Leeds AF's Pretensions to Militant Antifascism Come Unstuck
Me | 05.07.2010 11:24 | Sheffield
Attempts by the Anarchist Federation to organise an anti-EDL meeting in Leeds Sat failed dismally.
Having (badly
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2010/06/454079.html?c=on#c250513) advertised a public meeting in Leeds to oppose the EDL, the clueless idiots of The Anarchist Federation didn’t bother to organise any form of security whatsoever. Entirely predictably, the EDL took advantage of the open target and walked into the meeting. The AF have no pedigree whatsoever in terms of antifascism, and in handing the EDL such an easy victory, have shown themselves to be a liability and an embarrassment.
The Leeds branch of the Anarchist Federation have little or no history of antifascist activity. Yet their ambitions to form a new ‘militant antifascist alliance’ to take on the EDL led them to publically announce such a meeting.
Not that they put much effort into advertizing the meeting, and they certainly didn’t invite any of the existing antifascist groups operating in West Yorkshire.
Bearing in mind the nature of the meeting, and the recent record of the EDL in turning up uninvited to anti-EDL meetings, one might have expected a certain amount of security.
As it was, when the meeting was held, on Saturday July 3rd, and despite the AF being tipped off about EDL plans to attend, there was NO SECURITY WHATSOEVER.
This appalling negligence allowed a small group of EDL activists to simply walk into the meeting, from which the Anarchist Federation showed no stomach to evict them. The EDL have not stopped crowing since. In one stupid blunderous move Leeds Anarchist Federation have not only handed the EDL an easy victory, they have undermined the hard work put in by real militant antifascists in Leeds over the past two decades.
We should all be in favour of more meaningful anti-fascist activity, but what possibly made Anarchist Federation think they had the ‘authority’ to organize this sort of meeting?.
From what we have seen most of them seem to be daft young kids. It should have been obvious that a public meeting of this type (not that we saw it advertized anywhere) needed to be secured, particularly in light of recent EDL activity. Anarchist Federation have been embarressment to anarchism for to long are we now going to take serious the thret they pose to working class unity?
We definitely think we need to build a mass alternative to the UAF/SWP, but this level of organisation and security hardly inspires confidence. Leeds Anarchist Federation ought to learn to walk before they try to run, otherwise they risk looking arrogant as well as stupid.
Members of Anarchist Federation where warned that this would happen, (and it should be common sence) yet still, no security.
Several Anarchist Federation members have serious security issues regarding them… no real Antifascist or Anarchist would touch them with a bargepole.
Also well done to the “guy in the back t-shirt” but still, how many people where at the meeting? on 4 guys? If you are incapable of defending a meeting against 4 guys… maybe you should reconsider your efficency in the “anarchist revolution” and indeed your role as an antifascist organisation.
The words “man up” seem to ring well.
Its also worth pointing out that several of your members are such fucking wankers that half of Leeds is probably upset with them at any given time.
Lastly as has been pointed out a certain bittersweet irony in the fact that you “Called for an Anti Fascist Alliance” and organised this event without inviting any of the organisations that currently oppose fascism in the area.
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2010/07/454991.html
Having (badly
http://sheffield.indymedia.org.uk/2010/06/454079.html?c=on#c250513) advertised a public meeting in Leeds to oppose the EDL, the clueless idiots of The Anarchist Federation didn’t bother to organise any form of security whatsoever. Entirely predictably, the EDL took advantage of the open target and walked into the meeting. The AF have no pedigree whatsoever in terms of antifascism, and in handing the EDL such an easy victory, have shown themselves to be a liability and an embarrassment. The Leeds branch of the Anarchist Federation have little or no history of antifascist activity. Yet their ambitions to form a new ‘militant antifascist alliance’ to take on the EDL led them to publically announce such a meeting.
Not that they put much effort into advertizing the meeting, and they certainly didn’t invite any of the existing antifascist groups operating in West Yorkshire.
Bearing in mind the nature of the meeting, and the recent record of the EDL in turning up uninvited to anti-EDL meetings, one might have expected a certain amount of security.
As it was, when the meeting was held, on Saturday July 3rd, and despite the AF being tipped off about EDL plans to attend, there was NO SECURITY WHATSOEVER.
This appalling negligence allowed a small group of EDL activists to simply walk into the meeting, from which the Anarchist Federation showed no stomach to evict them. The EDL have not stopped crowing since. In one stupid blunderous move Leeds Anarchist Federation have not only handed the EDL an easy victory, they have undermined the hard work put in by real militant antifascists in Leeds over the past two decades.
We should all be in favour of more meaningful anti-fascist activity, but what possibly made Anarchist Federation think they had the ‘authority’ to organize this sort of meeting?.
From what we have seen most of them seem to be daft young kids. It should have been obvious that a public meeting of this type (not that we saw it advertized anywhere) needed to be secured, particularly in light of recent EDL activity. Anarchist Federation have been embarressment to anarchism for to long are we now going to take serious the thret they pose to working class unity?
We definitely think we need to build a mass alternative to the UAF/SWP, but this level of organisation and security hardly inspires confidence. Leeds Anarchist Federation ought to learn to walk before they try to run, otherwise they risk looking arrogant as well as stupid.
Members of Anarchist Federation where warned that this would happen, (and it should be common sence) yet still, no security.
Several Anarchist Federation members have serious security issues regarding them… no real Antifascist or Anarchist would touch them with a bargepole.
Also well done to the “guy in the back t-shirt” but still, how many people where at the meeting? on 4 guys? If you are incapable of defending a meeting against 4 guys… maybe you should reconsider your efficency in the “anarchist revolution” and indeed your role as an antifascist organisation.
The words “man up” seem to ring well.
