We should take the fascist threat seriously

Racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia have reached a new height in light of the ‘refugee-crisis’ and more recently the sexual harassment incidents in Germany on New Year’s Eve. This Saturday, Dover saw another big anti-immigration rally by groups like the English Defense League, National Front, South East Alliance, Britain First, BNP and UK PEGIDA (don’t even try to figure out what PEGIDA stands for, the acronym only “makes sense” in German).

In September, far-right groups descended on Dover to voice their “concern” about non-white immigrants. Dover carries symbolism for the far-right as they try to “defend their shores” from people who desperately need our help and compassion. Groups like Kent Anti-Racism Network organised a counter-demo and were supported by many locals and other activists.

Anti-fascism activists travelled to Dover to prevent the neo-Nazis from marching through Dover.

In light of the protests, Section 60 & 60AA powers were in place in the Dover district on the Saturday of the demonstration, requiring people to remove their face masks and giving officers in uniform the power to stop any person and search them for weapons or harmful instruments.

Throughout the day there was a lot of violent fighting, with the riot police failing to keep the two groups from clashing on several occasions. This resulted in several people getting hurt, a lot of them obtaining head injuries from items such as bricks being thrown. In the beginning, anti-fascist protesters succeeded in delaying the fascists’ march by containing them at the Dover Priory station (their starting point). Police eventually escorted the far-right demonstrators to their rallying point close to the docks. By this time only a fraction of the original fascist protesters remained to listen.

Far-right groups descended on Dover to voice their “concern” about non-white immigration

Violence had erupted before the demonstration. At a motorway service station in Maidstone on the M20 route from London to Dover, five buses organised by the Anti-Fascist Network (AFN) clashed with a bus of Chelsea Headhunters. These football hooligans are also vastly involved with Combat 18 (18 for AH = Adolf Hitler). A fight rapidly started, and escalated, with members of the two groups throwing bricks, wood, and bins back and forth, resulting in several injuries.

The fascists then went on to attack a bus of Russian children, before they smashed in one of the anti-fascists coaches’ windshield and windows, and drew swastikas on two coaches with blood. One of the coach drivers was injured during the attacks.

Fascists were seen attacking each other and their own coach, once more proving that complete and utter idiocy does indeed exist. When police arrived they found a bag of knives, nunchucks, knuckledusters and other weapons on the fascists’ coach and subsequently arrested several men.

Police removed the right-wing group from the scene and then detained the anti-fascist group on the coaches for almost six hours under Section 1 of the Police and Criminal Investigations Act. All passengers had to remain on the coaches and were filmed and searched. Police thereby prevented the AFN coaches from joining the rally in Dover and opposing the far-right and their march against immigration. Without the aid of the London AFN coaches the anti-fascists weren’t able to maintain their blockage of the fascists’ march in Dover. To those on the coaches it seemed an awful lot like the police detained the AFN coaches for precisely this reason, thereby indirectly supporting the fascist march.

Every person in Dover or the service station that stood against fascism on Saturday could see very clearly what the real threat to this country is. It is the angry, white, middle-aged men in Enoch Powell T-shirts and with “refugees not welcome” emblazoned on flags (kudos for originality). I know it’s hard to take people in ANTI-ANTIFA hoodies seriously, but the hatred and fear of refugees they stand for is spreading across Europe.