Liam redux

Council and cops “let city down” – Salma Yaqoob

A good worm’s eye view of the anti-fascist mobilisation against the English Defence League event in Birmingham can be found here. Salma Yaqoob, who had called for the demonstration to be banned, has issued a press statement which is below. Socialist Resistance supporters strongly opposed the call for a state ban for fairly obvious reasons…

Liam
1–2 minutes

A good worm’s eye view of the anti-fascist mobilisation against the English Defence League event in Birmingham can be found here. Salma Yaqoob, who had called for the demonstration to be banned, has issued a press statement which is below.

Socialist Resistance supporters strongly opposed the call for a state ban for fairly obvious reasons and, as it transpired, it was the anti-fascists whom the state chose to ban on the day.

Respect Party leader and Sparkbrook councillor Salma Yaqoob has accused Birmingham Council and West Midlands Police of letting down the city by allowing Saturday’s EDL demo go ahead. She had previously called for it to be banned.

In a statement issued last night she said: “The English Defence League came to Birmingham for one reason only: to spread hatred and division. They should never have been allowed to stir up trouble on the streets of our city centre. Everybody has the right to freedom of speech but nobody has the right to incite racial or religious hatred.

“The people of Birmingham have been let down by the City Council and West Midlands Police.

“Despite all the evidence to the contrary they played down the racist intent behind the actions of the EDL. The City Council were prepared to see these groups of drunken racist football hooligans marauding through our city, but refused to allow a positive celebration of multicultural Birmingham to take place in the Council House. Instead of banning this racist provocation they spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money protecting it.

“Contrary to Police spin, the city centre was not some oasis of calm. It was a tense, and at times, very scary place. The Police said they could control the situation, but they could not. Unless firm action is taken to tackle these hooligans, these scenes will be repeated again and again in our city centre. I do not want to see violence on our streets. This must not be allowed to happen again.

“At this Tuesday’s meeting of Birmingham City Council, I will be asking the council leadership why they got this so badly wrong.”

50 responses to “Council and cops “let city down” – Salma Yaqoob”

  1. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Unfortunately, this really does show up the weaknesses of the Salma Yaqoob/UAF/SWP line of advocating state bans and working with the police.
    Who is going to take the “firm action” Salma Yaqoob advocates? The cops might beat up the anti-fa, but that’s all they’ll do. Socialist anti fascists are going to need to get themselves organised outside of the UAF/Yaqoob/SWP liberal bloc if we are to do anything about the Nazi turn to the streets.
    The EDL are coming to Manchester on the 10th October.

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  2. RobM Avatar
    RobM

    In addition to the PR article cited, comrades should also read Bernie MacAdams report on the Workers Power site
    http://www.workerspower.com/index.php?id=47,2099,0,0,1,0

    He is essentially correct to state that it was the SWP (NOT with their UAF hats on) who called the 11th hour anti-fascist mobilisation and managed to snatch a bit of honour back from what could have been a debacle…

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  3. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    If the SWP/Socialist Resistance/Workers Power et al believed the way to challenge the EDL was a full on mobilization to directly confront them, they should have argued for it publicly well in advance. We have known for a month the EDL were coming back. They did nothing of the sort.

    Instead, Martin Smith argued at a UAF meeting in Birmingham a fortnight ago that he was opposed to confronting the EDL in each and every instance, that the EDL wanted to replicate models of street violence tried and tested in Burnley, Oldham and Bradford then presented to the outside world as evidence of race war between white and Asian youth, and that anti-fascists should be careful not to fall into the traps being laid for them.

    He called for support for Adrian Goldberg’s Birmingham United initiative and clearly avoided putting out a call for direct counter mobilization.

    His overall analysis was not challenged. Indeed, for reasons best known to himself, the one Socialist Resistance speaker who did contribute spent his time talking about Ireland.

    This assessment made by Martin Smith at the meeting was correct and the mood of the meeting was sober in its assessment of the challenges facing the anti-fascist movement in the city

    And these challenges were very real.

    Since the previous EDL demo on Aug 8 UAF has found itself on dangerously isolated ground, pilloried as being no different than the EDL, and responsible for significant city centre disturbances. The council’s head of equalities no less said as much. It was indicative of its defensive position that UAF could not get a single political figure or personality to come to its defense afterwards including, with the exception of Salma, from within the Muslim community.

    That is a very serious situation and it was imperative ground was reclaimed so that UAF emerged from these events with its reputation enhanced to better able to build opposition to the real enemy, the BNP, in the future.

