The Politics Of The Street

Six Asian Muslim men have pleaded guilty to charges of planning a terrorist attack on an English Defence League* march in Dewsbury.

However violently attacking the EDL when they exercise the right to protest is tacitly supported or at least tolerated by many in the mainstream society. The organisation "Unite Against Fascism" has repeatedly launched violent attacks on the EDL yet that didn't stop the likes of David Cameron lending his support to this Socialist Workers Party front group.

Once people start romanticising street brawling as a means of opposing movements that you oppose it seems harsh to jail people for taking the idea half a step further.


* I'm not under any illusions about the EDL, which does include many out and out fascists. Fun EDL anecdote- I was in Penzance a few months ago for work reasons and briefly spoke to someone managing a pub.

He asked where I was from and when I replied "Northampton" his follow up question was "what do you think of all the blacks?", I mumbled a polite reply.

He then told me that his mate Chris, who was a shopfitter from Weston Super Mare, had founded the EDL before being marginalised by someone called Tommy from Luton who spent all the EDL's money on cocaine. Chris had now launched a secret breakaway group called the "English Volunteer Force".

The EDL's Hearts & Minds Campaign.

The EDL march in Leicester unsurprisingly descended into violence. En route to the rally a large group of them stopped off at Market Harborough, a place I spend a fair bit of time.

The people I know in the town are generally younger and less middle class than my wider circle of acquaintances and are all white, in other words tending towards the EDL's target demographic, yet they largely came to the conclusion that the EDL were a rebranded National Front and were intent on causing trouble*.The homoerotic overtones were also mentioned.

As this was not the EDL's main event there was no mob from the SWP front group- Unite Against Fascism- to oppose the EDL. Yet just seeing the group in action was enough to put people off them and their message. In fact the only thing which can win wide scale sympathy for them is allowing the impression to develop that they are only thuggish because they are being confronted by more thuggish groups who are intent on restricting their freedom of speech.

So can people please stop pretending that the UAF are anti-fascists when they are the prime recruitment tool for groups like that.

* They didn't actually kick off, but they were drinking in the street, chanting aggressively and generally being a nuisance.