Anti-Fascist Action#Early 1990s

AFA was partly a reaction to the perceived inadequacies of the original Anti-Nazi League (ANL), 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 (SWP).{{cite book|author1=Peter Barberis|author2=John McHugh|author3=Mike Tyldesley|title=Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qps14mSlghcC&pg=PA107|access-date=22 August 2017|date=26 July 2005|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8264-5814-8|page=107}} Jeremy Corbyn was either national secretary or honorary president of this first incarnation of AFA in 1985.Copsey, Nigel. [http://tees.openrepository.com/tees/bitstream/10149/615958/2/615958.pdf "Crossing Borders: Anti-Fascist Action (UK) and Transnational Anti-Fascist Militancy in the 1990s."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180721091327/https://tees.openrepository.com/tees/bitstream/10149/615958/2/615958.pdf |date=21 July 2018 }} Contemporary European History 25.4 (2016): 707-727.Copsey, Nigel (4 October 2016). Anti-Fascism in Britain. Taylor & Francis. p. 158. However, according to historian Nigel Copsey, "this original AFA unravelled due to internal tensions between militant anti-fascists and more moderate anti-racists... By 1988, fractured by in-house sectarianism, AFA had all but collapsed." In 1989, though, it "was resurrected as a militant, physical force anti-fascist group." Although many Trotskyist groups, independent socialists, anarchists and members of the Labour Party were active in AFA in the 1980s, after its relaunch in 1989 the main members were from various anarchist groups and Red Action, a group founded by disillusioned militant anti-fascist ex-SWP members who had criticised perceived populist or popular front politics of the ANL.{{cite book|author1=Peter Barberis|author2=John McHugh|author3=Mike Tyldesley|title=Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qps14mSlghcC&pg=PA107|access-date=22 August 2017|date=26 July 2005|publisher=Continuum International Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-8264-5814-8|pages=107, 158}}

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.[http://www.uncarved.org/music/apunk/ita/CSBFT20.pdf "Cable Street Beat: A Brief History"] Fighting Talk In 1988, AFA formed a musical arm, Cable Street Beat (named after the Battle of Cable Street, a 1936 confrontation between fascists and anti-fascists), on similar principles to the Anti-Nazi League's Rock Against Racism.{{cite web|url=http://antifascistarchive.com/2012/03/01/cable-street-beat/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130410124457/http://antifascistarchive.com/2012/03/01/cable-street-beat/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=April 10, 2013|title=Ant-Fascist Archive}} Cable Street Beat launched a magazine, Cable Street Beat Review, in early 1989.[http://afaarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/cable-street-beat-issue-1.pdf Cable Street Beat Review no.1, 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.[http://afaarchive.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/cable-street-beat-issue-5.pdf Cable Street Beat Review no.5].

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.

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 (under the slogan “Beating the Fascists: An old East End tradition”).{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}}

Cable Street Beat continued in the early 1990s, with the involvement of bands including the reformed The Selecter,[http://libcom.org/files/FIGHTING%20TALK%2001.pdf Fighting Talk no.1], p.13 Bad Manners and Gary Clail.{{cn|date=June 2021}}

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.Birchall, Sean, Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action (London: Freedom Press, 2010) p. 195 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.{{cite web|url=http://beatingthefascists.org/fighting-talk-part-1/|title=Beating the Fascists » Fighting Talk – Part 1|website=beatingthefascists.org|access-date=2013-03-05|archive-date=2012-10-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025232247/http://beatingthefascists.org/fighting-talk-part-1/|url-status=dead}}

A long street battle between AFA against Blood and Honour supporters, skinheads, hooligan firms and far-right groups on 11 September 1992, was dubbed the Battle of Waterloo as it was centred on Waterloo station. There were stabbings, and 36 people were arrested.Birchall, Sean, Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action (London: Freedom Press, 2010) pp.291-302;[http://www.redactionarchive.org/2012/03/it-woz-afa-wot-done-it.html "It Woz AFA Wot Done It!"] Red Action Vol 3, Issue 6, April/May 1999{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/station-closed-in-skinhead-battle-1551122.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220507/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/station-closed-in-skinhead-battle-1551122.html |archive-date=2022-05-07 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Station closed in skinhead battle|date=13 September 1992|work=The Independent|access-date=16 July 2017|language=en-GB}}{{cbignore}}

