The last time we saw the Scottish Defence League – a few dozen thugs, football hooligans and out and out racists – all the way back in February, they were being bussed away by Lothian & Borders Polis, en route to being dumped in a field somewhere near Linlithgow. As the cavalcade of 500 cops and 40 SDL aboard a couple of doubledeckers swept by us, the hundreds of anti-fascists who’d been keeping them penned inside a pub all day said their farewells with chants of ‘The SDL are finished, the SDL are finished, na na na naaa’.

And for all intents and purposes, they were. Edinburgh was their second attempt at a demo, and an even bigger failure than their first ‘protest’ in Glasgow last November. After that, all they could scrape together in terms of a public assembly was a minuscule photo-op in Lockerbie, a ‘vigil’ that most of their own supporters were not even made aware of. More recently, however, they’ve threatened to arrive in Kilmarnock, penned in for Saturday 19 June.

However, over the past two days, the SDL have been plunged into yet another crisis. Their main organiser in Scotland, ‘Gusty’, has walked out on the “wank-stains” , “wankers” and “mouthy c*nts” that apparently make up a large element of the SDL’s support – a shocking new revelation of the far-right’s composition in itself! Clearly, there’s a huge amount of frustration within the SDL, particularly among their inner core, at their failure to replicate the EDL’s successes down south. There’s a number of reasons for this – the still relatively prevalent sectarianism within Scottish football that overrides any of the ‘casuals united against a common enemy’ pish that’s the backbone of the EDL. The SDL knows this, and, for all their rhetoric about just being  against ‘militant Islam’, have consistently tried to sidle up to organised loyalism. This too has failed, and the SDL have yet to make any signficant inroads into the Orange movement. However, perhaps most importantly, the SDL have been given no room in which to grow by anti-fascists. From day one, mass anti-fascist street mobilisations have effectively put a stop to any SDL aspirations of becoming a movement with any kind of momentum. Few, if any, EDL members will be making the trip up to Kilmarnock this weekend, given that those that did were less than happy with their SDL experience in Edinburgh.

This Saturday has the potential to be decisive in seeing off the SDL for good. The organisation is now leaderless, without direction, and lacking any solid base of support beyond a few keyboard warriors, has-been casuals and NF-wannabes. However, there is no room to be complacent in this. The SDL have effectively been handed over the town centre of Kilmarnock by East Ayrshire Council and the police – who’re denying the trade union led ‘Kilmarnock & Loudoun United‘ demo the right to assemble there. Meanwhile, the SDL are being allowed to hold what they claim is a 45 minute, peaceful static demonstration. If this works for them, they’ll keep doing it – in small and medium sized towns across Scotland. While their Glasgow demo in September has been thrown into disarray by their organiser leaving, others have mooted the possibility of demos in places including Perth, Alloa and Stirling.

The type of non-violent direct action that was so successfully used against the SDL in Edinburgh can now be used to finish them off forever. This is why we need anti-fascists from across Scotland  to come to Kilmarnock this Saturday and stop the SDL for good. No Pasaran!

ASSEMBLE 9.30AM AT KILMARNOCK CROSS, SAT 19 JUNE
Kilmarnock is 40 mins by train from Glasgow Central – trains at 0807, 0837 and 0912

You might’ve noticed the outpouring of facebook-rage/tabloid-hysteria that broke out a couple of weeks ago when it was reported that, apparently, England shirts are to BANNED during the World Cup. The rumours started from this article in The Sun, which claimed that police were advising pubs to prohibit the wearing of football shirts for reasons of safety during the tournament.

This obscure piece of police guidance on licensing was then taken massively out of context and portrayed as presumably just the latest development in the British state’s long standing war against the persecuted minority that is white, English men. Cue, seemingly hundreds of thousands of misinformed eejits jumping on a virtual bandwagon against the ‘fukin stupid ban, its PC gone mad!!1!11 I WONT REMOVE MY ENGERLAND SHIRT UNLESS THEY STOP  BEIN ALLOWD TO WEAR TURBANS AND BURKAS’, and so on, before the whole thing had become an unstoppable juggernaut of the kind of nationalism, xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria that’s come to be exemplified by the English Defence League.

Faced with this, almost immediately the Metropolitan Police -- where the guidance originated -- issued a stringent denial that this was ever intended as a ban on England shirts, flags or other attire. Like, duh. But it didn’t stop there -- soon enough, nearly every police force in England, from Somerset & Avon to West Midlands was being forced to issue statements that they have no intentions to ban England shirts.

