Fascists and Others - High Street to Whitehall

 

Back in the 1970s, the Tom Robinson band recorded a song called "Up Against the Wall", which contained a line of contemporary significance. Here's part of the lyrics, with the said line in italics;

"Consternation in Mayfair
Rioting in Notting Hill Gate
Fascists marching on the high street
Carving up the welfare state".

Well as we saw yesterday, the Fash don't just march on the High Street any more, they now feel free to march in Whitehall. With dismay, I saw the large numbers of marchers - up to 150 000, some say. Now, I am not saying that every one of yesterday's marchers was an avowed Fascist or National Socialist. In fact, if you look carefully at the photo above, you can make out the face of a lady of colour. A lot of commentators hold the view stated here by Sky News:

"...it's clear that simply writing off protesters as far right doesn't really capture what's going on either. The audience is too broad to fit just that label".

To a limited extent, that is an accurate statement. Many of the marchers have concerns about a number of issues, and react strongly to the charge of being far-right wing. These issues include immigration, small boat passengers and what they see as threats to the "British way of life" - whatever that means. The problem is that the extreme Right exploit those issues and see the wider concerns as opportunities to profit from. And the plain fact is that it was far Right elements that organised the march on Saturday. 

Foremost among those elements, of course, is the prophet of the far Right, Tommy Robinson, aka Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. There can be no doubting this man's far Right credentials. He has been a member of the BNP and the British Freedom Party. He was leader of the English Defence League (EDL) from 2009 to 2013, and since that time he has been an adviser to the leader of UKIP and, according to Searchlight magazine, is now a member of Advance UK.

While Robinson might change his political allegiances frequently, he cannot escape his burgeoning criminal record. He has convictions for assault, mortgage fraud, travelling on a false passport, stalking and Contempt of Court - one of which latter convictions are for breaching a court order relating to allegations he made about a 15-year old Syrian refugee. He has served a number of prison sentences - and he's only 42!

And this is the person that stood on a stage in central London along with such "inspirational" luminaries as Katie Hopkins and Laurence Fox, to inspire unity in the kingdom! It is a sad day for Britain when oddballs and jailbirds can bring 100,000 people on to the streets, but that's what happened on Saturday.

The point is here that while not every marcher is a right-wing extremist, right-wing extremists are organising the marches and mobilising anger over issues such as Islamism, asylum seekers and alleged threats to women and girls. For this reason, then, it is surely reasonable to describe events like the Unite the Kingdom March as Far Right events, given that they have a Far Right agenda.

But of course, there were marchers with "non-political" intent. The far Right, of course, have a talent for attracting violent, thuggish elements. This dates back to the days of Mussolini's Squadristi and the Nazi SA. Well, followers in their footsteps were out in force on Saturday, and violence did break out as many commentators had expected. As Searchlight magazine said:

"Needless to say, this being a Tommy Robinson event, it degenerated into violence later in the afternoon when large groups of his supporters tried to break through police lines and attack anti-fascists".

 George Monahan, of the New Statesman, saw what happened:

   "The Unite the Kingdom protesters aimed projectiles at the counter protesters, at the police and, if one of their own had climbed to an appealing spot such as the top of a letterbox, at him. When a thrown bottle hit a horse in the face, causing it to cry out and rear back, the crowd cheered".

This is reminiscent of the violence that broke out on National Front marches in the 1970s. And there was another similarity. Monahan again:

"Earlier a man had explained to me how the “top blokes” of both Millwall and Charlton, who were playing their derby, had arranged that the fans would not fight as usual but unite and head to the protest. A man with a Millwall Loyalists flag gave the “No one likes us, we don’t care” chant. Men came down from scaffolding they’d climbed to shout asking if anyone had “any fucking packet”, meaning cocaine".

Here is another feature of far Right activity; in the 1970s, the National Front (NF) and British Movement (BM) tried to recruit from Britain's soccer hooligan "firms". As NF leader, Martin Webster, said then: "There's a lot you can do with a soccer hooligan". Times haven't changed, really. 

By way of a conclusion, if I were to have spoken to a non-Nazi Unite the Kingdom marcher, I would have warned them about the nature of their "leadership" and its true aims. I would point to the fact that there were neo-Nazi/thug elements marching with them and stress that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I would have tried to make clear - especially to people of colour who were marchers - the way fascism adapts to the "solution" of what it perceives as "problems". In political science terms, fascism is an unstable force that has to be kept in motion to remain intact. In practical terms, that means it has to have a focus for attack, some hatred to feed upon. As soon as one enemy, say "small boats", is dealt with and eliminated, the focus would swing to another group as a target for hate. The people of colour and other minorities who now march with Tommy Robinson and his ilk could one day become targets themselves.