Tag: Brighton Antifascists

article taken from schnews.org.uk

“They have become the fools in a carnival of anti-fascism” Stop MfE protestor.

Yesterday Brightonians once again played the unwilling hosts to the moronic March for England. As they have been for the last three years they were once again shown the door in spectacular fashion. They were on the wrong end of the full spectrum of resistance, from insults from passers-by to violent confrontations with autonomous anti-fascists – they were heckled and harried every step of the way. By 5 p.m the centre of town was entirely fascist free.

Sussex Police spent half a million quid to facilitate this dismal racist and homophobic trudge along the seafront. Without the cops the march wouldn’t have even started. “This march is all about hatred for the very town it takes place in – the EDL weren’t allowed into Tower Hamlets so why does Brighton have to put up with the March for England every year?” said one demonstrator we spoke to. “They’ve had their free speech – six years running now, and got the same answer every time”

The day began with most of the marchers in the Wetherspoons, getting pissed up. The gathering hordes of antifascists confronted them until  forced away by policeant. All the weird and wonderful of Brighton were amassing right along the 300 metre route of the march, wondering whether they’d all got out of bed for the 3 men with ten flags at the start of the march. A little behind schedule, due to some scuffling, the rest of the marchers were escorted into their pen.

From what SchNEWS saw the march has been whittled down to a hardcore of racist and homophobic thugs. Once the cops had pushed a brief anti-fascist blockade out of the way with the use of horses the parade was underway. Barely 70 of them mustered for the actual demo and were shouted down by a crowd of 1000 or so with whistles and placards. One lone trombone player drowned out their speeches. A banner was hung out of a seafront window reading “Racists go home” to be greeted with rapturous applause by the counter-demo. They came, they squelched four hundred yards in the pouring rain from a pub and they squelched back again.

Meanwhile little skirmishes were breaking out across town as groups of nationalists tried to make their presence felt. More militant antifascist groups roamed the town seeking to confront them. It was clear that quite a few fash had made the decision not to even attend the march. A significant proportion of the counter-demo therefore hung back awaiting events. SchNEWS has heard of a string of punch-ups and kick-offs happening all over town during and after the main march. Eventually the nationalists – almost all out of towners were corralled together by cops. Laughably some of the opposition actually came through with their promise to dress up as Antifa, well nice try fellas, but as one anti-fascist quipped “You walk among us – then you crawl away”.

Even though most of the official counter-demo made it’s way home to get dry Brighton still had a few surprises up it’s collective sleeve. Around 100 fash were boxed in on Queens Rd as the cops tried to clear the way back to the railway station. Roadworks barriers were hastily converted into barricades. The force of numbers and a still vocal counter-protest meant that the cops had no alternative but to force the fash onto trains and buses and get them out of town.

The March for England could have had a worse day out in Brighton… but not by much. The road they were supposed to be marching on partially collapsed two days before; they were harangued in the pub before the march, thousands of people turned up to drown out the 80-100 boneheads shouting about England; their special undercover forces were sussed and chased out within seconds of arriving; they could not drink anywhere in town without anti fascists turning up; and it rained. But at least they got to wave some flags at the commie scum.

Altogether there were twenty seven arrests – fourteen of those were anti-fascists. Please do not post footage on the internet without thinking carefully about what it shows.

If you witnessed an arrest or have any useful information then contact stopmfe@ymail.com

For more on Anti-Fascism http://antifascistnetwork.wordpress.com/