Saturday 10 October saw 700 thugs from the English Defence League (EDL) gather in Manchester for a provocative march through the city centre targeting the Muslim population.

Between 1500 and 2000 antiracists and antifascists gathered to confront and if possible stop them taking their message of hate through the streets of the city them.

On previous attempts of the EDL to march against Muslims, local black, Asian and white youth not only confronted but stopped them marching. Twice in Birmingham and once in Harrow, North London, the EDL were driven from the streets by youth taking direct action, and breaking up their march. But in Manchester it was a different story.

Despite the brave efforts of hundreds of antiracists, some of whom were arrested, this time the EDL were not scattered, and by early evening even got to hold their march.

How did they get away with it? And how can we make sure it never happens again?

Reasons
There are several reasons the EDL did better in Manchester than before.

Firstly there was a huge police operation on the day to protect the fascists– almost all the repression was meted out against the left and the antifascists, far more than on the previous anti-EDL protests. No wonder on their website they fulsomely thank the Manchester police

Secondly the media gave them huge publicity in advance, interviewing their spokespersons and spreading the EDL’s own propaganda that they are “not racists” and are only targeting ‘extreme’ Muslims. If this is true, how come EDL placards often read “No More Mosques”, something that is clearly an attack on ALL Muslims?

Thirdly the BNP and the English Democrat Party have been active in elections, spreading their anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim poison in the northern towns around Manchester and in Yorkshire.

Fourthly the Muslim leaders, community elders and imams were spooked by the police into a huge campaign to persuade Asian youth not to go on the anti-EDL march (see below).

Thus the EDL were able to mobilise in far greater numbers and unlike in Birmingham and Harrow, this time there were very few Asian youth present among the antifascists.

Also while the police had upped the ante with their tactics, the antifascist protesters had not become any more organised or disciplined than before.

Indeed, the leadership of the antifascist forces failed to rise to the challenge. This is the aspect of the day that is most difficult to discuss because some think it harms unity to mention it. But this is the most important thing to address, because if we change our approach we can make sure that the EDL are routed on their next attempt to march, in Leeds on 31 October.

Preparations
Prior to the march, the Manchester Unite Against Fascism group called for the police to ban the demonstration, knowing full well that where this has been tried before, the police have also banned antiracists from showing their strength.

When they failed to get the march banned, rather than reach out to working class Asian youth, who played a key role in stopping the EDL in Harrow and Birmingham (twice), with a clear call for a militant protest to stop the EDL, Unite Against Fascism (UAF) called instead for a rally and vigil to “celebrate multicultural Manchester” at midday, making it clear that they had no intention of initiating direct action to stop the fascists from marching.

Worse still, Muslim community leaders played a treacherous role in demobilising Asian youth, with chain text and email messages warning young Muslims to stay away from the city centre.

Haleema, a school student who attended the demonstration, told Workers Power “The police even spoke to the imams and were allowed to hold slide shows at the Mosques. The slide shows scared a lot of young people off going. Those that did go to the city centre were searched and questioned by police”. The community leaders behaved just like the rabbis in Germany prior to the rise of Hitler, and actively demobilised their people’s own resistance.

In response to UAF’s failure to provide an outright call to stop the EDL, and their failure to mobilise for the second anti-EDL demonstration in Birmingham a coalition of activists organised in the Manchester Socialist Forum arranged to arrive at Piccadilly Gardens at 10am to prevent the EDL arrivals from grouping up in pubs designated for them by Manchester police.

But numbers were not yet sufficient and this plan was made more difficult by heavy policing. The cops had placed a “section 60” order onto Manchester city centre and harassed, questioned and searched activists making their way to the demonstration, lining every street with officers in high-viz jackets. After this, there was no option other than to stay in the gardens and wait for more people to arrive.

It wasn’t long before up to one hundred students marched in from the universities. They had been mobilised by the Socialist Workers Party, who built the protest under the banner of Unite Against Fascism but who also called for the EDL march to be stopped in their leaflets and posters for the demo. Soon after, two full bus loads of lively antifascist activists from Liverpool arrived and the gardens started to fill up with young people looking to stop the EDL in their tracks.

Mood to fight
After a few speakers at the UAF organised rally in Piccadilly Gardens, around 60 EDL hooligans spilled out of the nearby Weatherspoons pub, jeering and holding up nationalist banners. As they started to march, the UAF rally was abandoned as people rushed over to confront the EDL. Revolution – the Socialist Youth Group - were at the forefront of the charge and encouraged protesters to link arms to stay together and avoid arrest.