    Since then we have managed to shift the terms of the debate much more in our favour. By focusing on the ban, which the police made clear from the beginning they were never going to enforce, we have split the Lib/Dem Tory coalition, forced Labour to come out in support, elicited a very strong statement condemning the EDL from Church ministers, won onside influential local media figure Adrian Goldberg and managed to get valuable airtime on BBC radio and TV. The focus has increasingly shifted away from there being two groups of trouble makers to the actions and intent of the EDL. This work was done by patiently explaining, applying political pressure, winning allies. There is still much work to be done but we are in a much stronger position now than before.

    If UAF and Salma had sent out the call for a full on mobilization that ground would have been lost again. There would have a full on riot in the city centre with anti-fascists carrying the can for it afterwards. It would have been Asian youth doing the fighting, getting arrested and facing the jail sentences and the damage to UAF would have been irreparable. Let there be no doubt about that.

    Of course there are times when we have no alternative but to call for mobilizations to directly and physically confront the Nazis. But there is no anti-fascist principle which elevates physical confrontation into some absolute, applicable in each and every situation. To defeat the BNP in the age when it draws a million votes we need something a bit more sophisticated than Red Action style posturing.

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  4. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    So for Ger Francis what’s important is winning the “argument” with various council officers, the Tories, Liberals and New Labour. Not whether the EDL are allowed to march through town. Indeed his opposition to a call for a demonstration, shows that he was willing to let them do that.
    Good job many anti-fascists, including many anti-fascist Muslim youth don’t listen to him. Let’s leave him to talk to the great and the good. The rest of us can get on with confronting the Nazis.

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  5. RobM Avatar
    RobM

    A few sleights of hand here from Ger.
    The meeting with Martin Smith was well before the general call for a ban was made and taken up. Nobody mentioned it at that meeting.as it wasn’t an issue.
    Also, the Birmingham United initiative was just mooted at that time. Everyone agreed with what was proposed- I still do- a massive carnival style rally celebrating the diversity and unity of Birmingham.
    However, it eventually became apparent that such a thing was not really on the cards…

    Now, on the question of mobilising against the EDL, my recollection is that Martin Smith cautioned, correctly, against chasing shadows- not that we should do nothing at all if we know they are coming to town.
    When it became clear that September 5th was for real, not just a feint, AND there was not going to be a ‘Birmingham United’ event the problem was there was no plan B as UAF had ruled out in advance organising a counter-demo.

    And, yes, Stuart did mention Ireland in his three minute contributuion. He said that the massive crisis in the Irish economy and public sector cuts were a foretaste of what we might expect here and in that context there was a real danger of a growth of the far-right and a need to build a broad, socialist alternative.
    i thought that was pretty ABC. there was no need to argue against bans and for mobilisations as virtually everyone in the meeting would have been in general agreement with that at that time.

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  6. johng Avatar
    johng

    I’ve just made the mistake of reading PR etc. Nutso. So on the basis of what may or may not have been a tactical mistake (I don’t know I’m not there) the UAF is to be “exposed” and presumably an armed body of proletarian squads will magically appear to replace it? wtf is wrong with the British left (he says in genuine despair).

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  7. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    In genuine despair?
    There’s nothing genuine about your despair.

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  8. johng Avatar
    johng

    No. Its all fake obviously. Lets say you are right. Lets say that the idea of calling a unity festival was a terrible mistake. Lets say the idea of arguing that the march should not be allowed to go ahead was a terrible mistake (although I still can’t see how you can square that at the level of mass politics with the demand that we’re going to stop the march going ahead but we refuse to demand that the state does). What ought the response of the left be to the banning of the unity festival on council property? Rather then yah boo sucks that just goes to show how right we are, shouldn’t it be to protest against it? I mean its bloody disgraceful.

    The despair is really quite genuine I can assure you.

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  9. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    “Its bloody disgraceful.”

    What is? Where did I say that there shouldn’t have been a unity festival? Where did I say that the left should not have opposed the EDL? Where did I say there shouldn’t be a protest?

    Its not so much a case of “bloody disgraceful” as a “load of made up rubbish”.

    Excuse me for not taking your sincerity very seriously.

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  10. johng Avatar
    johng

    What I mean is that rather then carp on about how the state banning the unity festival (if thats what happened) surely the main job of the left is to protest that. Its that simple. If I’ve misunderstood what happened please enlighten me.

