A FIGMENT OF HIS IMAGINATION
People’s History of the Anti-Nazi League
Geoff Brown
According to the publisher's synopsis
1977. Labour in government. Unemployment growing and despair
spreading. The National Front on the march and rising fast at the polls. Racist
attacks on Black and Asian communities increasing. Then came the Anti Nazi
League. A vibrant mass movement challenging the NF and racism on the streets,
in workplaces, in colleges and schools. The ANL broke the back of the NF. This
definitive history of the Anti Nazi League draws on extensive interviews with
leading figures and local activists, along with contemporary coverage in the
national, local and music press.
The conclusion
Anti-racism is a force as never before. The Black
Lives Matter movement that exploded after the murder of George Floyd by a
police officer, 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, saw between 7,500 to 10,000
protests in the US, protests that were much more multiracial and much more
likely to penetrate into suburban and into rural areas than had previously been
the case. ……on Saturday 6 June, 15000 marched in Manchester…….. a week later,
the home secretary, Priti Patel, told parliament that 210,000 had protested in
demonstrations in Britain in 160 towns and cities over the previous weekend.
Can we mobilise such forces to defeat today’s far right and
fascist threat? In the fight against the politics of despair, the history of
the ANL is a source of hope. Since the destruction of the NF, every attempt by
fascists to launch electoral or street-based fascist initiatives has been
defeated with the ANL’s successor organisations, Unite Against Fascism (UAF) and
Stand Up to Racism, (SUTR) playing a leading role. A tradition has been
established rejecting any alliance on the state in favour of mass collective
action……….
Clearly the reality is that anti-racism is not ‘a
force as never before,’ and those on the Stand Up To Racism march on 13 September
2025 were (very, very) fortunate that the state in the form of the metropolitan
police did not abandon protecting it in central London when the 5,000
participating were dwarfed by the 100,000+ on tommy Robinson’s event. Fact is,
of course, the UAF and SUTR have, even on much smaller events, for decades
hidden behind police lines when the going has got tough. The stewarding is a
joke and the SUTR organisation is an anti-democratic shame that, thanks to cash
from trade union bureaucracies, today gives paid organisers jobs to members of
the SWP rather than SUTR members electing – or deselecting – experienced
persons or young people with a talent for action for such roles.
In the mid-1990s I was the elected co-ordinator at a
self-funded members run centre in hackney called the Colin Roach Centre. Colin
had been killed in Stoke Newington police station in 1983. The centre provided
a wide range of free advice and, in addition to running our own campaigns that
included opposing police brutality and for workers’ rights, supported local
people self-organise campaigns on housing and against deportations.
Unsurprisingly, it attracted state attention and an undercover police officer
was charged with finding out more.
The centre issued a magazine and was able to publish a
series of booklets that sold in good numbers. The funds generated helped pay
for running costs and towards my wages.
Amongst our membership were a number of experienced
anti-fascists that included myself. In 1995 I wrote the second part of a £1
pamphlet titled Anti Nazi League – a critical examination 1977-81/2 and 1992-5.
Part 1 was written by Jim Kelly, who, unlike myself, was a member of the Socialist
Workers Party (SWP) and ANL.
30 years on the work is still relevant. In part 1, Jim
charts how the launch of the ANL signalled a move to the right by the SWP
leadership desperate to work with pop stars and labour politicians. Meanwhile,
anti-fascist militants were developing their own national links. In September
1978, the SWP refused to oppose a National Front (NF) march to Brick Lane as
that would have interfered with a carnival on the same afternoon. Branches who
had opposed the NF on the day were shut down.
Then there followed a heavy defeat for the NF at the 1979
general election to Margaret Thatcher, who had stolen their rhetoric. The NF abandoned
its strategy of electoral responsibility and turned even more violent. However,
when SWP comrades, virtually all of whom were working class and involved in
rank-and-file groups in their industries, fought back they were abandoned and
expelled. The party was over and the ANL was closed down.
As such despite the successes that Brown is able to identify
in his book, the anti-fascist politics of the 70s cannot provide the answers
for today. A new working-class agenda is needed.
Part 2 starts by recalling the 5,000 strong Anti Fascist Action
(AFA) march in Bethnal Green on 10 November 1991. Around 1,000 of the attendees
were members of the SWP. Fascism had been growing steadily across Europe in the
previous decade. This included across east London where the growth of the British
National Party was being opposed physically and politically by AFA.
So, without even discussing it at their national conference
that was held the same weekend in November it was suddenly announced by the SWP
leadership that members were now expected to rebuild the ANL. As many of the AFA
leadership included those who had been expelled from the SWP following the 1979
election there was never going to be an approach to work together. Instead the ANL
began with a squabble, over which MPs
would back them, with another new, this time black-led organisation, the Anti-Racist
Alliance.
In September 1992, the Blood and Honour music network
announced its intention of hosting a major gig that was expected to attract
around 1,500 fascists and racists. AFA mobilised at Waterloo to occupy the
meeting point for those attending the gig. In the events that followed, the
fascists’ plans were severely dented. Only around 300 made it to the music
which was played amidst a raging battle over who was to blame for the fiasco.
SWP/ANL members – who earlier in the day had held a 1,000
strong rally – totalled around 100 at Waterloo and yet when they produced a
programme for their subsequent massive 200,000 ANL strong carnival they listed Waterloo
as one of their successes.
The SWP/ANL then provided canvassing support for the discredited
Labour Party candidate on the Isle of Dogs during a local council by election.
Council workers then walked out when the British National Party (BNP) candidate
was elected but were persuaded by their national and local leadership to return
to work whilst the ANL ‘Council Workers against the Nazi’s’ grouping stood
silently by.
In 1994, the ANL, and others, then miss organised a
demonstration in Welling in which they failed to confront the fascists, who
were holed up in a nearby pub surrounded by the police who were protecting them
from AFA.
Meanwhile, the growth in Combat 18, which proved to be led
by fascists linked to the security services, was simply ignored by the ANL which,
under instruction from the SWP leadership, now abandoned the anti-fascist
struggle for trade union ones.
The booklet can be downloaded at:-
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