Monthly Archives: September 2012

2012/09/30

Walsall fallout

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

As members of the East Midlands EDL divisions are quick to point out, yesterday’s demo in Walsall was a disaster for them. Only 150 turned up, continuing the downward trend in numbers since the start of the year. They attacked the police with missiles, many of which missed and hit their own side, and then had a massive whinge when the police battered them in return. Now I’m not keen on seeing people getting beaten up by the police, but these morons shouldn’t have expected any other treatment, especially with all their “fuck OB” posturing after Walthamstow.

Leicester’s Steve “Bod” asked his fellow patriots how the day had gone seeing as he, like so many others, couldn’t be arsed to turn up. Fellow East Midlands Infidel, Nicolette Voss, was clear: “Bad Bod, mindless violence will make EDL look bad x”. Nottingham chump, Martin Wealthall reckoned that it was “very messy” and Leicester’s Glen Warren thought it was “propa bad” and that “loads been done by coppers”.

The EDL were whingeing about the police attacking their stewards “who are there to help with crowd control” (usually to stand in line to be the first ones hit by other EDLers when they kick off), before threatening, once again, to withdraw police liaison. Vinny James was sceptical: “No Police Liaison – heard that before…” and received a lot of support from other EDL members fed up of the leadership’s endless lies.

It’s all gone very wrong for the EDL in the last month and their return to Walthamstow at the end of October looks likely to be a massacre for them.

Comments Off on Walsall fallout   |  tags: , , | posted in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire

2012/09/30

Anti-fascist action against EDL coach company

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

While the EDL were getting their pre-demo beauty sleep on Friday night, anti-fascists from Leicester were busy locking up the gates of GH Watts coach company, the company that has been ferrying East Midlands divisions around the country on their pointless excursions for a few years. While the EDL aren’t admitting whether it had any effect on their travel plans, the action will certainly have sent a message to the fascist-enablers who run the company and might make coach hire a wee bit more difficult for the EDL in future. Well done Leicester Antifascists!

Last night we took action against G H Watts coach company at their depot on Foxholes Road, Braunstone, Leicester. Their gates were D locked shut in a number of places and their locks were glued. We did this because G H Watts have consistently supported the EDL over the past few years.

The EDL are nothing more than class traitors. Their leadership have formed an alliance with investment bankers and property speculators who send their army of useful idiots to do their bidding. They try to blame all of society’s ills on their favourite scapegoats, the Muslims, in the same way that the Nazis blamed Germany’s problems on the Jews. These attempts to divide the working class along lines of race and religion divert anger away from our real class enemies: capitalists, politicians and bosses.

As antifascists we see it as our duty to combat the reactionaries of the EDL and all the tiny groups riding along on their coat tails. This includes taking action against companies that profit from their politics of hatred.

For working class action against fascism! No pasaran! – they shall not pass.

We have been exposing GH Watts’ role in servicing the EDL over the past year and have spotted their coaches at Walthamstow (Sep ’12) and Luton (May ’12) as well as Bristol (Jul ’12), Rochdale (Jun ’12), Hyde (Feb ’12), Cambridge (Jul ’11) and Blackburn (Apr ’11). Leicester and Nottingham divisions regularly travel in GH Watts coaches and sometimes they pick up Derbyshire members as well.

Sometimes they’ve opted for other companies, such as Nottingham’s Silverdale coaches for their infamous trip to Tower Hamlets where the coach was attacked by anti-fascist locals and trashed. The hapless EDL were escorted off their bus by police who then arrested them all, leading Nottingham organiser Richard Carroll to release a hilarious ‘STATMENT’ on the Nottingham EDL site.

Comments Off on Anti-fascist action against EDL coach company   |  tags: , , , , | posted in Leicestershire

2012/09/28

Fountain fails again

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

We’re a bit slow off the draw with this one so apologies for the delay. Back at the start of the month there was a by-election for the Lincolnshire County Council seat of Nettleham & Saxilby. Far right chancer, Elliott Fountain of the English Democrats, fresh from a resounding defeat in the Lincoln East by-election, thought he’d have another go. He came last with only 21 votes (less than 0.9%) in a truly shocking performance. This is even less than the 24 votes he got when he came last in Lincoln East.

This is another major failure for the rabidly anti-immigration Fountain, who is a candidate for the Lincolnshire Police Commissioner post. The EDs must be getting tired of him pissing their deposit money up the wall!