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  11. johng Avatar
    johng

    Sorry to clarify: someone follows a mistaken tactic (I don’t know if it WAS mistaken). The result of the mistaken tactic is that the state decides to ban an anti-racist festival (if it was the result of a mistake, if the state did ban it). A section of the left responds not by protesting about the state stopping the festival but by blaming those who made a tactical mistake.

    I find this depressing at this stage in our movement if I’ve understood what happened rightly.

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  12. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    “A section of the left responds not by protesting about the state stopping the festival but by blaming those who made a tactical mistake. ”

    Who did?

    You couldn’t make it up. But you do. Why do you?

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  13. johng Avatar
    johng

    …and focuses on “exposing” an entire unity coalition on this basis, rather then building resistance to the state doing this. In the name of being anti-state.

    Have I missed anything out, bald men combs etc?

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  14. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    I would call it an “absolute disgrace” but I don’t know what you’re on about.

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  15. johng Avatar
    johng

    jesus.

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  16. johng Avatar
    johng

    and joseph etc. To the best of what i can work out from this exchange, the plan was to hold a unity festival in the centre of Birmingham. This was not allowed to go ahead. The argument wasn’t won in the UAF to hold another counter-demo to replace it. The SWP went ahead with a counter-demo, recognising that other parts of UAF were’nt won to this. Both sides shared an understanding of the dangers of being isolated in the situation. Surely the main thing is to protest about the unity festival not being allowed to go ahead and resolve other differences constructively. As opposed to imagining that the main thing is to ‘expose people’ and set up wholly imaginary alternative organisations. Its becoming like Life of Brian.

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  17. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    And mary.
    And the little lambs.

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  18. johng Avatar
    johng

    Ah just realised I got confused between PR and workers power. It was the workers power one I was objecting to not the PR one (which seems to have been written by an anarchist). The WP article had the argument about the need to Expose the UAF. So Bill if you are PR I probably owe you an apology.

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  19. cottonopolis Avatar
    cottonopolis

    edl planning to come to Manchester on October 10th, just get out on the streets and oppose them. A month to mobilise, Organise now!

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  20. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Actually the WP article doesn’t say that either.

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  21. johng Avatar
    johng

    er yes it did:

    UAF needs to be held to account for their abject failure to meet the fascist threat in Birmingham.

    The task that lies ahead is to build a militant anti-fascist movement within the black and white working class of Birmingham which can explain the nature of fascism and how to stop the fascists in their tracks rather than useless appeals to vote for anyone but them.

    The question of defence has been posed point blank and the UAF has no answers. A mass workers’ united front – an anti-fascist defence league – must have the aim of physically stopping the fascists attempts to return to the streets.

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  22. Mark Victorystooge Avatar
    Mark Victorystooge

    The Trot capacity to split can lead to confusion about just which organisational line you are arguing against/for.
    It must be even more confusing for the workers.

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  23. skidmarx Avatar
    skidmarx

    The Stalinist capacity to split Trot heads open can lead to little doubt about their historical record.

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  24. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Well I agree with that. UAF didn’t have any answers. They called for a state ban, and then, when the counter demo was banned, didn’t call for a protest to defy it. The historical record couldn’t be any clear.

    But it doesn’t say the things you accused it of, doesn’t use the word “expose”, doesn’t say we shouldn’t oppose the fascists, doesn’t say there’s anything wrong with having a unity carnvial.

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  25. johng Avatar
    johng

    But the article does’nt protest about the ban Bill. It simply blames UAF for it and demands they are held to account. I would imagine that most people think Birmingham Council and the Police ought to be held to account.

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  26. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    ‘So for Ger Francis what’s important is winning the “argument” with various council officers, the Tories, Liberals and New Labour.’

    Not exactly. I think what’s important is that anti-fascism goes way beyond the minuscule forces of the far left.

    It’s impossible to understand how things in Birmingham have moved in our favour without understanding the success in creating pressure sufficient to shift the middle ground. The call for a ban was critical in that regard. And UAF’s decision not to march strengthened its hand in opening up even more ground between it and the EDL. This was in marked contrast to the situation immediately after April 8th when both sides were presented as trouble makers.

    The fact that a ban was never going to be implemented was irrelevant. The call for it did its job. And Salma Yaqoob did hers. She, followed by Adrian Goldberg, were the only politicians or individuals of profile in the city who used their platform to constantly criticize the council and police for downplaying the racist intent behind the EDL protests.

