Anti-Fascist Action was a militant anti-fascist organization founded in the
UK in 1985, by a wide range of anti-racist and anti-fascist
organisations. It was active in fighting far-right
organisations, particularly the National Front and British National Party. It was
notable in significantly reducing fascist street activity in Britain in
the 1990s. AFA had what they called a "twin-track" strategy: physical
confrontation of fascists on the streets and ideological struggle against fascism
in working class communities. Among its more notable mobilisations
were violent confrontations such as the "Battle of Waterloo" in 1992 and
non-violent events such as the Unity Carnivals of the early 1990s.
History AFA was launched in London in 1985 at a
large public meeting representing a wide range of anti-fascist and anti-racist
organisations and individuals, including Red Action and the Direct Action
Movement, Searchlight, the Newham Monitoring Project, and the Jewish
Socialist Group. It was partly a reaction to the perceived inadequacies
of the original Anti-Nazi League, which had recently wound up its operations.
AFA members accused ANL of failing to directly confront fascists, of allying
with moderates who were complicit in racism, and of being a vanguardist front
for the Socialist Workers Party. Although many Trotskyist groups,
independent socialists, anarchists and members of the Labour Party were active
in AFA in the 1980s, the main members were always from Red Action, a group
founded by disillusioned miltant anti-fascist ex-SWP members who had
criticised perceived populist or popular front politics of the ANL.
Thousands of people took part in AFA mobilisations such as the Remembrance
Day demonstrations in 1986 and 1987, and a mobilisation against a Blood and
Honour gig, "the Main Event", in May 1989. In 1988, AFA formed a musical arm,
Cable Street Beat, on similar principles to the Anti-Nazi League’s Rock Against
Racism. Cable Street Beat launched a magazine, Cable Street Beat Review, in
early 1989. Among the artists who performed for early Cable Street Beat
events were Blaggers ITA, Angelic Upstarts, Attila the Stockbroker, The
Men They Couldn't Hang, Forgotten Sons and Blyth Power.
In 1989, there was a split in AFA between militant anti-fascists and other
members, such as the Newham Monitoring Group, whose views were closer to
liberal anti-fascism. The militant groups relaunched AFA that year, with
the affiliates Direct Action Movement and Workers' Power, as well as several
trade unions. = Early 1990s =
In the early 1990s, AFA continued the pattern of twin-track physical and
ideological confrontations with fascism. Examples of the former include the first
Unity Carnival in east London in 1991, with 10,000 participants, and a
demonstration in Bethnal Green, with 4,000 participants. In September 1991,
AFA launched its magazine Fighting Talk, of which 25 issues were published
between 1991 and April 1999; the magazine incorporated Cable Street Beat
Review. The first issue reported the recent launch of a Dublin branch and a
Glasgow branch, the latter with the support of Red Action, Class War, Direct
Action Movement, Workers Party Scotland, Scottish Anti-Racist Movement and the
Republican Bands Alliance. Cable Street Beat continued in the early
1990s, with the involvement of bands including the reformed The Selecter, Bad
Manners and Gary Clail. Physical resistance to fascism also
continued. In 1990, three AFA members were jailed for a total of 11 years
following an attack on a neo-Nazi activist. AFA's militant approach to
anti-fascism was given media airing in May 1992, when the BBC screened a
documentary, Fighting Talk, as part of its Open Space series.
A long street battle between AFA and Blood and Honour supporters in October
1992 was dubbed the Battle of Waterloo because it was centred on Waterloo
Station. This event was pivotal in defeating the street presence of the far
right in Britain. By this time, there were 21 branches of
AFA listed in Fighting Talk, in locations including Birmingham,
Brighton, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford, Exeter, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester
and Norwich. = "Filling the Vacuum" strategy =
In 1993, Derek Beackon, a candidate from the British National Party, won a
council seat on the Isle of Dogs in Tower Hamlets, East London; under the
slogan of "Rights for Whites". This signalled a turn in the BNP's policy
from confrontation on the streets to a bid for electoral respectability, partly
as a response to their defeat on the streets by AFA. In 1994, BNP activist
Tony Lecomber announced this turn in tactics with a statement to the press
that the there would be "no more meetings, marches, punch-ups". In 1995
London AFA responded with its Filling the Vacuum strategy, which involved
offering a political alternative in these communities instead of
concentrating on challenging the fascist presence on the streets. Red Action and
its allies campaigned within the AFA Network after 1995 for AFA as an
organisation to adopt the "Filling the Vacuum" strategy. However, given that
AFA contained a number of political groups, with differing political
programmes, this, and the decline of street action by the BNP as it embraced
"respectable electoralism", contributed to the breakup of much of the AFA
network, with much internal recrimination.
Anti-fascist mobilisations still occurred after 1995, such as ones
against the National Front in Dover in 1997 and 1998. The number of AFA
branches across the UK peaked at 38 in the mid-1990s, with regular national
conferences and an active Northern Network. A new AFA National Coordinating
Committee was set up, and in 1997, an official AFA statement forbade members
from associating with Searchlight. In 1998 the committee expelled Leeds and
Huddersfield AFA for ignoring this policy. There were some local relaunches
of AFA groups, such as in Liverpool in 2000, but by 2001, AFA barely existed as
a national organisation. Red Action and other AFA activists
followed the logic of providing a political alternative to fascism in
setting up the Independent Working Class Association in 1995, which became the
sole focus of Red Action activity after 2001. Others formerly involved in AFA,
predominantly anarchists, have maintained militant, street-focused
tactics, initially in the group No Platform, then Antifa UK. Some of these
groups re-formed in the Anti-Fascist Network in 2011, which aims to recreate
the "two-track" approach of AFA. Politics
Critics argue that AFA's physical confrontation approach was often more
visible than their ideological work, and their tactics were criticised for their
squadism and use of violence. However, supporters of AFA's approach cite its
involvement in the youth music scene and successful propaganda events like the
1986 and 1987 Remembrance Day "Remember the victims of Fascism" marches, as
evidence of this wider agenda. See also
Notes Further reading
Birchall, Sean, Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action
ISBN 978-1-904491-12-5 Bullstreet, K. Bash the Fash:
Anti-Fascist Recollections 1984-1993. ISBN 1-873605-87-0.
Anti-Fascist Action: an Anarchist Perspective ISBN 978-1-873605-49-3
Hann, Dave and Steve Tilzey, No Retreat ISBN 1-903854-22-9
Interview with author of No Retreat in Spike Magazine
Hann, Dave, A Hundred Years of Anti Fascism ISBN 978-1780991771
Mark Hayes and Paul Aylward Radical resistance or rent-a-mob? soundings
issue 14 Spring 2000 External links
Anti-Fascist Archive 1985-2001: A short history of
Anti-Fascist Action on Libcom.org Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story
of Anti-Fascist Action Beating The Fascists Video on YouTube
Bullstreet, K. Bash the Fash: Anti-Fascist Recollections 1984-1993
AFA Ireland Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a
gay neo-Nazi