Its also worth pointing out that several of your members are such fucking wankers that half of Leeds is probably upset with them at any given time.
Lastly as has been pointed out a certain bittersweet irony in the fact that you “Called for an Anti Fascist Alliance” and organised this event without inviting any of the organisations that currently oppose fascism in the area.
https://publish.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2010/07/454991.html
Me
Comments
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what?
05.07.2010 11:53
“but what possibly made Anarchist Federation think they had the ‘authority’ to organize this sort of meeting?.”
Err, they are autonomous? Who said they need or presumed any authority? What gives anyone else authority to organise an event like that instead of them?
“Anarchist Federation have been embarrassment to anarchism for to long”
Care to elaborate? In what way are they an embarrassment? It seems to me that they heavily contribute to anarchist analysis and literature?
“Several Anarchist Federation members have serious security issues regarding them… no real Antifascist or Anarchist would touch them with a bargepole.”
Evidence?
the ? man
remove this post - its non-news shit stirring from a guy with a personal grudge
05.07.2010 12:14
shit stirrer
@response
05.07.2010 12:26
enough said read the coments ie this
Nick Lowles of Searchlight has written about the state support for the EDL protests stemming from the Public Order Unit at the Home Office:
"The problem appears to stem from the Public Order Unit at the Home Office, who have taken it upon themselves to act as the champions of free speech in advising successive Ministers that EDL protests should be allowed to happen. Their analysis and advice has been so shallow that one Minister refused to accept one report they prepared on the EDL and another commented "I learn more about the EDL from Searchlight than I do from our own official briefings"."
He goes on to say that is is for "ideological and short-sighted" reasons that they are doing this, whatever these may be...
"They currently hide behind the legal opinion that static protests cannot be prevented but their real reason is far more ideological and short-sighted."
Bob Pitt picked up on the above over at Islamophobia Watch where he quoted from Leanne Wood, the Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales Central, who said:
"she was "appalled" that South Wales Police had spent money "building a steel fence and kettling in the anti-racist protesters, while the English Defence League were escorted to a pub and then escorted on a march around the city centre"."
Back in March Barry Kade posted EDL blows its cover and reveal its anti-trades union & anti-working class agenda to this site:
"Soon we will all have to fight the massive wave of job cuts, as Labour / Tories /Lib Dems all prepare to implement the big business and billionaires agenda of massive cutbacks. This is the final battle for Britain’s welfare state, a battle between rich and poor, between the working people and the global banking and financial elites, and the EDL are a weapon being made to be used against us. This attack on our schools, hospitals and other public services will be to pay for the crisis caused by the greedy ultra-rich banking elite. Such moves will represent an enormous transfer of wealth away from the working people in the interests of this global elite, with our rights to decent pensions, jobs and services all axed. Future generations will suffer. And in order to do this, the capitalists will need to divide the working class."
"Thats why the EDL, the bosses new tool, in collaboration with the media that the bosses also own, are whipping up their stupid phony ‘islamophobic panic’. They make the bizarre and exaggerated claim that the tiny British Muslim ethnic minority, who make up just 2.7% of our population, are about to take over Britain and impose Sharia law! The EDL’s master plan is to set worker against worker, first dividing us on religious lines. Anti-Muslim hatred is the thin end of the wedge, the easiest prejudice to whip up because of the climate of fear already generated by Blair and Browns bloody and criminal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. From this start, the EDL’s secret bosses hope the poison of division will spread, tearing the working class apart and leaving it defenceless in the face of the growing offensive by big businesses and global finance …"
"The EDL are bankrolled by millionaire buisinessman Alan Lake to do this dirty job. Lake talks of dominating the streets, and has said: “Football fans are a potential source of support. They are a hoi polloi that gets off their backsides and travels to a city and they are available before and after matches.” These are the puppets he intends to use to promote the right wing agenda of big business against the trades unions and the English working people. Any working class person who supports the EDL is a fool and a class traitor."
"First they came for the Muslims, but I did not speak out because I was not a Muslim. Then they came for the Trades Unionists … "
Divide and rule, the latest encarnation of the Strategy of Tension to boost support the "Clash of Civilizations" and the "War on Terror" — consider that the "arch enemy" of the EDL, ISLAM4UK's backing organisation al-Muhajiroun were sponsored by MI6:
"Omar Bakri and his al-Muhajiroun network had been first hired by MI6 in the late 1990s to recruit British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. His UK underlings even continue to maintain a website for him which curiously remains devoid of his hundreds of most inflammatory statements supporting al-Qaeda terrorism. Despite exiling him to Lebanon, authorities have done nothing to curb his ongoing influence over his UK network, except to protect him from official investigation in connection with the radicalization of that very network. Al-Muhajiroun incubated those involved with Dhiren Barot’s grand plan to bomb targets in the US and Britain, with which the fertilizer and 7/7 plotters were also intimately linked.
And Nafeez Ahmed again
"al-Muhajiroun, which is supposed to be a proscribed organization. It now turns out that it was never proscribed - rather, its successor groups were banned, and now that its members are mobilizing under the banner of 'Islam4UK', they're free to run around mouthing the usual inflammatory drivel, which often includes inciting to violence and terrorism.
According to senior government and intelligence officials, at the time of al-Muhajiroun’s founding in 1996, the network was mobilized by MI6 to send British Muslims to Kosovo – coinciding with British and American military assistance to the Kosovan Albanians. This has been confirmed for instance by John Loftus, former US Justice Department official; as well as by former Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in his memoirs.
This was part of a general post-Cold War strategy of co-opting Islamist extremist and terrorist networks to exert influence in Central Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
Chris
More paranoia from Sheffield Indymedia and friends me thinks:
Me