Comments Off on Fountain fails again   |  tags: , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/26

EVF: The latest fascist brand

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

With the EDL disappearing faster than a pile of coke in front of Tommy Robinson, other far right groups are trying to steal the rats jumping the ship. Nick Griffin is making a concerted effort to woo disillusioned EDL members with Zionist conspiracy tapes made in his bedroom and numerous new splinter groups are springing up. Last week we reported on the New Patriots Alliance (NPA), a Bill “Muslim killer” Baker-led outfit that tried to poach Nottingham EDL’s Tony Curtis, until he decided they were too racist for him. One of its competitors is the English Volunteer Force (EVF) which has sprouted a handful of local ‘divisions’ including one in Lincoln.

Apparently, the EVF was started in July by “EDL co-founder John Sheridan with significant backing”. This “significant” backing amounts to around 180 likes on Facebook and 60 odd people saying they will be attending the EVF’s first event in February 2013 so it’s not exactly setting the nationalist world on fire. The “anonymous” leader excites EVF enthusiast Andrew Chambers who writes:

i think the main man should be invisable to the uaf,so can,t be continually brow beaten by leftwing scum,and if the lefties don,t know who to point the finger at the leader is,nt going to have to spend half his time defending himself from character assainations by the far left and treacherous mainstream liberal media

Unfortunately for Andrew, we know exactly who “John Sheridan” is. It is the alias of former EDL leader, Chris Renton. Renton was a BNP activist in Weston Super Mare before joining the EDL and tried to make links between the EDL and Combat 18. He was outed by another former EDL leader, Paul Ray, and since then the dreaded “lefties” have been digging all kinds of shit on him. According to Ray, Renton was the EDL’s enforcer on its web forums and Facebook pages:

The groups online presence is enforced with a strong hand and any comment or hint of debate is deleted and the person who questions EDL tactics denounced as a traitor, repeated ‘offences’ by an EDL member such as the crime of questioning EDL policy or suggesting new tactics for protests that do not involve fighting the police or UAF members are met with a vicious smear campaign led by none other than the Sheridan alias himself. One woman, a 57 year old Grandmother who will remain nameless decided she would email the EDL’s leaders to give her support and offer some ideas, she was then met with a barrage of hate mail including messages from the Sheridan alias himself, many of which had a crude sexual twist to them, all of which are too shocking to print here.

Sounds like the kind of chap a good wholesome patriotic movement needs!

Very naughty boy: Chris Renton AKA “John Sheridan”

Renton fell out of love with the EDL some time ago and is now busy promising to lead his Volunteer Force back to the fabled glory days:

We watch on with utter disgust the absolute implosion of the English Defence League, What the fuck has happened?! From thousands of die hard warriors to a couple of hundred pissed off people, EVF will mirror the early EDL of the days of stoke/manchester/nottingham, I absolutly promise this. No Surrender Ever!

The EVF seems to want emulate the EDL without police liaison, and without the British Freedom disaster (“The EVF think politics is not the way forward”) i.e. holding flashmobs and fighting cops, Muslims and anti-fascists. They have apparently forgotten that the EDL have never managed to get more than a few hundred to their flashmobs, numbers which were never anywhere near as high as their publicly advertised demos. They are also clearly not learning from the experiences of the Infidels, who tried to do something very similar when they split away from the EDL, and have failed to get significant numbers to their events.

The EVF are vowing that all the money from their £30 hoodies and merchandise is going back into the organisation. Let’s hope it’s not the leadership’s drugs and booze fund this time!

Bizarrely, for a group called the English Volunteer Force, they are going to a troops homecoming parade in Bridgend, Wales, in October. At least the EDL made up a Welsh Defence League before showing their faces west of the border.

The EVF are not shy about saying they are against all Muslims:

Whilst we stand against Militant Islam, We do however feel militancy is deeply embedded in Islam as a whole, Within their ideology and in the way practicing Muslims conduct their lives and by the way the vast majority choose to not integrate with our core values…

We are absolutly convinced this country is currently being Islamified.

…err, right. Their response to this “Islamification” is going to be a demo in Trafalgar Square next February, but we reckon the 65 boneheads who’ve agreed to turn up so far are going to look a little lost.