By this time, there were 21 branches of AFA listed in Fighting Talk, in locations including Birmingham, Brighton, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bristol, Cardiff, Oxford, Exeter, Leicester, Liverpool, Manchester and Norwich.[http://libcom.org/files/FIGHTING%20TALK%2003.pdf ''Fighting Talk] no.3], p.19

In 1993, Derek Beackon, a candidate from the British National Party (BNP), won a council seat in Millwall on the Isle of Dogs in Tower Hamlets, under the slogan of "Rights for Whites".Copsey, Nigel (2004). Contemporary British Fascism: The British National Party and the Quest for Legitimacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 53–54.{{cite news |last1=Taylor |first1=Diane |title=Isle of prejudice |url=https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/nov/20/raceineducation.schools |access-date=20 August 2018 |work=The Guardian |date=20 November 2001 }} 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 there would be "no more meetings, marches, punch-ups".{{cite web|url=http://www.redactionarchive.org/2012/03/new-leader-new-danger.html|title=New Leader : New Danger|website=www.redactionarchive.org}}Jon Kelly "[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25142557 Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi]", BBC News Magazine 6 December 2013 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.Physical Resistance. 2013 by Dave Hann

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.{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} In 1998 the committee expelled Leeds and Huddersfield AFA for ignoring this policy.{{dubious|date=March 2013}} There were some local relaunches of AFA groups, such as in Liverpool in 2000, but by 2001, AFA barely existed as a national organisation.

Some re-formed in the Anti-Fascist Network in 2011 to recreate the "two-track" approach of AFA.{{cite web|url=http://antifascistnetwork.wordpress.com/about/|title=About us|date=8 August 2013}}

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.Dave Hann "Physical Resistance" Zero Books, 2013 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.

{{Div col}}

• Antifaschistische Aktion
• Anti-Racist Action
• Anti-Nazi League
• Red Action
• Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice
• Searchlight (magazine)
• Post-World War II anti-fascism
• Redskin (subculture)
• Squadism
• United front

{{Div col end}}

{{Reflist|30em}}

• Birchall, Sean, Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action (London: Freedom Press, 2010) {{ISBN|978-1-904491-12-5}}
• {{cite book|last = Bullstreet|first= K. |title=Bash the Fash: Anti-Fascist Recollections 1984-1993 |year= 2001 |isbn=1-873605-87-0}}
• Anti-Fascist Action: an Anarchist Perspective (Kate Sharpley Library, 2006) {{ISBN|978-1-873605-49-3}}
• Hann, Dave and Steve Tilzey, No Retreat (Milo Books, 2003) {{ISBN|1-903854-22-9}}
• [https://spikemagazine.com/1104noretreat/ Interview with author of No Retreat] in Spike Magazine
• Hann, Dave, A Hundred Years of Anti Fascism (Zero Books, 2013) {{ISBN|978-1780991771}}
• Mark Hayes and Paul Aylward [http://www.amielandmelburn.org.uk/collections/soundings/14_53.pdf Radical resistance or rent-a-mob?] soundings issue 14 Spring 2000
• Testa, M., Militant Anti-Fascism: A Hundred Years of Resistance (AK Press, 2015) {{ISBN|978-1-84935-203-1}}

• [https://antifascistarchive.net/ Anti-Fascist Archive]
• [http://libcom.org/history/1985-2001-anti-fascist-action-afa 1985-2001: A short history of Anti-Fascist Action (AFA)] on Libcom.org
• {{YouTube|RuC5KDhhZYI|Beating The Fascists Video}}
• [http://libcom.org/library/bash-the-fash-anti-fascist-recollections-1984-1993 Bullstreet, K. Bash the Fash: Anti-Fascist Recollections 1984-1993 (Kate Sharpley Library, 2001)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20091026235729/http://geocities.com/irishafa/ AFA Ireland] (archived)
• [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25142557 Nicky Crane: The secret double life of a gay neo-Nazi]

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Category:Anti-fascist organisations in the United Kingdom

Category:Organizations established in 1985

Category:1985 establishments in the United Kingdom