It’s become deeply worrying how prevalent this sort of casual racism has become. While the BNP, what was and still to a large extent is the united party of the far-right, appears to be falling apart, the same cannot be said of the ideas they represent in society. The EDL go from strength to strength, while UKIP veer ever further towards the radical right. 600,000 people are members of a facebook group entitled ‘Its funny how our flag offends you but our benefits dont!’. It’s a well-worn tabloid narrative that the ‘PC Brigade’ are determined to clamp down on ‘national pride’ -- to the extent that now The Sun only has to drop the merest hint that this is taking place before it sparks another outbreak of BAN OUTRAGE hysteria. And it’s endemic of the constant media-lies and scapegoating of Muslims that within hours, somehow ‘the Islamics’ were being blamed for this obscure piece of guidance, apparently written by one police officer, intended for licensed premises.

Now, however, it has emerged that there is more to the story than first meets the eye. A local newspaper in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, reports that someone has been going round, purporting to be a Police Community Support Office, and asking people to remove England shirts and take down flags. So who could this bogus police officer be? Surely our tabloid media would not stoop to that low in a shameless bid to generate some cheap headlines about ‘PC PCs’ being a bunch of killjoy England-haters? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve attempted such a stunt: a few years back it emerged that The Daily Mail was offering money to Polish people to  drive Polish cars to Britain and then proceed to break UK traffic laws, with a Mail photographer conveniently in tow. Hmm… tabloid media stirring up racial tensions and scapegoating minorities? Who would have thought it.

ABOVE: exclusive footage Leftfield uncovered of a recent Sun editorial meeting

Yesterday afternoon saw around three thousands demonstrators take to the streets of Edinburgh to oppose Israel’s ongoing attacks on humanitarian aid missions en route to Gaza. The protesters marched, in soaring temperatures, on a lengthy route around the city, going past both the US Consulate and Bute House, the official residence of the First Minister. The demo was noisy and colourful, with hundreds of Palestinian flags being waved. There was a brief flashpoint when demonstrators tried to storm the Marks & Spencers store on Princes Street -- M&S being a company with extensive financial and political links to the Israeli state.

The demo came on the same afternoon that news was emerging that Israel has stopped the latest attempt by activists to break the illegal blockade of Gaza, seizing aid ship The Rachel Corrie and diverting it to an Israeli port. Fortunately on this occasion the Israeli military restrained themselves and there was no repeat of the violence which left at least 9 aid activists dead in the early hours of Monday morning.

Gaza is under an absolute blockade by Israel -- who claim that allowing goods and traffic into Gaza would allow the Islamist Hamas movement , who form the elected government of Gaza, to smuggle in weapons and rockets to use against Israel. Israel lets in some limited supplies to Gaza -- but even basics like cement and building materials are banned, as well as, inexplicably, toys, chocolate and shampoo, amongst many other goods. So when Israel says it’s still going to let aid through -- as long as the activists let it by taken in through the established military checkpoints -- what they really mean is that they’re going to confiscate most of it, as they won’t allow half of it in anyway.

This is why the aid activists are so desperate to reach Gaza -- as well as being a symbolic gesture against the blockade, the people of Gaza are in a truly desperate situation, with 80% surviving on UN handouts and unemployment hovering around 40%. And rather than weakening Hamas, the blockade only strengthens the extremist group, by both building up even greater resentment against Israel, and giving them a total grip over basic commodities in the strip, which they smuggle in through tunnels from Egypt.

The movement to end the blockade must continue to keep up the pressure on Israel, who’re hoping that the whole furore will soon blow over. Israel is a pariah state that must be cut off from normal relations with the rest of the world -- already a number of countries, including South Africa, Turkey, Ecuador and Nicaragua, have withdrawn their ambassadors from Israel in protest at their actions. While the UN Security Council have called for an investigation, Israel has already rejected this -- which can be added to the list of the dozens of other UN resolutions, demands and requests that Israel has bluntly ignored throughout the years. No more -- Israel must abide by international law. End the seige now!

On Tuesday 8 June, SSY is hosting a joint meeting with the SSP in Glasgow on recent developments in Palestine. Speaking at it will be Hasan Nowarah, who was on last week’s Aid Flotilla and was injured in the brutal IDF assault, before being detained and then deported from Israel. SSY’s Jenny Haston, who studied at university in Palestine, will be also be speaking.  The meeting’s at 7.30pm, Tuesday 8 June, upstairs in the Piper Bar on the corner of George Square, Glasgow. Not to be missed!