    The combination worked sufficiently well to split the council, force the Labour party to take sides, and make the Chief Constable issue a statement about how Birmingham united to protect multiculturalism and successfully stopped the far right! I don’t care whether he is sincere or not. What’s important is framing the terms of the debate in our favour.

    It was all touch and go though, and things could have unrivalled if the SWP tactics had attracted any decent sized forces. Thankfully they didn’t. And the fact that not a single member of the socialist demo were among the ninety arrests made will be noted and puts into some context all the rhetoric about ‘confronting’ the fascists. It will be the people with the brown faces getting the court dates, not the white middle aged socialists.

    There will be times when mobilizations and confrontation are necessary to push forward the movement. Last Saturday in Birmingham was not one of them, but that is not to say that next month, if the EDL turn up again, the same UAF tactics should apply.

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  27. prianikoff Avatar
    prianikoff

    On the question of “state-bans” againt the EDL:-

    There’s has a long-term demand by Muslims in the unions for laws against religious discrimination.
    Because, unlike Jews and Sikhs, they were not defined by the law as an ethnic group.

    Partly as a result of this, there’s now a law against “incitement to religious and racial discrimination”.
    There were always negative implications to laws against religious discrimination.
    For instance, they could potentially be used against those who criticize the religious establishment.
    But these have generally been taken into account in framing the current legislation.

    In general, the laws have been framed to deal with hatemongers and situations where religious hatred is, effectively, racism.
    The linking of “religious” and “racial” discrimination was a step forward.
    Or is anyone going to argue against this?

    So I don’t find it suprising that this interpretation is supported by Muslims (or Jews, Irish Catholics or whatever…)
    Nor do I think it’s such a bad thing to demand that the government implement them in relation to Griffin, or the EDL demos.
    It’s not exactly analagous to the use of the Public Order Act against the left and I don’t think it should be be dividing line in yet another split on the left.

    If, of course, it were being argued that legal action was an *alternative* to mass demonstrations, that would be wrong.
    Ideally demonstrations as large as those at Lewisham and Southall in the 1970’s would be the best way to send off these provocative racists.
    Which requires the support of the local population on a mass scale.
    Skirmishes between small bands of activists won’t do anything and are more typical of what happened as the mass movement of the 1970’s began to decline.

    Finally, the BNP and their like pick up votes on the basis of disillusion with Labour.
    So there needs to be a political alternative which captures this vote and heads off the development of racism.

    That means mass socialist politics.

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  28. prianikoff Avatar
    prianikoff

    The decription of 2006 “Racial and Religious Hatred Act” –

    “An Act to make provision about offences involving stirring up hatred against persons on racial or religious grounds” is here:-

    http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060001_en_1

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  29. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Its not my article. And if you know me, then you would understand, defending Workers Power, is not something that comes naturally.
    The anti-fascist forces are not miniscule. They are in fact very large. Easily large enough in fact to see off the EDL without a single one of their fair weather anti-fascist friends. How many of them were on the streets taking the fight to the Nazis?
    I was at a Manchester UAF meeting yesterday, the EDL are visiting on the 10th October. The chair spoke in favour of the do-nothing tactics of Birmingham UAF and proposed we in Manchester do a repeat.
    The meeting didn’t quite agree with him. They demanded a state ban including all of the SWPers present, but did at least agree that they would not organise a “unity” festival safely out of the way somewhere. As I gather was the proposal in Birmingham.

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  30. RobM Avatar
    RobM

    The Birmingham UAF line of not calling a counter-demo came in for a savage mauling last night at a UAF meeting of up to 40 people- it was attacked not just by SR, WP and the usual suspects but by leading SWPers and their closest supporters and lots of non-aligned UAFers.
    The mood of the meeting was strongly that it had been a mistake and people accepted there was a need for better communication and accountability, more local meetings to decide on controversial issues- strengthening Birmingham UAF structures rather than relying on a wider West Mids organisation.
    Responsibility for the statement that UAF would not be calling a demo, after the BU initiative was torpedoed by the council, was laid at the door of the three (non-SWP) UAF officers, one of whom, accepting responsibility, argued his case robustly against overwhelming opposition to it.

    Centrally, there had been a fear that a UAF counter-demo would have sparked a riot which, in turn, would have delivered up large numbers of asian youth to the police. This would be portrayed as essentialiiy a race riot.
    The counter argument, which prevailed, was that young asians would be there anyway, regardless of any call from UAF and we had to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in solidarity- giving the lie to the idea it was about race.

