The Scottish Defense League (SDL) was once again run out of a major Scottish
city on Saturday the 20th of February by militant anti-fascist
demonstrators. This was the Scottish wing of the English Defense League’s
second attempt at staging a march in Scotland, after they had been denied a
march and bussed out of town in Glasgow. This time the SDL leadership were determined
not to see a repeat of Glasgow and resorted to bringing in as many people as
they could muster from south of the border to supplement their depleted and
demoralised Scottish forces. However, this was all in vain as the Edinburgh
Anti Fascist Alliance, which had come in to being with the specific purpose of
physically opposing the SDL in Edinburgh, organised an effective counter demo
that successfully tracked down the bulk of the SDL and made sure their violent
and racist views would not be given truck on the streets of Edinburgh. However,
it was not a straight forward victory, and the anti fascist movement faced a
number of challenges running up to, and on, the day.
After the Edinburgh date was announced the Edinburgh Anti Fascist
Alliance was immediately set up to directly oppose the SDL in Edinburgh. A
similar alliance had been set up in Glasgow and many of the leading organisers
were present at EAFA’s debut planning meeting contributing valuable experience
and advice. A few members of Unite Against Fascism also turned up and made
appeals for co-operation and assured those present that both groups could work
together. It was decided that the only way to effectively oppose fascism would
be to organize a direct response calling on as many people as possible to
mobilize to prevent the SDL from marching. This would require more public
meetings and a huge leafleting and postering campaign across town. Despite EAFA
having next to no funding, collections and fundraisers raised enough money to
ensure that most of Edinburgh was covered with posters, and public areas and
football games were flyered. On top of this EAFA gained media publicity when
they wrote to pubs around town asking that the SDL be banned from congregating.
All this work ensured that, on the day, 300 – 400 Anti- Fascist protesters turned
up at the meeting point and were comprised not only of the organized
left but also workers and youth from all over Edinburgh.
Notably Unite Against Fascism waited until just about a fortnight
before the demo before doing anything. Very few of their posters appeared until
a few days before the rally and when members of EAFA attended their public
meeting, with under a week to go, it was clear that very little logistical planning
had been made. It became apparant that UAF were planning on holding a “celebration
of multiculturalism” instead of opposing the fascists. They argued we should
rely on the police to stop the SDL, which given recent events with the EDL in
Stoke and in Glasgow (where the SDL were allowed briefly to appear on the streets
until a surge of counter demonstrators made it clear this would not be possible) seemed complacent at best.
On the Saturday, EAFA decided to meet outside Waverly train station in the
town center at 9:30am so as to be well placed and ready to respond as soon as
word came in from our spotters of the SDLs whereabouts. Another demonstration
organised by students from Edinburgh University had gathered at 10:00am but had
chosen a location deliberately near the EAFA meeting point so the two groups
could join up and confront the Fascists together. The UAF demonstration was due
to begin at 12.00pm where religious leaders and speakers from the Nationalists,
Tories and the right wing of the Labour Party would have a platform and then
was to march around town on a preplanned route.
On the day EAFA waited at the rally point until people coming from
Glasgow and other areas in Scotland arrived and once a sufficient amount of
time passed, marched down the main street to meet with the separate student march
who had gathered. As we approached it become clear that the students had
organized well and there were over 200 of them waiting to join with us.
Surprisingly the UAF were leafleting right next to the students and
interestingly had brought along their loudspeakers and banners, perhaps they
intended to join with the Anti-Fascist groups after all! After a lot of waiting
around, EAFA received information that the SDL were gathering at "Jenny Ha’s" near
the bottom of the Royal Mile. Everybody set off together in good spirits
marching briskly up the hill on route to the fascists. The UAF, who had been
taken by surprise, chased the march and shockingly unfurled their banners at
the front of the march in order to try and direct demonstrators away from the
SDL and towards their own meeting point, despite the fact that they hadn’t
lifted a finger in building the movement. Furthermore, their naked opportunism
was personified by the UAF leadership of Weyman Bennet and Amir Anwar who used
their megaphones to try to confuse people by falsely suggesting that in fact we
were marching towards fellow anti fascists. This behavior shows how far the
leadership of the UAF will go to dominate and restrain any form of
direct antifascist activity. Despite the UAF leadership’s best efforts their
cynical tactics had even less success than in Glasgow and they were simply
ignored, even many people who were with the UAF ignored their leaders and kept
on marching.
Despite the police’s best efforts to prevent the anti-fascist demonstrators
from getting near the SDL, through sheer determination and mobility the EAFA
march outmaneuvered the police lines and trapped the SDL in the pub by
gathering at either side of the royal mile. Then in a repeat of Glasgow, chartered
busses arrived to remove the 70 odd SDL hooligans from Edinburgh for "their own safety."
Despite winning a clear victory important lessons must be learned from
the events of the 20th. Despite the best intentions of some of its
members, UAF has become entrenched in popular frontism. Its leaders have become
pseudo political figures trying to balance between militant working class
anti-fascism and combating the far right by “mobilising civil society”. The
right wing politicians and business types that they seek to use in their campaign are
fully responsible for the economic crisis and are the biggest cheerleaders of
capitalism. It is the poverty and despair caused by capitalism, combined with a
right wing Labour government responsible for implementing cuts in public
services, that has allowed the BNP to develop and provided a base for the
SDL/EDL.
It is only by organising on an independent class platform and being
willing to physically oppose the fascists that we can succeed as both Edinburgh
and Glasgow have shown. On both occasions advanced layers of youth, but also
older workers, carried the day, yet EAFA and GAFA lacked the backing of the
labour movement in an organized capacity. This week, the Unison Labour Link
committee in Scotland adopted a position of supporting physically opposing the
BNP, this is a welcome step in the right direction and it is the duty of
anti-fascists in the labour movement to connect the struggle against the
thugs of the SDL/EDL and the racist poison of the BNP with the wider struggle for jobs, pay and conditions. We
need to raise the argument that the bosses, alongside their political
representatives, are responsible for the attacks in living standards we are
currently experiencing and that all workers have an interest in fighting back
together.
Fascists can never be defeated by only opposing them wherever they attempt
to organize. They must be tackled by removing the conditions that allow them to gain a hearing from ordinary people.
Socialism is the true anti-fascism; policies, such as full employment, an £8 an
hour minimum wage and full union rights for all workers alongside the
nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy in the interests of society as a whole and
not profit would ensure that the conditions of despair that the EDL/SDL/BNP
feed off would no longer exist in society.
However, the scale of victory for the anti-fascists should not be played
down. For the SDL the defeat was bitter and humiliating, Edinburgh was an
important symbolic and strategic target and after the defeat in Glasgow their
leadership was determined that their racist organization would get the kick
start it needed. Despite in many ways lacking a clear political standpoint EAFA demonstrated
the potential of mass working class militancy. The Scottish Defense League will
struggle to regain any momentum after these significant defeats.
