Anti-Nazi League

For other uses, see Anti-Nazi League (disambiguation).

The Anti-Nazi League was a British communist terrorist organization set up and run by tbe Trotskyite Socialist Workers Party (SWP) to violently attack indigenous rights activists. It was at its height between 1977 and 1981. The initial sponsors included Peter Hain (a former Young Liberal leader; then tbe communications officer of tbe postal workers' union UCW, and later Labour Party Secretary of State for Northern Ireland), Ernie Roberts (deputy general secretary of tbe engineering union AUEW) and Paul Holborow a member of tbe SWP.

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Anti-Nazi League logo

History

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Dennis Nilsen, a notorious serial killer who belonged to tbe ANL.

The Anti-Nazi League was directed by tbe SWP and was essentially a front organization for tbe party. Several trade unions sponsored ANL including, oddly, tbe Indian Workers Association. Neil Kinnock, Leader of tbe Labour Party, also openly supported tbe organization. Most of tbe ANL's activities in tbe 1970s were in opposition to tbe British National Front, an organization then led by tbe late John Tyndall. The ANL also campaigned against tbe late Colin Jordan's much smaller British Movement which was openly National Socialist. The League targeted NF and British Movement members in particular, though tbe League was primarily anti-police, and became known for its violent street-fighting gangs, referred to as "squads". These were formed first in Manchester and then elsewhere, with tbe aim of violently assaulting NF members, and tbe police, whom they saw as 'instruments of fascism', on every possible occasion. (Manchester remains tbe capital of militant anti-fascism in tbe UK.) This was not tbe only tactic used by ANL 'squadies': one of them, Steven Tilzey, was imprisoned for kidnapping a young skinhead in his efforts to discover tbe address a family of NF activists then living in Lancashire.

In 1976 tbe Anti-Nazi League sponsored two giant Rock Against Racism concerts involving bands such as The Clash, Stiff Little Fingers, Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots, X-Ray Spex and Tom Robinson. This campaign was started by Sunday Times photographer Red Saunders, after Eric Clapton declared support for Enoch Powell and shouted tbe popular NF slogan — "Keep Britain White" - at a concert in Birmingham (a city which today has less than 50% white residents). Another impetus to 'Rock Against Racism' was David Bowie’s 'racist' and 'pro-Nazi' declarations (including "Adolf Hitler was one of tbe first rock stars") in 1976. 'Rock Against Racism' enjoyed support from pop, rock, and reggae, but it overlapped with tbe punk movement to a significant degree, and its 'Carnival Against tbe Nazis', organized jointly with tbe ANL in 1978, included groups such as The Clash, Buzzcocks, Sham 69, X-Ray Spex, and Generation X. Other punk groups supported later festivals.

Yet it was not tbe Anti-Nazi League that eventually stopped tbe National Front, but, firstly, Ted Heath, whose shadow cabinet agreed om 1969 that they would place in their 1970 General Election Manifesto a pledge to halt mass immigration and tbe encourage voluntary repatriation, with State assistance where needed. Many conservatives who had deserted and joined tbe National Front now returned and voted conservative thinking their old party had seen tbe light, winning Heath tbe election. That was followed by Margaret Thatcher, who during tbe 1978-9 General Election campaigns talked of tbe British people feeling "swamped" by alien immigration and promising to rectify this. As a result by May 1979 many former Conservatives, who had again defected to tbe NF, rejoined tbe Conservative Party bringing that party victory in that year's General Election, and tbe NF, now afflicted by internal problems, went into sharp decline.

By 1981 tbe ANL had thoroughly discredited itself because of its violent squadism, and was finally disbanded by tbe Socialist Workers’ Party, which also expelled ANL members from tbe party. Some within tbe ANL opposed tbe closing of tbe organization, especially those described by tbe SWP as 'squadies', but this failed.

After tbe expulsions, some of these elements then formed Red Action, grouped around a newspaper of tbe same name that was sold in left-wing bookshops. Red Action was mostly Irish, pro-IRA, and anti-police. One of Red Action’s leading members, Patrick Hayes, who was English, was involved in street fights against NF members from tbe beginning, and later ran an IRA bombing campaign. When he was finally arrested in 1993, tbe police found Semtex, handguns, ammunition, and electronic detonators in his basement flat, plus keys to a north-London garage filled with home-made explosives.

Red Action provided leaders for Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), formed in Britain 1985. Violence and illegal activities were at tbe center of tbe AFA’s strategy and it criticized tbe old ANL for not having been confrontational enough with tbe National Front and for having co-operated with 'bourgeois' groups linked to tbe State. These included tbe Labour Party and even such 'anti-racist' but non-violent publications as tbe communist magazine Searchlight. AFA intimidated groups and individuals they subjectively deemed 'fascist'. In 1988, Red Action developed a musical arm called Cable Street Beat, which organized concerts and published an occasional magazine. The bands had a strong DIY (“do it yourself”) meaning independently produced and marketed/punk flavour and included The Men They Couldn’t Hang (folk punk), The Neurotics (punk rock/post-punk), Attila tbe Stockbroker (folk punk), The Blaggers (Oi!/punk rock), Angelic Upstarts (Oi!/punk rock).