Police were pushed back and momentarily lost control, splitting the antifascists into several groups, and became surrounded as a result. UAF stewards – wedded to legality and peaceful protest - argued for protesters to move away from the police and back to Piccadilly Gardens on the basis that the EDL would be marching there soon, but this advice was ignored, with many more experienced activists taking UAF stewards’ “directions” with more than a pinch of salt.

As a result a large number of antifascists panicked a small line of police, who were now sandwiched between them and the EDL. But at this point police reinforcements were sent in with attack dogs. Several protesters, including members of the Socialist Workers Party were arrested and at least two activists found their hands being savaged by the riled-up dogs. Bex, a Leeds student whose hand was bitten told Workers Power that police paramedics had no treatment for the dog bites. Their response was “they aren’t our dogs”. She had to go to A&E for a tetanus jab.

Antifascists should organise to defend all of these activists, condemn the violence of the police, support actions against the police for compensation and demand the dropping of all charges against antifascist protesters.

This was to set the scene for much of the day as activists were forced into a kettle in Piccadilly Gardens. Police numbers were huge, and prepared to protect the EDL demonstration by any means necessary. There were many attempts to push out of the kettle towards the EDL, but police used batons and had riot police in reserve. At one point, police pushed a group of protesters over some steps, resulting in some being crushed.

Rather than provide leadership, UAF continued an extended rally to move attention away from the hundreds of activists, now bolstered by a few local Asian youth trying to get past police towards the EDL. Protesters continued chanting at the EDL for hours, with some slogans making the point that the EDL, true to far right ideology, had no women among them at all.

A few EDL supporters responded with Nazi “Sieg Heil” salutes, making a mockery of the “concerned British citizen” type profile awarded to them by much of the mainstream media before and after the demonstration.

The stalemate was to continue until about 5pm when Unite Against Fascism wound up their rally and brought the antifascist mobilisation to a halt. But more EDL members were now arriving and their numbers had swelled. With the heavy police presence and a lot more fascists there was not much hope of stopping the EDL marching off with around 1000 people to hold a rally at Victoria, twenty minutes down the road.

Antifascist Defence League
The events in Manchester are confirmation of what many suspected when the EDL announced they were to march in Manchester and Leeds –a real and very serious escalation of fascist activity in Britain. Historical experience – including in with the National Front in Britain in the 1970s and 80s - that the fascists have, at a certain point, to try to take the streets. Their series of marches shows that they judge the time is ripe.

Starting with mobilisations in Luton, Harrow and Birmingham, the EDL are now encroaching on major northern cities where the BNP have demonstrated a sizeable degree of support in European elections.

Now the EDL are coming to protest in much larger numbers, with a national profile, a mean propaganda machine which has aided disgraceful coverage in the mainstream media portraying them as moderates, and the sympathy of police forces determined to enforce their ‘right’ to march using the Public Order Act, batons, riot gear, attack dogs and mounted regiments.

If they can continue to hold demonstrations such as this they will move towards the kind of violence and property destruction used against the Muslim community in Bradford in 2001. Nor will the left and he labour movement fail to be a target of the fascist thugs.

The antifascist movement needs to step up the game if we are to stop this from becoming a reality again. Unite Against Fascism in appealing to the same savage police who used attack dogs and batons on antifascists to ban the EDL aren’t up to that challenge. We need to form an Antifascist Defence League that will positively organise the self-defence of antifascist demonstrations which are likely to see increasing brutality from both the police and the fascists. We need to organise the youth that successfully challenged the EDL in Birmingham and Manchester into the movement, with a clear direction.

There is clearly now a divide within UAF on these questions, with many SWP members now recognising that this is what is necessary to go forward. But the right-wing of UAF are pursuing a conflicting strategy – one which shies away from confronting the fascists on the streets and has no intention of bringing in the energy and militancy of the Muslim youth that the EDL target, instead relying on the police. It is to this youth- not to the conservative community leaders that we need to directly appeal.

Saturday’s demonstration shows yet again the fruitlessness of appealing to the state to stop fascism, and danger of allowing protests to be directed by people who want to avoid clashes

The situation is now urgent. The EDF must be denied a victory in Leeds. Antifascists need to come together to plan the response and build an organised fighting force now. And all those in UAF who oppose the UAF leaders’ approach and want to drive the EDL off the streets – including members of the SWP - should break with the UAF leaders now and help form an Antifascist Defence League.

Stop the EDL marching in Leeds 31 October 2009, 12pm Leeds Art Gallery