The ANL (Anti Nazi League) are now part of the Unite Against Fascism coalition along with the National Assembly Against Racism and all the TUC-affiliated trade unions. And Unite Against Fascism organised and mobilised for the protests against Le Pen and the BNP.

Coverage of the protests has been excellent, they've encouraged anti-fascists and made Le Pen look bad in France. The BNP are furious. (Hence your posting perhaps?)

Unite Against Fascism:
 http://www.uaf.org.uk

The ANL is involved with in general terms the Unite Against Fascism coalition and broadly supports its aims however we maintain our independent status and structure.

Our knowledge of the BNP is probably much better than yours and we have excellent sources of information that the BNP were delighted with the coverage they got. There were those who are ANL members who, against the central commitees advice, attended the demo and is was one of them who saw known BNP members in the "protest" contingent.

The old confrontation tactics must be re-visited to fight the Nazis, the BNP includes clever, well connected people with media influence. They are seeking mainstream acceptance and in areas are achieving it.

Shouting and throwing rotton fruit is not the way to influence public opinion. Turning up in suits and ties with a smart, articulate spokesperson is !

It's always difficult to judge with these things whether protests just draw attention to the BNP and help them, however in this case, I don't think this applies - the visit of Le Pen was inevitably going to guarantee widespread media coverage, the protests changed the type of it. It seems to me, the BNP were looking to add credibility to their image by holding a professional looking press-conference in a nice hotel with a reasonably mainstream (though monsterous) French politician etc Instead, these images were replaced with media shots of BNP minders thumping protesters (BBC), police, and a show of opposition. Attempts at dressing up their thuggish party as 'respectable' were surely undermined by this. Equally, degrading images of a previously smart limo, covered in rotten vegetables, in my opinion, humiliated rather than aided the BNP.

As I said, the media were inevitably going to cover the Le Pen visit. The protesters LITERALLY followed the press there, rather than the other way round. However instead of a largely passive media merely conveying the BNP 'message' through press conference soundbites, which is what may have happened, coverage was dedicated almost exclusively to the protests. We re-wrote the story.

I'd be interested in seeing what other people think on this matter (rational debate please, don't just dismiss anyone who disagrees as secretly being BNP)

Obviously Tony is manufacturing all this. The ANL has other means of communicating with its members, and has said no such things to them! I doubt if their only communication on this subject would be an annonymous posting by someone calling themselves simply 'tony' on this newswire!!!
The question is, what are 'tony's' motives?
A genuine desire to promote some kind of new anti-fascist strategy?
The rantings of a lone, disorentated nutter?
Some sort of fiendishly clever neo-nazi propaganda and misinformation plot?

Duh, I'm too much of a brain dead lefty to figure this one out.

I am a long-time ANL member: 'tony' is some disinfo/troll type who does not speak for us and is fairly blatantly trying to spread suspicion and doubt.

The anti-Le Pen protests were a triumph. Unite Against Fascism think so, the Anti Nazi League think so, and as Bazza says the BNP are gutted we turned the story on them.

Anti Nazi League:
 http://www.anl.org.uk

Unite Against Fascism:
 http://www.uaf.org.uk

I am not sure who some of these people are but I am happy to confirm I am activly involved with the ANL and have been for nearly ten years. Please contact me on

 tonyB@anl.org.uk for confirmation

The League has been concerned for some time about people speaking in its name this seems to be yet another instance.

I still don't see why the alleged presence of a BNP member amongst protesters automatically means the BNP wanted a big protest against them - that's a huge leap of logic. If there was someone there, they could have been there for a variety of reasons...collecting information about the intentions of protesters, trying to disrupt or mislead protesters etc

I'd like to see some evidence if you claim the BNP are delighted with the way it went, and if it's just based on tip-offs then who's to say YOU aren't being manipulated

for info, email addresses of the domain  blah@anl.org.uk can ONLY be sent via our office, so Tony is certainly an unscrupulous impostor :0) The weekend was indeed a triumph; as well as the attacks on Le Pen which have been focussed on, the best thing about it is that the BNP gained not a shred of greater respectability from this episode, quite the opposite. a much-trumpeted posh-nosh dinner in a banqueting suite ended up being a desperate retreat to a tent on Griffin's pig farm on the Welsh borders.

For the record, ANL activists working within the Unite Against Fascism coalition played a big part in mobilising over 1,000 in Brum and 300 at 2 days' notice in Manchester. Oh, and I can't remember anyone referring to us as 'The League'!

Well, well Lee Rogers. I might have known it was you. Still trying to set up an alternative ANL I see Lee.