North East Against Racism flying demo

Saturday 29 May was meant to be the day of the English Defence League’s ’secret’ protest. So secret, in fact, that its location was revealed months ago as Newcastle upon Tyne, giving anti-racists enough time to organise a whopping three separate anti-racist protests, all ostensibly setting out to ‘oppose’ the EDL.

The outcome was far from decisive. The EDL turnout was not nearly as high as anticipated, with most reports giving estimates of between 800 and 1000 at their demonstration. The day passed off relatively peacefully, with no arrests on either side, and there was no repeat of the widespread rioting and violence the EDL caused in both Stoke and Dudley in recent months.

Sections of the anti-fascist movement have been quick to declare the day as  a ‘huge success’  and a victory, with ‘anti-racists dominating the city’. This is simply not true. The fact is that the EDL were able to hold a police-sanctioned march through the city centre, ending at an outdoor rally with speakers and music, before they dispersed en masse to pubs around the city to continue their drunken, xenophobic chanting. This ability to openly organise and assemble in the streets, effectively unopposed, was a massive confidence boost for the EDL. What’s worse is that later on the EDL continued to maintain a large presence in the city – groups of young males in EDL hoodies and t-shirts were on virtually every street corner, and outside every pub, well into the evening.

The EDL demonstration

The anti-fascist response was marked by its disunity and poor turnout. North East Against Racism (NEAR), a grassroots organisation similar to the Glasgow and Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliances, assembled early on, with the intention of staying mobile, avoiding police ‘kettles’, and confronting the EDL. NEAR had spotters around the city, as well as at the service station of the outskirts of Newcastle where some of EDL were gathering. Having discerned that the EDL were beginning to assemble outside of the central railway station, we marched down to confront them. Skirting through backstreets to avoid police lines, we reached the group of around 100 EDL. A tense stand-off ensued, with police forming lines to attempt the separate us from the EDL. Tactically retreating, we marched back and forward a number of times to the station. However, the NEAR demo, although called with the best of intentions and tactics, faced two main problems. We numbered less than 100, severely limiting our ability to disrupt the EDL or challenge police direction. On top of this, the EDL were everywhere – this was two hours ahead of their official demonstration start time, and EDL supporters were spread out across the city. No sooner had we massed beside one group of EDL supporters than another would start appearing behind us. We retreated back to the Monument, where local trade unions were holding a rally against the EDL. Unfortunately, this gave the police an excuse to keep us there, and the NEAR mobilisation disintegrated.

So what did the labour movement response to fascism entail? A couple of lonely union banners, shit music, some woman dancing with a hula-hoop, a few speakers and a shockingly low turnout of no more than 150 is probably the best way of summing it up. Outright lies as well – one speaker applauded the police’s actions while informing the assembled turnout of embarrassed looking trade unionists, confused onlookers and obscure paper sellers that the EDL had been ‘denied the right to march in our city today’. Surrounding the union rally was huge lines of police, which only served to alienate the public from the event, and either way, did not stop a leading EDL member, Joel Titus, from swaggering his way through the crowd earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, as the EDL began to assemble in the city centre, Unite Against Fascism were massing on a quiet road a couple of miles away. What followed was a stage-managed display of militancy, with angry chanting and plenty of talk of ’smashing’ the EDL, before the 500 or so protestors marched into a pre-arranged tight police kettle within what was just about shouting distance of the EDL. If you shouted REALLY loudly, that is. Which they did of course, not that you could even see the EDL through the thick lines of police, parked riot vans and so on.

The word reached us that NEAR were regrouping in another part of the city. Rumours abounded that the EDL were going to descend on Fenham, a mixed area of the city with a significant Asian population, as they had in Stoke, where groups of EDL went on the rampage through a predominantly Muslim area of the city, smashing up shops and vehicles. Avoiding police detection, NEAR maintained a strong presence in Fenham for the rest of the day. Thankfully, this precautionary step remained as just that and there was a no show from the EDL. Nonetheless, with the UAF and TUC demonstrations both packed up and gone home, all that remained in the city centre from the events of earlier on was large numbers of boozed-up EDL members, as well as the accompanying heavy police presence. Fortunately on this occasion, the EDL kept up their non-violent, peaceful facade and the streets of Newcastle remained free from the scenes of destruction seen elsewhere.

