That’s the whole EDL national demo there
from Merseyside AFN
On Saturday in Merseyside, the EDL thought they would hold one of their divisive, often violent, beer fuelled marches in our city. In the last couple of years Liverpool has set a precedent for not accepting bigoted fascists in whatever form they have taken, and yesterday was no exception.
UAF set up a static demonstration at Lime Street steps which was heavily policed and designed to have minimal contact with the fascists all day. Fortunately, many antifascists, both local and from outside the area had the common sense to ignore the kettle and headed down to London Road to confront the fascists in their own pub. Cans of lager flew from the fascists as police tried to keep an increasingly growing crowd of angry scousers back from the evidently tiny group of racists.
Special shout out to the Nazi with the EDL throwing Nazi salutes who was very big and mighty… until the police removed him from the kettle and through the crowd where he was so scared he was begging to be arrested!
Eventually, after much struggling, the police managed to escort the EDL down the street past the o2 Academy towards Lime Street. In the meantime, the contingent, still swelling in size ran round to the front of Lime Street, upon which those within the UAF ranks who decided a more direct style of antifascism was what they wanted broke out the kettle and joined the crowd of hundreds who marched to find the EDL, setting off smoke grenades and chanting “Liverpool,Liverpool,Liverpool”.
The fascists emerged on Lime Street, and were met with hundreds of scousers, who, echoing our comrades from history, said no pasaran and refused to take one step back for the fascists, or their state sponsored enablers, Merseyside Police. Through the use of brutal force, the police managed to push the fascists to just in front of Saint John’s shopping centre, where they stopped thanks to the wonderful efforts of people literally using their bodies to block the road. Surrounded on 4 sides the fascists were thoroughly terrorised for a good deal of time before finally the police announced they were cancelling the march due to it being unable to pass off safely.
This woman lay down in front of the police horses, dozens of others followed and the police abandoned their attempt to push the EDL through.
We can’t thank everyone who attended enough that includes the crews that travelled from all over the country to join us and the wonderful scouse public who never fail to amaze us.
No pasaran!
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The AFN adds:
For a demo that was billed as a grudge match for the far-right to avenge previous humiliations, it was again, another humiliation. This was due largely to the amazing people of Liverpool who have consistently shown themselves to be unwilling to budge an inch in letting racists pollute the city.
It showed yet again the EDL’s idea of themselves as the representatives of that mythical beast “the white working class” for the total bollocks that it always was – they were demonstrated to be a small faction of bigots massively outnumbered by a united diverse working class that has no time for them.
The reason for holding an EDL demo in Liverpool had precious little to do with the EDL’s stated mission of combating radical Islam and much more to do with taking on the left in Liverpool who had previously turned National Action and the North West Infidels into laughing stocks. That the EDL sees itself as part of the same movement as these explicitly neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups says a lot about the reality of today’s EDL.
Winner of best T-shirt
…and best placard
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