The EVF website’s “policies” section carries a fairly hilarious smear of their anti-fascist opponents as well:

We see the Far-left and the politically funded Anti-fa and Unite Against Facism (UAF) as a great danger to our country as we believe they have created the conditions that have permitted Muslim extremists to push our laws to their boundries.
These people have absolutly no morals whatsoever, They are simply deluded and extremly dangerous

This is a bit rich coming from a group that takes inspiration from the Ulster Volunteer Force, a loyalist paramilitary group in Northern Ireland that murdered over 400 civilians during it’s campaign of executions and bombings. They followed the maxim that if “you couldn’t get an IRA man you should shoot a Taig” according to their leader Gusty Spence. In 1971 the UVF carried out the McGurk’s Bar bombing which killed 15 Catholic civilians and in 1974 they planted bombs in Dublin and Managhan that killed 33 people and injured around 300. During the mid-’70s, a unit of the UVF dubbed the Shankill Butchers carried out a number of murders of Catholic civilians in which victims were abducted at random, beaten and tortured before having their throats slashed. In 1994, UVF members carried out a machine gun attack on a pub in County Down on the basis that its customers were watching the Republic of Ireland playing in the World Cup and were assumed to be Catholics. Six people were killed.

The UVF were also involved in dealing drugs within the Protestant community, and according to Alan McQuillan, assistant director of the Assets Recovery Agency, this dealing “is generally run for personal gain by a large number of people”. Ex-policeman Colin Robert Armstrong, whose luxury homes were seized in a high profile drugs case, had links to the UVF.

The EVF, then, is part of the move towards a more racist and violent mode of operation in the far right, following the collapse of the EDL. This realignment hasn’t worked for the Infidels and we fully expect the EVF to follow them into obscurity.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/18

Tony Curtis leaves the EDL

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Nottingham’s Tony Curtis, until very recently “number 3” in the EDL after Tommy’n’Kev, has left the group, and it hasn’t been an amicable split.  His departure has stirred up a very satisfying shitstorm in the EDL, with accusations and counteraccusations being chucked about right left and centre (but mostly right!).  Curtis was a popular figure in the EDL, and was favoured as a potential leader by some discontented members, who seemed to enjoy the paranoid speeches he often made at demos; it seems that muppet-in-chief Mr. Tommy was starting to feel threatened by Curtis’s increasing prominence.

Watching the EDL go down the drain – Tony Curtis

Curtis had been working on building a new far-right grouping, the “New Patriot Alliance” (which must have ruffled Tommy’s feathers a bit)….but then Curtis decided he wouldn’t join the NPA gang because the NF were involved, and they’re too racist for his liking.  So, now he’s without a political home, caught between the far-right and the far-far-right, nursing his hurt pride and trying to work out where he can vent his anti-muslim feelings.

It will be interesting to see how this affects EDL morale in our region.  As mentioned, Curtis has made his mark in EDL circles, and his barney with tin-pot Tommy may push even more disillusioned members to show regional loyalty and abandon the group.  It’s likely that it won’t just be Curtis who’s missing from the East Midlands contingent at the next little EDL demo.

Comments Off on Tony Curtis leaves the EDL   |  tags: , | posted in Nottinghamshire

2012/09/17

Some fascists went to the seaside

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

The National Front made it to the seaside on Saturday, attracting around 40 assorted fascist dregs from all over the UK to their much-hyped national demo against the reopening of a Skegness slaughterhouse.  They were confined to Tower Gardens by the police, out of the way of the general public or any opposition, where they made speeches to each other.  They are, of course, claiming the event as a great success, with fantasy claims of 150 attendees being made – think of a number lads, any number! – but were disgruntled about being kept out of the town centre and in the park, well away from anywhere most locals were likely to have seen them. They weren’t too happy about the leaking of their redirection point either.

 

Pondlife in the park

 

Although the demo did not bring the NF the outreach opportunities they were hoping for, the abattoir remains a contentious issue in the town.  We must be on the lookout for further attempts (including, certainly, from the BNP) to exploit this issue for their own ends.

 

Comments Off on Some fascists went to the seaside   |  tags: , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/14

Redirection point for NF Skegness demo – leaked

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Some people just can’t be trusted to keep a secret! We have received info on the redirection point for the NF’s demo in Skegness tomorrow (Saturday 15th), which is trying jump on a bandwagon around the proposed reopening of the Heath Road abattoir on halal lines.

The motley crew of fascist losers will be meeting at the large car park between the boating lake and the beach, between 10.30 and 11 on Saturday morning.  They will be redirected from there to a nearby pub (unfortunately we don’t know which, but there are several likely options), and aim to be out of the pub and shuffling off to their demo before midday.