EDL: a fun day out for all the family!

It’s uncertain where the anti-fascist movement in England, or the EDL, go from here. It is clear that UAF, particularly following their disasterous attempts at playing militant in Bolton which ended in their leading members’ arrest and a farcical push-and-shove contest with the police, have no interest in direct confrontation with the fascists. They will continue to maintain that marches to show the EDL that ‘they are not welcome’, while barely setting sight on them, is the best strategy to oppose them. The NEAR demo on the other hand had real potential, but sadly lacked numbers. A decisive point could have been attempting to occupy the space where the EDL were finishing their demonstration. While police stood idly around the edges, leading EDL members were setting up a PA system in the middle of the Biggmarket. Several of us were able to wander freely through – with more numbers we could have taken the street.

The future for the EDL is difficult to predict. Last year, many predicted that they would burn themselves out within a few months. This has evidently not been the case – they now have a solid base of support that they can mobilise anywhere in England, from Aylesbury to Newcastle. In the short term, they look set to be planning demonstrations over the summer – perhaps an attempt to capitalise on the upsurge of football-related patriotism that England’s involvement with the World Cup will generate – including extremely provacative demos in Bradford and Tower Hamlets in east London. In the long term, the EDL leadership are attempting to make inroads into UKIP – a party with which they share both overt Islamophobia and an obsession with Geert Wildeers. With the BNP in organisational and electoral disarray, could a new popular front of the radical right, backed up by a street army of football hooligans, be about to emerge?

The tactics we need to defeat the far-right have already been displayed twice in Scotland. Mass street mobilisations to directly confront and stop the fascists can and will be effective. But for this to truly happen, unity of the anti-fascist movement is essential. Unfortunately – and as we’ve gone into on several occasions before – the established organisations have no such interest in directly stopping the fascists. Until then, its up to organisations like GAFA and NEAR to do so, and NEAR should be commended for taking the initiative with their demo in Newcastle on Saturday. It’s just a shame that there wasn’t a bigger turnout.

The resistance to today’s announcement of £6 billion worth of cuts in the public sector by the new ConDem government got off to an early start today, with SSY members in Glasgow storming a multi-storey car park at a busy city centre junction for a rush-hour banner drop.

The SSP red shirts will be engaging to anti-cuts actions throughout the day – watch this space!

Now, America doesn’t do trade unions a whole lot. Despite a militant and often bloody labour tradition stretching back 200 years, trade union membership in the United States is now under 15% of the total workforce, and militancy in the workplace is rare. However, when it does do unions, it manages to get them SO FUCKING RIGHT.

Covering a Lady GaGa song perhaps isn’t the most original idea in the world. It’s been done by everyone from American GIs in Afghanistan to erm, some topless guy jumping about his room on chatroulette. But how about charging into the hotel you work in, THEN performing the song with rewritten lyrics that highlight the poor pay and conditions being served to you by your employer? SSY thinks the labour movement in the UK could learn much from our forward-thinking American friends. No doubt the BA dispute would have been solved months ago, if only Unite union leaders Derek Simpson and Len McLuskey had taken it upon themselves to star in a reworked version of Busted’s ‘Air Hostess’. And indeed, we’re sure that the posties would have their battle ages ago if CWU leader Billy Hayes had thought about doing a hilarious youtube spoof of the Postman Pat theme song. Until then, we’ll just have to make do with watching the awe-inspiring attempts of our comrades across the Atlantic. Workers’ rights are hot!

UPDATE: in the interests of balance, here’s a nice bit of union-busting from Wal-Mart:

New overlord of Great Britain David Cameron is visiting Edinburgh tomorrow. We’re going down to form an, ahem, ‘welcoming party’. Join us!

Meet 12.30pm outside the Scottish Parliament – bring flags, banners, yer mates et cetera.
For those travelling from Glasgow, meet 11am sharp at Queen St station.

Remember the Scottish Defence League? Not very keen on Islam, quite like sitting in pubs, don’t want to surrender to the IRA, seem to always end up on a bus filled with riot cops… yeah, that lot. The ones we chased out from Glasgow in our thousands. Then Edinburgh.

Well, they’re claiming to be back. On top of a planned ‘official’ demonstration in Glasgow this September, when they’ve applied to the council for a march from Blytheswood Square to the cenotaph in George Square, they’ve announced their intention to hold a demo in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire next month, on Saturday 19 June.