    The issue of whether the Birmingham Unite rally was of any merit also came up. I think a lot of people would agree that it was supportable as a celebration of diversity, multiculturalism and unity against racism but we should not tie ourselves to it in such a way that limits our ability to confront the fascists and prevent them marching.

    The issue of state bans was only raised briefly. I know leading SWPers are uneasy and unconvinced about the merit of lending support to the call for a ban. Certainly the majority of the meeting would not support a call for a ban if that meant giving up the right to mobilise or offering other concessions of that sort.
    I suggest SWP members will be much more reticent in future about giving tacit support to bans.

    So, overall it was very positive. There was a renewed committment to activelyt oppose future fascist marches in Birmingham.
    Expect a sharp correction in Manchester soon, Bill!

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  31. The Digger Avatar
    The Digger

    The obvious test of the strength of Ger’s argument about not organising a counter protest is to analyse what would have happened if that position had been perfectly observed.

    Firstly, 100 to 150 EDL supporters would have been able to march through Birmingham City Centre unopposed spewing ant Muslim and racist slogans. Whilst an anti racist event was effectively banned.

    Secondly, there would have been no arrests and the Council and the Police would have congratulated themselves on how well they had protected free speech and public order, and the EDL would have been encouraged to mount further racist anit Muslim marches.

    However, thankfully the SWP and Muslim youth did organise opposition and the EDL reacted with violence and exposed themselves as the fascist thugs they are. The fact that the Police and the Council are now on the defensive and there is no chance of the EDL returning in a hurry is because there was vigorous opposition not due to the lack of it.

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  32. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    I completely agree with you Digger. To have refused to have opposed the EDL as proposed by Ger Francis and Salma Yaqoob would have been a total disaster.
    What I don’t get is the SWPs attitude to UAF, a group set up in alliance with the bosses – David Cameron is a founding signatory.
    This is the root of the problem. The desire for a broad, non-class, cross party, non fighting, liberal, talking shop, do nothing alliance. It is why UAF demand state bans instead of working class mobilisation. It is a mistake now being repeated in Manchester.
    Please god the SWP wake up after all this.

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  33. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    If Digger thinks that Muslim youth would not have confronted the EDL had it not been for the SWP’s 11th hour clarion call he really does live in a different world to me. It was patently obvious to us in Respect from all the vibes we were picking up throughout the week that there were going to be a ruck. The only question for us was its size. The idea that the EDL were going to march peacefully around Birmingham city centre was never going to happen, irrespective of how many messages for calm in the face of provocation were sent out, and irrespective of anything the SWP did. Salma has made this point to the council and police consistently.

    The issue facing UAF was not what others it had no relationship with nor influence over did, it was what UAF did.

    UAF could have banged the drum for confrontation but as April 8th highlighted it would not have been able to control the outcome. If it had done so there were have been much more serious disturbances. Sure are night follows day the blame for this would have been attributed to two groups of ‘extremists’, as what happened post April 8th, except this time the condemnation on UAF would have been from a much greater height. If that had happened, UAF in the city would never had recovered and the real battle against the BNP would have been seriously set back.

    In some circumstances, the correct call is direct confrontation, irrespective if it runs the risk of incurring a deluge of wrath from all and sundry. If we were talking about some Lewisham ’77 style provocation, with the BNP marching through say, Aston, there is no question what the response has to be, irrespective of what strain it puts on allies or the backlash after.

    This was not Lewisham ’77 despite all the romantic misty eyed associations. This was a mobilisation by a handful of fascists, against a backdrop in which UAF was very weak, increasingly isolated, with the real racist nature of the EDL getting lost in a hew and cry about ‘extremism’. We needed to shift tactics accordingly and shift the terms of the debate on ground much more favourable to UAF. We have done this very successfully this last month, even if that fact has been lost on some who should know better.

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  34. The Digger Avatar
    The Digger

    I never claimed that the Muslim youth would not have confronted the EDL had it not been for the SWP’s call for a protest.

    In fact because there was always going to be a reaction from young Muslims angry at a group of racists coming to Birmingham to abuse them, the key question for socialists was do we stand with them or not. The political implications of leaving it to Muslims alone to protest would have been extremely dangerous,

    The stance of Respect, and its supporters in UAF, might well have led to glowing praise from the Chief Constable but I don’t thnk it went down as well with many members of the Muslim community.