The large car park by the lake can be seen on the following map :

 


View Larger Map

 

We’re grateful that the far right is as full of grasses and gobshites as ever, and we’re happy to share this leaked info with a wider audience!

 

Comments Off on Redirection point for NF Skegness demo – leaked   |  tags: , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/12

Look who’s going to Skegness

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

As the NF work themselves up into a frenzy about the importance of their national demonstration in Skegness, we thought it might be good to let the world know what a bunch of Nazi dregs will be turning up on Saturday.

Kev Watmough

Aging Nazi from West Yorkshire, renowned for grassing up his fellow fascists and running away whenever militant anti-fascists turn up to give them a kicking. Kev is the man behind Nazi hitlist website Redwatch, which posts pictures and the personal details of people who turn up to anti-racist and trade union events in the vain hope that other fascists will do something about them. He has quite a history of involvement with fascist groups in Leeds and Bradford, including the BNP and Combat 18. More recently he was the leader of Nazi groupuscle, the British People’s Party, best know for paedophilia and bomb making. Oh yeah, and opposing hip-hop… no, seriously.

In recent times the BPP seems to have imploded over the involvement of one of its few remaining members with a Chinese Nazi. Obviously such dangerous race mixing could not be allowed by Kev. Because, like most far right factions these days, the BPP has hardly anyone in it, in recent times Kev has been cosying up to the National Front, North West Infidels, Combined ex-Forces and anyone that’ll have him. Needless to say, his reputation as a grass mean that he has many enemies even within the fascist movement, such as the author of the “White Lies!” blog:

This blog deals with Kevin Richard Watmough who has systematically damaged the movement here in the UK and will expose him for what he is. A Liar, A Cheat, A Rapist and long time Agent Provocateur.

 

Shane “Diddyman” Calvert

Best mates with Llama abuser, John Snowy Shaw, and number 2 in the North West Infidels, Shane Calvert AKA Diddyman, has been getting excited about a weekend in Skeggy. Best known for climbing on a roof in full camo gear to say that paedos should get the noose or something, Blackburn’s Diddyman was also recently arrested for smashing up his ex’s house in Hartlepool. Probably realising the NWI are going nowhere, he has been trying to make links with the NF (also going nowhere) so that they can at least have a bit of company on their pointless journey.

Loyalist fascists

A number of those going to Skegness demonstrate their admiration of loyalist terrorist groups such as “Ulster Volunteer Force”, named after the paramilitaries who carried out bombings on civilian targets in Northern Ireland, and “Johnny Adair” named after the Ulster Defence Association commander also responsible for massacres of civilians. “Johnny Adair” is also a member of Liverpool Irish Fascists.

Miscellaneous Nazis

A number of other openly fascist skinheads have also notified their attendance including Leicester fan of Nazi band, Section 88, Sean Guilford and Ade Brooks, a Manchester NF bonehead and admirer of Hitler-worshipping paramilitaries, the British Movement, and white power gig organisers, Blood & Honour.

As you can see, this bunch are very keen on protecting animals and aren’t racist. Honest.

In good news on Skegness, Bristol Animal Rights have published this excellent statement clearly rejecting the far right’s attempts to use animal rights as a cover for xenophobia and racism:

The focus on halal slaughter is a sign of racial and cultural discrimination. When the U.K homes battery farms and companies like the East Anglian Pig Company (exposed by Animal Equality early in 2012) it cannot be argued that halal is “more cruel” than other practices in the UK. Instead, it gives fire to sentiments spread by far-right organisations such as the British National Party, National Front, English Defence League and others, who disguise racial hatred as patriotism, or in this case, animal rights. They have no interest in genuine animal liberation, only pushing their own political agenda.

They conclude:

We believe that groups struggling for animal liberation should have militant anti-fascism as an intrinsic part of their politics, and wherever and whenever fascism appears it should be met with strong opposition.

There has also been the announcement of a counter-demonstration against the NF’s planned demo.

Comments Off on Look who’s going to Skegness   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/08

Skegness slaughterhouse: Not a racist campaign?

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

We’ve already said quite a bit about the BNP and NF involvement in the anti-halal slaughterhouse campaign. But what about the supposedly mainstream page set up by Tess Turner? The admin of Say No to Halal slaughter in Skegness has said she won’t be demonstrating because she doesn’t “want to be part of something as extreme as the National Front.” However, a quick look at her Facebook page suggests that she does hold islamophobic and racist views.