Details are thin on the ground at the moment, and it remains to be seen whether this will turn out to be as much of a farce as their supposed ‘Lockerbie demo’, which turned out to be a carload of them driving in for an afternoon, somehow managing to escape the attention of the world’s media, anti-fascists, the police and indeed, local residents, taking a couple of pictures to prove they were there, then going home.

The SDL have however been mooting the possibility of a demo in Kilmarnock for a while, hoping to capitalise on a proposed new Muslim centre and Mosque in the town.

One thing is clear: if the SDL do go ahead with their demo in Kilmarnock, they will not go unopposed. As in Glasgow and Edinburgh, the SDL will be denied freedom of the streets, in their bid to intimidate minorities and spread division. They shall not pass.

Earlier this evening over a hundred young people gathered in central Glasgow to show their opposition to the imminent arrival of the first Tory regime in thirteen years -- despite the best efforts of the state and FACEBOOK to sabotage the demonstration.

Last night, an event was created on Facebook calling for mass opposition to the new Tory government, announcing plans to take to the streets of Glasgow this evening. By this afternoon, over 1700 people had confirmed their attendance. Similar numbers planned to attend to-be-announced demonstrations in Liverpool and Manchester, while 40,000 had joined the original group for a ‘riot’ in London.

However, this afternoon Facebook, without explanation, removed all the anti-Tory protest groups from the internets, in an atrocious attack on democracy and the right to protest. With Glasgow the only event with a location and time confirmed, however, the organisers went ahead with the event this evening, albeit with much reduced numbers. That said, with less than 24 hours notice, and no activity to build it apart from a Facebook event, a turnout of over 100 was pretty decent. Especially when you consider that most of those people were not activists or aligned with a political group, but just young people angry about the return of the hated Tories.

From 6pm, demonstrators started gathering in the city’s George Square, and over the evening a number of different young people spoke over the megaphone, giving their own views on the Tories-in-power and why they’d felt the need to take to the streets tonight.

Young people from Motherwell spoke of the last time the Tories were in power and the devastating effect it had on their local community, with the annihilation of major industry, including the Ravenscraig steel mill near their own town. Others spoke of the lack of democratic mandate the new Tory government has from the Scottish people, with us now subjected to five years of rule from a government a tiny minority of Scottish people voted for. A volunteer at the Unity Centre, which offers help to asylum seekers in Glasgow, spoke of the Tories’ racist anti-immigration policies. SSY speakers made the connection with the current struggles against austerity measures in Greece, as well as underlining the case for Scottish independence.

Other highlights of the demo included the many people passing by who stopped to chat to us and why we’d taken to the streets tonight to oppose the Tories, not to mention the symbolic burning of a David Cameron effigy!

The demo was not everything we hoped for -- in no small part due to the actions of Facebook who, acting in collusion with police, ensured that all those planning to attend through the event received a message announcing it was cancelled. Nevertheless, around 100 mostly young people from Glasgow and the surrounding area did take to the streets tonight to show their opposition to the new Tory administration, and their anti-working class agenda of cuts, war and state-sponsored racism. And we burned a fucking effigy of David Cameron in George Square!

Stormtroopers for Socialism

Burnt Face Cam

We’ve had a lot of stuff on the blog recently about the way in which immigration and asylum are being treated in this election – from Labour lumping the subject in as ‘crime and immigration’ in their manifesto, to Brown, Cameron and Clegg all trying to outflank each other on the right while talking about it during the televised debates.

Which is why the release of this new asylum myth-busting pamphlet, produced by people working alongside Asylum Seekers in Glasgow, couldn’t have come a better time . Not only does it expose some of the most popular asylum myths for the outright lies that they are, but it also examines why this is happening – and the agenda of some of the biggest perpetrators spreading these falsities. It’s brilliant – go read it, and get everyone you know to as well.

“Many people believe asylum seekers are one of our society’s biggest problems. No wonder. The scarestories printed every day in the Sun, Express, Star and Mail are hardly ever challenged in the press or in parliament. That’s why we’ve set out some facts that might make you see things differently. We think they show that asylum seekers are not causing these problems, but that asylum seekers are being used as scapegoats. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Blame the other fella. Divide and rule. We produced this leaflet because we’re fed up too. Fed up with services that get worse instead of better. Fed up with council tax hikes and impossible house prices. Fed up with schools and hospitals being run down and sold off piecemeal. Fed up with low pay and crime. Above all, we’re fed up being lied to about why this is happening.”

DOWNLOAD THE LEAFLET HERE