    Yes the left and the UAF are weaker than is needed, but I don’t think that will be changed by not building effective protests when racists and fascists march.

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  35. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    You’re absolutely right Digger. Respect in general, Ger Francis in particular and Salma Yaqoob have shown that when the chips are down.
    They leave the table and prefer not to bet.
    That isn’t an acceptable strategy for socialists and anti-fascists. But it is a logical result of Respect/UAFs call for a broad, cross party, pro-police, respectable, legal, bourgeois indeed, “anti-fascist” organisation. Faced with the first challenge from the Nazis it ignominiously failed.
    The problem is not the SWPs desire to confront the Nazis, or that of the Muslim youth. The problem is why did the SWPs leaders adopt such a terrible strategy in the first place, one that almost lead to disaster?

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  36. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    The fact that the Police have been forced to move from a position where they literally denied the racist intent behind the EDL demos to one where they are at pains to say Birmingham is united in defense of multiculturalism is a good thing. It is testimony to the success of the tactics followed since April 8th. The argument around the EDL has been gradually turned around from a situation in which anti-fascists were on the defensive after to one where the council and the police are on the defensive now. (With the police having the gumption to shift their line accordingly.)

    Digger contemptuously dismisses all of this. That’s his right. But the reality is that the SWP had no strategy to try turn the situation around. They were absolutely lost and out of their depth. It was left to others to do so, and that was done successfully.

    As for RESPECT reputation in the Muslim community over its role, again you have no idea what you are talking about. I can assure you as somebody who is out on the doorstep every day our reputation has been enhanced. All the feedback we get confirms this. Salma put her neck on the line. She was the only Muslim figure to consistently support UAF. The attacks she received were from the right. The single criticism of her I have heard from a different direction is from SWP fellow traveler Assed ‘the guerilla’ Beig who is now at pains to deny that his nutty ultra left attack on…well, just about everybody, also included Salma.

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  37. johng Avatar
    johng

    Just a quick question Ger: do you think it was wrong for the SWP to organise a counter-demo once the council had banned the festival? I think you are entirely right about Muslim youth coming out on the streets anyway, but given that, surely it was important that socialists had a presence, especially given the EDL/BNP’s attempt to present all this as a ‘race war’ etc, as noted in your first contribution here.

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  38. johng Avatar
    johng

    I would also say that, not knowing anything about the detail, Salma’s intervention was very important in shifting the grounds of debate and that the police refusal to re-host the EDL is an important gain. However its very important that this entirely legitimate and very useful kind of intervention is not counter-posed to mobilising against the EDL when they appear (whatever form that mobilisation takes). It seems inevitable to me at that as we re-confront questions we have not confronted on this scale for a couple of decades, that we will face exceedingly complex situations and learn as we go. Principles need to be applied to concrete situations. I think there is nothing unusual about some heated debate after an event of this kind but it should not be the occassion for pointscoring. There is a lot of evidence that the EDL represents a kind of paramilitary auxillary of the BNP and that they have a national strategy of trying to build on the BNP gain by re-taking the streets for the far right, sending in street fighters first. This cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.

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  39. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Salma’s Yaqoob’s intervention, trying to get the police, an institutionally racist organisation of quasi military thugs, onside to oppose the EDL, cannot but fail.
    It is an illusion to believe that the liberal state can be anything but illiberal under capitalism.
    This is the dividing line between reform and revolution. In this instance it is particularly clear. The reformist tactics, suck up to the cops, build a non class, cross party, broad, “coalition” against the fascists, left the streets empty and would have permitted the EDL to march.
    It was literally a total failure.
    Its failure was also UAFs who adopted the same strategy.
    Its failure was also the SWPs who have been touting the UAF as the answer to fascism.
    SWP members and the left need to hold their leadership to account and reject this failed, reformist policy.

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  40. johng Avatar
    johng

    I think its a big mistake to make the divide between revolutionaries and reformists the key one in anti-fascist work.

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  41. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Why is it? The reformists, or more exactly, those small in fact tiny number of liberal anti-fascists, want to construct a non-class, non-party, non-existent front against the fascists. The first reaction of this front faced with the fascists marching through Birmingham was to stay at home.
    On the other hand were the revolutionaries who actually fought the fascists and united with the mass of workers – including many Asian youth – who agreed with doing something instead of nothing.
    When Rosa Luxemburg said that reform and revolution represented different roads to different goals. This is what she meant. There is in fact a real difference between the two trends, quite clear here.
    Stay and home. Tell your supporters to stay and home. Allow the fascists to march. While consoling yourself with your “broad” front.
    Or fight.
    Simple really.

