Bradford Anti-fascists Stop EDL Riot
Published:
August 30, 2010 11:46
by
John Bowman
Neighbourhoods: bradford
The Bradford community stopped an EDL riot despite the actions of UAF and Hope Not Hate
The EDL tried to start a race war in Bradford today but they failed.
Bragging that this was 'the big one' and that they would bring 5000 thugs along to the city, they managed less than 1000.
As they gathered around 2pm no one could be in any doubt that the EDL are not just against 'Islamic extremism' but that they are racist to the core. They shouted "Allah is a paedophile" and "we love the floods."
Meanwhile UAF and Hope Not Hate had organised "peaceful celebrations of multiculturalism" in different parts of the city, away from the EDL and surrounded by police.
They were explicitly NOT counter demonstrations and were held to keep people from defending their city from the fascists.
But hundreds of people - black, white, asian - young and old gathered near Foster Square away from the 'festivals' to keep the fascists in check.
The EDL launched bottles and stones into the antifascist crowd, whilst the police left them alone - pushing the opposition back for their "own safety."
Not content with this, some particularly boozy fascists tried to break out of their police pen to start the riot they wanted. But the counter-demo had different ideas and moved in to stop them, pushing the 100 or so EDL members back towards the police.
And all this with no stewarding - left alone by the 'official' leaders of the antifascist movement like Weyman Bennett and Martin Smith.
To their credit, some SWP members joined the counter-demonstration to defend the city - a shame their party was not there alongside them.
We scored a small victory today, but it could have been a crushing defeat for the EDL and made them rethink their whole campaign of racist marches.
Lets break with UAF and Searchlight to do this - building an antifascist defence league to defend our communities permanently.
Contact email: workerspower@btopenworld.com
Latest articles feed
Hope Not Hate and the EDL in Bradford
Hope Not Hate did not organise an event on Saturday the 28th August in Bradford. The B Bradford event which was held in Infirmary fields was organised by the council and local people. Hope Not Hate did organsie a petition to have the EDL demo banned. However, when the EDL demo was banned from marching (this was the 'ban' many people have heard about) they did not seem to have any kind of plan B and had scared off a lot of local people from coming into town that day - the usefulness of which is debatable.
Some people who went to the event in Infirmary Fields said that they saw people with Hope Not Hate banners and leaflets turned away by security, who told them that this was 'not a political event' and that they 'could not talk about the "racist EDL"'.