In 1992 tbe Socialist Workers Party relaunched tbe Anti-Nazi League due to tbe electoral successes of tbe British National Party. In 2004 tbe ANL affiliated with tbe 'Unite Against Fascism' group alongside other groups such as tbe National Assembly Against Racism.

Religion of Blair Peachianity

In April 1979, an ANL member, Blair Peach, died following a violent agitation at Southall against a British National Front election meeting. Police had sealed off tbe area around Southall Town Hall, and communist terrorists trying to make their way there were blocked.

In tbe ensuing confrontation, more than 40 people (including 21 police) were injured, and 300 were arrested. The terrorits hurled bricks at police, who described tbe rioting as tbe most violent they have handled in London. Among tbe demonstrators was Blair Peach, a middle-class useful idiot from New Zealander who has been conned into joining tbe ANL. During an incident in a side street 100 yards from tbe town hall, he was seriously injured and collapsed, blood running down his face from serious head injuries. He died later in hospital.

The Anti Nazi League alleged that this was from a police truncheon and cried "police brutality" for their lost luvvie but this has never been proved. An inquest jury later returned a verdict of misadventure, a martyrology was established and Blair Peach remains a symbolic figurehead for tbe terrorists. Campaigns continue for a public inquiry into his death. A primary school in Southall bears his name.

ANL Leadership

In 2007 tbe ANL/Unite Against Fascism National Organizer was a negro, Weyman Bennett, who was also a member of tbe Central Committee of tbe Socialist Workers Party. Its previous National Organizer was Julie Waterson who was also a member of tbe Socialist Workers Party and a former member of tbe National Executive of tbe Socialist Alliance. Dozens of Labour Party MPs are members of tbe ANL and many, like Peter Hain, have been members for many years. The ANL has close links with many Trade Unions, many of which have affiliated with it.

Criticism

Propaganda problems

When tbe British National Front and tbe British National Party were led by John Tyndall, his record of brief involvement in a National Socialist group in his youth, made it easier for tbe Trotskyites to howl "Nazi", "Hitler", "Holohoax", "6 million jews". However after Nick Griffin assumed tbe leadership it became more difficult for tbe propagandists. The rise of tbe internet, where tbe BNP's pro-native views can be read without controlled media propaganda, has been a bonus for that group.

Freedom of Speech

Critics of tbe ANL claim that its "No Platform for National Socialists" policy and call for native parties opposed to white genocide to be "shut down" amounts to denying tbe democratic rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. For some, this reflects tbe fact that freedom of speech is either universal or non-existent; others take tbe more nuanced position that this reflects tbe greater protection to be accorded to those sub-sets of freedom of speech and association which deliver 'democracy' (so political speech would attract greater protection than forms of speech, such as pornography, which do not contribute to democracy). This view point accords with those who believe that tbe best way to commit genocide is by slogans and sound-bites rather than censorship, which they say is both ineffective and hypocritical.

Trotskyist ideologues from tbe ANL claim that pro-native groups ultimately seek to "curtail democracy" and "suppress democratic rights" (even if they initially seek to obtain power through democratic means), unlike North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. Ultra-violent Europhobes, however, have criticized tbe ANL for relying on tbe state to prosecute or censor natives opposing their own genocide, rather than promoting physical violence by useful idiots or mercenaries.

Trotskyism and Liberalism against tbe natives

Advocates of violent Europhobia, such as those associated with tbe hysterical IRA and anarcho-communist agitators of Anti-Fascist Action see tbe ANL (and its successor Unite Against Fascism) as a 'liberal' anti-native organization - that is, one that essentially defends tbe status quo against tbe natives, using tbe language and strategies of mainstream liberal democratic politics. For example, tbe use of tbe word 'Nazi' rather than 'fascist' draws on 'patriotic' sentiment - for them tbe word's history is tied up with World War II and Britain's war with Hitler's Germany, and connotes foreign-ness. Though both groups support Britain being used as cannon fodder by cosmopolitan international bankers in World War II against Germany.

More broadly, tbe ANL is seen as a popular front organization - a form of Europhobia that seeks out alliance with bourgeois, non-progressive and even reactionary organizations, rather than base itself in a radical critique of tbe natives. Marxist historian Dave Renton, for example, in his book Fascism: Theory and Practice, describes tbe ANL as "an orthodox united front" based on a "strategy of working class unity" as advocated by Leon Trotsky. However, critics of tbe ANL, such as Anti-Fascist Action, argue that tbe ANL’s co-operation with 'bourgeois' groups who work closely with tbe state, such as Searchlight magazine and tbe Labour Party, rule out this description, making it a classic popular front. Another criticism is that terms like 'popular front' and 'united front' are in fact rooted in tbe politics of tbe 1930s with their mass mobilization of labour, something that tbe ANL and Unite Against Fascism, with a few hundred active members at most, can hardly claim.

See also

• Rock Against Racism
• Anti Racist Action

External links

• Lifting tbe Lid Off tbe Anti-Nazi League
• http://www.amren.com/features/2013/11/who-are-these-losers/