly Saturday shoppers gathered. They clearly weren’t terribly happy with these racists shouting out the unique abuse and the usual personal hygiene advice in which they seem to specialise. Our man on the scene “It was very heartening to see the good people of Brighton booing and shouting at what had now, due to three arrests, become only four EDLers. They were all looking more and more humiliated and frustrated at being so badly received and clearly looking for a way out of this uncomfortable situation with some vestige of dignity.” Unfortunately for them there wasn’t any easy way out so they had to resort to shouting “we’re bored of this” and then skulking off to claps and loud cheers from the crowd. “The whole incident was over in twenty minutes but I think the Infidels will probably want to forget today and pretend it never happened!” Brighton is set to host a demo by EDL front group the March for England on April 24th. Anti-fascists are calling for a counter-mobilisation and judging by today’s events it should be a good ‘un!

Local antifascists took action yesterday with a paint attack on The Last Resort skinhead music and clothing stall on Corn Street. This business is run by Chris Pugh, a fascist skinhead and member of the English Defence League, and is being used to provide a platform for racist, fascist ideology under the cover of being “just about the music”. We thought it could do with a bit of an antifascist redecoration. The merchandise got absolutely trashed and we had no trouble from the “tough guy” skinhead behind the stall. While we understand that it will take more than a red and black wash to persuade these bigotted idiots about the error of their ways, we think it’s a good starting contribution to the sort of dialogue we’re prepared for with fascists in Bristol.

The EDL have announced that Bristol is one of their targetted cities for a national march this year. We almost hope they do come, so they can see what a welcome they will receive. If the EDL think that they will be able to march through Bristol without serious trouble, they’re in for a nasty surprise. The time for polite, controlled marches and dead end, liberal “antifascism”, which poses no real challenge or threat whatsoever to the return of street based fascism, is over. We will be waiting.

This action was taken in solidarity with our antifascist comrades in Liverpool. You are not alone.

We also remember and salute our murdered antifascist comrades in Moscow. Nikita Kalin, a good comrade, outspoken antifascist and tireless fighter, killed by fascist knives. We will never forget or forgive.

Respect to Jock Palfreeman, imprisoned in Bulgaria for daring to step in to stop a racist attack and confront a fascist street gang.

Zero tolerance of fascism on our streets. Fight back. For direct action and militant antifascism.

This is the text of the leaflet that was distributed around Corn Street to explain the action taken:

The Last Resort – the first action…
Always antifascist!

The Last Resort presents itself simply as a shop selling skinhead clothing and music. Well, we’re not buying it and we hope you don’t either. Because, while everyone likes a bit of ska, it’s a bit more than just feelgood, party music on offer here. It is run by Chris Pugh, a fascist skinhead and member of the racist English Defence League. He sells fascist, race hate music and merchandise on the quiet, “by arrangement”, both from his stall on Corn Street and from his newly opened shop on Wells Road. Fascists like Chris Pugh use music and youth culture to draw young people in to win them over to the ideas of the extreme right wing.

We have had enough of the rise of attacks by fascist, racist thugs against people from ethnic minorities and against anyone who opposes them. We will do all that we can to prevent both the confidence and numbers of these bigots from growing. Fascism relies on control of the streets so that is where we will have to confront it.

We have taken this action today to send a clear message that there are many of us who will not tolerate fascism in our city.
Respect and solidarity to antifascists everywhere.

“We’re gonna chase dem crazy baldheads out of town”
– Bob Marley

After the disturbances in Rochdale, Asian youth turned out against the wishes of some of the mosque elders to confront the EDL in Hyde. SchNEWS spoke to one anti-fascist who also made the trip.

“The planned route for march through town from the train station didn’t happen due to sheer numbers of Asian, around 250-300 youth who gathered outside close to the train station. The EDL had the briefest of marches and were herded along the side of ASDA round a side alley into a car park next to the bus station out of sight of the public.”

Jumping on the bandwagon were  the BNP – with Nick Griffin himself tarnishing the town with his presence. They gathered a motley fifty in a small rally opposite the town hall under the slogan “Hope for England”. Griffin appealed to EDL members and invited them to join in the fun – in fact virtually all the BNP apart from Nasty Nick himself joined the EDL march.

EDL numbers weren’t amazingly high, possibly as many as 600.

According to our eyewitness “As the EDL were dispersing, a group of them made their way across the ASDA car park to confront the youth outside the Mosque. They were chased off after the youth charged .In fact they ended up waiting to be kettled on the other side of the car park. The police eventually moved all the EDL on. Anti-fascists were present throughout the whole day, mixing with the locals but not in enough numbers to make an impact. “

Following closely on the heels of the EDL’s damp squib in Leicester (see SchNEWS 805) an uneasy alliance of far right groups staged a demonstration outside Liverpool Crown Court on Monday 6th.

Allegedly they were there to protest against paedophilia – so surely no one would possibly want to oppose them on that one. Unfortunately there preferred method of protest was to form a baying mob of around 150 racists outside the court on the first day of a trial of a suspected ‘paedophile ring’. Beyond the bullshit sloganeering the nationalist rabble (led by BNP leader Nick Griffin) were there to highlight two things – the ‘fact’ that Muslim paedophiles aren’t prosecuted and the media blackout around the specific case.

Given that they were protesting outside the pre-trial hearing of (what the EDL have described as) 11 Muslim men their first point doesn’t hold much water. While it is true that the facts of the case have not been widely reported, this appears to be because of an enforced media blackout as opposed to the liberal media deciding the great British public can’t handle the truth.

Around 40 anti-fascists braved the chants of “you all support paedos” to leaflet and heckle the picket. It was, to be fair, a last minute regional callout with tricky subject matter but according to Liverpool anti-fascists “the effect of multiple fascist groups mobilising nationally was that the fascists ultimately mustered around 150 people against around 40 anti-fascists from the local area. Given that it was a smaller-scale call-out, and that it was a week day, it was a good turnout. But in the context of that many extremely vocal fascists, it left something to be desired.”

At one point the fash crowd surged towards the court. Eyewitnesses were unable to see what was happening, but it later transpired that two Asian men had been attacked when they went out for a fag break. Whether or not they were actually involved in the case is still not clear though the EDL clearly revelled in it Tweeting “A muslim nonce has had a smack outside Liverpool Crown”.

Smaller numbers of right wingers gathered at the court again on the following days and according to Becki – EDL member and Casuals United blogger – the “case [was] adjourned for a week after two of the barristers quit after being attacked outside the court by unknown” .

Predictably the far-right’s attempted lynch mob has backfired somewhat with two barristers quitting and the defence pushing for the trial to be abandoned.