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  42. in despair Avatar
    in despair

    “On the other hand were the revolutionaries who actually fought the fascists and united with the mass of workers – including many Asian youth – who agreed with doing something instead of nothing.”

    For pity sake Billj- I know people on the left like to use the word mass a lot – mass campaign, mass protest, mass of workers, though rarely midnight mass – but the idea that Birmingham experienced a ‘mass’ anti-fascist protest is just fanciful.

    Your arguments would hold some water if they bore the slightest resemblance to reality. It’s all well and good you talking about the ‘masses’ but you seem incapable of mobilising them yourself. What I can’t understand is your trenchant criticism for those who chose not to follow your plainly ineffective strategies, when your tradition has been so plainly unsuccessful itself – some sense of perspective please!

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  43. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    Think for a moment.
    Who’s strategy was ineffective?
    UAF, Ger Francis, Salma Yaqoob, demanded that the council ban the EDL demonstration. They wanted to build a “broad” non-class, non party, “coalition”, that co-operated with the police, before during and after the protest.
    When the council banned the anti-fascists from protesting, they decided to stay and home, in order to maintain their “broad” coalition and do nothing.
    They preferred to let the EDL march rather than split the “unity” of their broad front.
    In other words they did nothing.
    And totally failed.
    On the other hand a mass – yes indeed a mass – of ordinary people, including many Asian youth, passers by, anarchists, socialists and anti-fascists, actually confronted the fascist EDL.
    And drove them from the streets.
    In other words they did something.
    And totally succeeded.
    What is there to despair about? One path – the one we were being urged to follow by UAF, the SWP, Salma Yaqoob, Ger Francis etc. utterly failed the test of struggle.
    One path succeeded.
    All I suggest is that we take the path that succeeds. Nothing to despair about, in fact quite the opposite, real life has demonstrated much better than any lecture the relative merits of the opposing strategies.
    Ger Francis, the Liberals, Tories and New Labour can get on with fighting the fascists by staying at home, and hoping the racist cops will save the day for them.
    The rest of us can leave them to it, and get on with the struggle.

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  44. in despair Avatar
    in despair

    BillJ – you are living in a dream world. There was not a ‘mass’ of people in Birmingham who ‘actually
    confronted’ the EDL . There was barely a few hundred at the most optimistic estimate. It appears the lowered expectations of the last two decades have affected your understanding of English as well as your politics. The events in today Harrow were significantly bigger than Birmingham and that was no where being close to being ‘mass’ .

    Hyperbole is not very helpful in politics but I suppose it helps when your own ‘successes’ are so marginal and irrelevant. You might have more credibility if you and your PR chums were able to mobilise tens of thousands but the reality is, that safe behind a computer, your rhetoric is pretty meaningless and utterly ineffective.

    That is why I despair – the capacity of pontificating revolutionaries for self-delusion about their own importance while seemingly being unable to distinguish fact from from their own desired fiction.

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  45. Liam Avatar
    Liam

    What happened in Harrow shows how to deal with neo fascists like “Stop Islamification of Europe”. They were swept off the streets by hundreds of young Muslims and won’t show their face again there.

    That’s the way to do it. More or a racist’s nightmare than Bill’s dream world.

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  46. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    The EDL did not attempt to do anything in Birmingham as inflammatory as making a mosque or Muslim area a focal point. They were cleverer than that. They came into the city centre in the hope of a confrontation that could be depicted as between Muslim and whites while being at pains to present themselves as being anti-extremist, not anti-Muslim.

    And for a period they had worrying success.

    Immediately after the April 8th they had sufficient impact to influence the debate enough to put anti-racists on the back foot. Central to their success was the actions of the city authorities in denying the racist intent behind the EDL protests.

    These provocations are very serious and while the left will cheer at the protests, don’t underestimate the impact of news reports that paint a very different picture than anti-racist solidarity. The experience in Birmingham and Luton is that calls for bans on EDL marches had the effect on galvanising opposition by placing pressure on the authorities to clamp down on racism.

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  47. The Digger Avatar
    The Digger

    But Ger the experience in Birmingham is not that the call for a ban on EDL marches had the effect of galvanising opposition by placing placing pressure on the authorities to clamp down on racism. The pressure came from the fact that both times the EDL tried to march they were faced with militant resistance. The only ban imposed by the authorities was on the anti racist meeting.

