By Tim Nailsea
ON 3 AUGUST far right activists put out a social media call for racists to assemble at Castle Park in Bristol city centre and copy the anti-immigrant protests that erupted nationwide in the wake of the Southport murders. Their plan was to march on the Mercure Hotel, where refugees were staying.
Stand Up to Racism, the SWP’s anti-racist campaign, which is formally backed by many national trade unions, called a counter-demonstration at the park. Up to 1,000 anti-racists faced off against 400 from the far right.
Tensions flared with the police unable to prevent the far right from attacking counter protesters, or keep the racists contained. Many of the far right were able to break through the police lines and head towards the hotel.
A couple of hundred counter protestors, on our own initiative, were able to escape police containment and get to the hotel before the racists, putting ourselves between the rioters and the hotel. We were quickly attacked by up to 100 racists, who were trying to force their way in, but we successfully held them off. Eventually the police arrived and dispersed the mob.
While we were—rightly—proud of our stand against the far right, many of us felt we had come very close to disaster. Many more of us could have been seriously harmed if it hadn’t been for the police, who we obviously cannot trust (as was proven elsewhere). We won by luck as much as design.
We felt that the Bristol anti-racist movement needed to reflect on the limitations exposed that day, and work towards a solution for the future.
Lessons
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.
Bristol Anti-Racist Action
The next day we set up a channel on Telegram with a plan to hold a meeting in two weeks’ time, calling ourselves Bristol Anti-Racist Action (BARA). Very soon after this, however, a list of targets posted by far right groups became known. It included an immigration solicitors’ office in Bristol, which they intention to attack on 7 August, in just three days’ time. All other plans were set aside to focus on mobilising against this.
With our Telegram channel, which had grown to 200 members, inexplicably shut down, we were forced to move onto WhatsApp, where we quickly grew to 2,000. From this we coordinated leafleting, visiting local business, places of worship and community organisations, getting out the word. We also used it as a tool for organising on the day, nominating stewards, publicising a simple plan of action for the demonstration, including a first aid station.
This was quite effective but did have limitations. Firstly it was not ideal for security reasons and we had to keep reminding people that anything they wrote had to be assumed to be public. Secondly the sheer accessibility of it meant that it became clogged with ‘noise’ and (mostly well-meant) misinformation. Detailed organising work increasingly had to be done away from it.
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.
Given the proximity to black and Asian communities, and the recent attacks across the country when the far right were allowed to run amok, any attempts by community leaders to keep black and Asian youth at home that night were doomed to failure. They turned up in their hundreds, independently organised, and swept through Castle Park and into the Centre looking for racists, who wisely stayed away.‘Our mobilisation soon became a street party.
Self-Defence
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.
The official anti-racist organisation—Stand Up to Racism—was completely left behind by this. While it put out an initial call for the demo (at the same time everyone else did) and many of its supporters (mostly SWP members) did their best to build it, their structures are clearly inadequate to meet the moment. On the day, their nominated stewards followed the lead of BARA, who turned up with numbers and a plan – two things SUTR completely lacked.
However, the harder, longer-term task of solidifying networks and building links remains to be done. Spontaneous community actions tend to flare up and die down leaving little behind.
BARA aims to build an anti-fascist organisation out of this activity to be better prepared for the future. Our first organising meeting following the demonstration had 150 people at it. We hope to push outwards from that and make grassroots anti-fascism a permanent feature in Bristol.
