A complete unmitigated clusterfuck

A week on from the disastrous anti-fascist mobilisation against the English Defence League  in Leeds, and it's  time to contribute my two pence (the first of many, no doubt) with a bit more objectivity than most of us could manage in the immediate aftermath of the demo.

Clearly it was a disaster - a lower turnout and even less militant UAF than in Manchester.

In the weeks prior to the demo, antifascists co-ordinated to build a militant contingent that aimed to no platform the EDL, and which would avoid repeating the Manchester debacle where several hundred EDL were allowed to demonstrate just metres away from the UAF rally.

However the leaders of the UAF including members of the Socialist Workers Party, called repeatedly on Leeds Council to ban the EDL demonstration. This action is not only cowardly but dangerous - by reinforcing illusions that the bourgeois state will smash fascism, it paves the way to the state banning assemblies by workers organisations. There would be no rallies in support of the postal workers, and Trade Unions would be crippled in times of spiralling unemployment and economic crisis.

Students at Leeds university held several meetings, and leafleted areas of Leeds with the aim of building a credible no platform contingent on the Hyde Park feeder march. The strategy of having 3 feeder marches from different areas was a good attempt to correct the failures of the Manchester demo, but all were very small.

Hyde Park was the biggest of the 3, but we did not have the numbers to prevent ourselves being penned in front of the art Gallery - despite the efforts of students and workers at the front to continue down the Headrow.

When all feeder marches and demonstrators had eventually gathered in front of the art gallery, there were pitfully few - much less than in Manchester and on previous anti-EDL marches. This in spite of the work that had been put into building for it by more militant sections of UAF and independent anti-fascists. Clearly this demonstrates that there is only a certain amount of people you can attract to a 'peaceful celebration of multiculturalism' passing off as a credible anti-fascism. People in Leeds looked at the lukewarm response of UAF in Manchester and thought -correctly- that it was fanciful to suppose that it had any intention of stopping the fascists assembling.

So while the anti-fascists milled around listening to pacifistic, delusional, and reactionary speeches from various shining lights of militant anti-fascism - including a Lib Dem councillor who is in the middle of leading a vicious attack on the refuse and Street Scene workers in Leeds who have been on indefinite strike for 6 weeks.When members of Revolution and other demonstrators started chanting 'support striking workers' while he spoke, a leading member of the SWP in Leeds rounded on us claiming 'you don't have to support the  strikes to be against fascism' - Perhaps you can have a real no platform anti-fascism by two groups locked in a bitter dispute; should class struggle cease for the purpose of opposing the fascists?

An antifascist movement cannot exist in an isolated bubble. Just as the fascist growth is not independent of the failings of capitalism, a working-class response cannot hope to smash fascism in collusion with the very bosses who are stating the importance of solidarity and unity within UAF while simultaneously trying to smash the CWU as well as attacking other workers across the country.

When it became clear that the UAF leadership was trying to wind up the rally in the early afternoon, Revolution started liaising with independant antifascists as well as younger members of the SWP from Leeds and Manchester with the intention of trying to lead part of the demo out of the pen to confront the EDL in city square.

At which point Weyman Bennett decided to let us know that we had demonstrated that the EDL weren't welcome on our streets by our mere presence several streets away. Laughable of course, but then he outrageously went on to claim that there were only '200' EDL in city square, and that only '400' had turned up in Manchester. These brazen lies are inexplicable even from a man well known for ensuring that the UAF does not commit itself to positively no platforming fascists.

Through updates coming through from observers down at the EDL demonstration, it seems nearer 900-1000 of them were demonstrating freely in city square and parading up and down the surrounding streets - with police passively observing or nowhere to be seen. In one incident EDL supporters were seen rocking cars with Asian families in as well as abusing Asians and gay people on the streets.

So clearly we didn't show the EDL that they were unwelcome in Leeds by any stretch of the imagination. Instead what happened is the EDL felt entirely comfortable bringing their racism to the city centre - so imagine how they will behave when they start appearing away from the cameras and police on the backstreets of our estates.

Despite the efforts of some to break sections of the crowd away to confront the EDL, the UAF stalled any progress and kept demonstrators formed up ready to march - all the while Weyman Bennett saying that we would be marching soon... Instead his filibustering gave the police enough time to bring up several rows of reinforcements so that there was no chance of breaking out on that side of the pen.

Efforts by members of Revolution to lead the demonstration out of a less well-guarded exit, met with some initial success but the refusal of the majority of the SWP to take party meant that the attempt failed. Indeed, Revolution members were accused of being 'ultraleft' by comrades in the SWP who had earlier worked with us to break away from the tame UAF rally.

We eventually left around 4pm as the demo had dwindled to around 100 people. We had not managed to even see the EDL scum all day. Quite how this was any kind of success is beyond me.

What Saturday demonstrated is that the crisis within UAF completely paralysed it on the day, and proves that UAF is not able to provide a working-class vehicle for driving the fascist scum off our streets wherever they appear.

Those within the SWP asking questions about the popular-frontist nature of the UAF tactic should be looking to form local antifascist formations that are prepared to organise to no platform any fascism emergence in their area.

We need the militant sections of the UAF to split along class lines and organise locally and nationally to combat the increasing threat of the BNP and EDL. We cannot afford to wait until the EDL are confident enough to start marching regularly, and wreaking havoc in black and Asian communities while creating a regime of fear in white working-class neighbourhoods.

The need for new anti-fascist formations is great. But it will only be achieved if the big socialist organisations and militant workers groups decide to commit to it in a sincere manner. Without this commitment we will have only the small, disparate groups of anti-fascists struggling to stem an increasingly militant and well-organised fascist revival.