26/01/2025
Trotskyist monthly newspaper Workers Power says that Bristol's anti-fascist movement needs to learn lessons from the successful mobilisations against far right thugs that took place in August. An anonymous activist, writing in issue 414 of the newspaper, says "The counter demonstration showed that many people were prepared to mobilise at short notice. But it also showed that we would need better organisation and more numbers to stop pogrom-style attacks on refugees. A big weakness was the absence of Bristol’s large Muslim community, which mostly failed to turn out. The police, using their links with community leaders, were able to transmit their ‘stay at home’ message. While many Muslims came out locally to defend their own communities, most did not attend the counter-demonstration. The left needs to build links that can go around their leaders, who will often be more conservative and more easily swayed by the police than by us. This kind of work takes months and years, not weeks. There were also some serious weaknesses of organisation on the day. Even considering the short notice SUTR had, there was no apparent plan to organise people when they arrived. Despite the high likelihood of violence, there was no attempt to coordinate defence of the demo, let alone the hotel. Given they had called the protest at the exact location several hundred violent racists were expected to congregate, this was highly irresponsible. Coming face to face with the far right, many of us concluded that, even with twice the numbers, we were not going to be able to out-fight them on their own terms. These were hardened thugs whose idea of fun was to get drunk, take cocaine and start fights. To succeed, we needed to overwhelm them. On 7 August, a Wednesday night, 7,000 Bristolians turned out to oppose the far right. Our plan was straightforward, and repeated over and over again so as many people would know it as possible. We would congregate in Old Market, outside their stated target, and attempt to march to block them wherever they intended to go. On the night, Old Market was filled with counter protestors, and the far right failed to show. Old Market is a main road that links the city centre to the mixed, working-class communities in the east of the city. It is home to gay bars, not far from a number of mosques and linked to Stapleton Road, which houses a large number of black and Asian owned businesses and community organisations. The 7 August counter-demonstration was an example of grassroots self-organisation by a community to defend itself. Family, friends and workmates came together; local union branches put the word out and brought delegations. Hundreds of people pitched in to organise the demo, while left wing groups did their part too." For the full analysis, do visit the Workers Power web paper: https://workerspower.uk/how-bristol-saw-off-the-far-right/