    When Salma was criticised for supporting the protest on the 8 August she rightly defended herself by saying that there was going to be a response on the streets if the EDL staged an anti muslim march and that politicians need to give a lead and not hide away. Thats why she supported the protest.

    The same argument goes for September 5. The UAF in Brum made a tactical mistake by not calling a protest, and this was agreed by a well attended UAF meeting this week with only Ger plus one other arguing against. Ironically by not mobilising UAF support on 4 September it makes it easier to present the issue as whites versus muslims.

    Thankfully UAF in Harrow did not make the same mistake.

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  48. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    Digger’s simplistic blurring of the differences between what happened in Harrow and what happened in Birmingham does not surprise.

    If it was case that, as Digger claimed, it was militant demos that put pressure on the authorities how come we were so isolated after Aug 8th? How come it took weeks before fractures appeared in the political establishment over the EDL? How come the police were so bullish about Sept 5th going ahead? How come Salma was isolated at the meeting of Muslim councillors and mosque representatives in the city when the issue of how to oppose the EDL was discussed? How come it was only at the last minute that Labour party and some Church ministers came out in opposition to the EDL’s Sept 5th appearance?

    In the fortnight after the Aug EDL demo anti-fascists in Birmingham were very much on the defensive.

    Critical to our isolation was the fact that the city authorities literally denied that the EDL had racist intent thereby giving credence to their freedom of speech arguments. Their role, combined with a nervousness within the Muslim community at the images of the disturbances between Muslim and whites after Aug 8th, made any subsequent mobilisations much more awarkward. Hence when it came to Sept the 5th the SWP mobilised 30 people and only between 60-90 Muslim youth turned up.

    Any attempt to rewrite the difficult corner anti-fascists were in, ignore why there was such a poor mobilisation from within the Muslim community for both Aug 8th and Sept 5thth (they did not need a UAF press release on Sept 5th, news of the EDL had been doing the rounds, and the same mosque leaders who opposed Aug 8th also opposed Sept 5th), and retrospectively bask in the glow from Harrow, does nothing to learn all the lessons from the EDL experiences here. Ours were quite specific to time and place. Others will have similarities and difference. How best to respond in each instance is a tactical call determined by local factors. What was critical in turning the situation around was the lobbying and argument conducted BETWEEN both demos. Now, maybe the SWP played a role in this, but I saw no evidence of it and I am unaware of what strategy they pursued. They struck me as being observers, paralysed until an 11th hour call for a counter demo that mobilised 30 socialists.

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  49. Ger Francis Avatar
    Ger Francis

    As for the meeting Digger makes reference to. It was a completely unrepresentative, overwhelmingly composed of the hard left, and dominated by SWP, SR and good old Workers Power.

    While a very small number of Muslims (4 or 5) were there, there were no Muslim representatives. Neither did it have much, if any, from the labour and trade union movement, faith groups or mainstream political parties (there was a Labour member there in an personal capacity). There were no councillors or MP’s present or apologies or messages of support from them in their absence.

    And it would have been embarrassing to UAF if they had turned up.

    It started with a lunatic attack on Adrian Goldberg, continued with another on the Lib Dems, with followed with thinly disguised attacks on Salma throughout. It was telling the loudest applause went to an SWP fellow traveller who had previously issued an statement full of pious denunciations, accusations of Islamaphobia against those who thought the call for a demo was a mistake, and thinly disguised references to Salma Yaqoob and ‘token Muslims’.

    Again, no glossing over the unrepresentative nature and political weakness of the meeting does not do UAF any favours.

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  50. bill j Avatar
    bill j

    My point is very simple.
    There are two strategies presented to us. UAF/Respect/Salma Yaqoob/Ger Francis – want to build a “coalition”, well not really a coalition, but maybe an agreement, or anyway something of that sort, amongst the great and good, Tories, New Labour, Liberals, the police and what not, to stop the EDL.
    On the other hand, as Harrow showed or the actual events of Birmingham showed, there was direct action by working class people, many of them Asian youth, to actually drive the fascists off the streets.
    Fascists who on both occasions were strongly protected by the very cops that the “broad” coalition wants to stop the EDL.
    Its socialist ABCs. And its the reason why a cross class, non-class, middle class, coalition is no use against fascists.
    So no reason to “despair” or to believe that this is a “racist nightmare”, but plenty of reasons to actually do something on the streets – but without and against where necessary, the “support” of the “broad” coalition.

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