A recent post complains about how “these barbaric people are all set to take over the world”.  “Our government are letting this happen to our Country,I fear for my children and my grandchildren” she continues. This looks like another reheated counter-jihad conspiracy theory about Muslim takeover of the world, in the mould of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Muslims are a small and widely discriminated against minority in this country and have a tiny influence in rural Lincolnshire. The idea that they are taking over is pure nonsense.

I notice that all of the page’s anger is directed at halal and Muslims rather than kosher and Jews, perhaps because Muslims seem like an easier target and fewer people are willing to defend them.

Further evidence that the page is motivated by xenophobia rather than a principled concern for animal welfare can be found in the fact that, like the BNP and NF, the campaign only focuses on halal slaughter and does not generalise at all to factory farming and cruel practices more widely. In the early days, a number of animal rights activists and vegans joined the group but they were kicked out for “having a go” at the meat eaters who dominate the group.

Turner justified this with some rather tortured logic. “i could quite easily become vegetarian it wouldn’t bother me”, which begs the question of why she doesn’t if she cares about animal cruelty so much? What is her agenda? “but” she continues ,”if a million people turned veggie tomorrow, no less animals would be killed”. That’s just rubbish. In 2011 the average meat eater ate 26.1 animals. If 1m of those went veggie 26.1m fewer animals would have to be killed each year. That sounds like quite a big deal for the level of animal suffering in farming if you ask me.

“If an animal is going to be bred to feed us, the least we can do is give it a good life … and a humane and pain free death” Turner concludes. That’s all well and good in principle but begs the question of why the campaign doesn’t tackle our “indigenous” factory farming practices and production line slaughterhousing? Is it because, in the logic of the National Front, these practices aren’t “alien”? Because they involve British cruelty for British animals? Until these questions can be answered, the “mainstream” Skegness campaign looks rather suspect.

Comments Off on Skegness slaughterhouse: Not a racist campaign?   |  tags: , , , | posted in Lincolnshire

2012/09/05

National Front announces Skegness demo

By East Midlands Anti-Fascists

Not to be outdone by fascist rivals, the BNP, the National Front have said that they will be demonstrating against the halal slaughterhouse in Skegness. The explicitly racist party announced that it will be holding a demonstration in Skegness town centre, “possibly just off Lumley Road”, on Sat 15th September.

Apparently “ALL THIS EVIL” that the slaughterhouse generates is “FOR THE BLOODY IMMIGRANTS”, “FOR THE SAKE OF A PERVERTED SICK RELIGEON AND A BACKWARD CULTURE”. Whichever caps lock-deficient Nazi typed this left us in no doubt that xenophobia rather than animal welfare is the dominant issue.

The move has split the existing campaign against the Heath Road slaughterhouse. Tess Turner, who is admin of a number of Facebook pages and groups against the slaughterhouse has said she will not support any “political” march on the issue. She told the East Coast Target that “The reason I started the campaign page was nothing to do with politics and race, it’s just an animal welfare point of view.” She’s obviously realised that standing alongside a bunch of unreconstructed Hitler worshippers will be a bad PR move.

The National Front represent the white supremacist politics that the BNP have spent the past few decades pretending they don’t support any more in an attempt to be more “credible”. The NF’s constitution supports the halt of non-white immigration into the UK, the forced repatriation of non-whites already here, bringing back the death penalty and birching, the outlawing of abortion and discrimination against homosexuals. A typical post on their Facebook page supports “WHITE PRIDE NATION WIDE” with a very Nazi-like NF logo and quotes white supremacist David Lane’s 14 word phrase. Asylum seekers are referred to as “THIRD WORLD FILTH” and they state that anyone who opposes them is “RED FILTH” and “UNCLEAN SCUM”.

These wannabe “master race” members are probably still smarting from their humiliation at the hands of anti-fascists in Derbyshire a couple of years ago. An East Midlands NF “Day of Action” was brought to an abrupt end by the “reds” who took the NF’s flag and leaflets while the handful of Aryan warriors meekly surrendered. This time it’s a national demo so they may get as many as 20 to turn up and hide behind police lines. We hope the people of Lincolnshire give these Nazi chancers the boot.

1 comment   |  tags: , , | posted in Lincolnshire