Why I’ll be marching against the EDL this week

Oh what do we owe the pleasure, to have the English Defence League call a demonstration in our city centre on March 2^nd?

After attempts to stir up racial hatred in the south of the country ended in humiliation, the EDL are trying their luck in the north where living standards are generally lower and so rifts between people are more easily opened. With economic prosperity bumping along the bottom, job security under threat through the proliferation of practices such as zero-hours contracts and the cutting of welfare provision occurring in a country where the stoking of racial and class tensions is a familiar strategy of newspapers to prop up their dying craft, it’s not hard to see that conditions are in their favour. Add the media’s cyclical whipping up of UKIP support that has given them a frequent platform to spout nationalist sentiment and it’s obvious that more than ever is a robust counter-demonstration is needed to combat the harmful bigotry that these groups encourage and perpetrate.

In response, I’ve heard a few of reasons as to why counter-demonstrations are a bad idea or are unnecessary. Though varied, they all rely on an understanding of the EDL which is abstract, naïve and totally ignores the very real harm these racist groups can cause.

Some like to cast the ongoing EDL demonstrations and counter-demonstrations of anti-racism groups as a numbers game. That it is a pastime for the far-left and far-right that involves very few people and so it would be better to leave the EDL alone, let them protest, tire themselves out and go home dejected that no one is listening to them. Further it is argued, by turning up to protest against them, anti-racists and anti-fascists actually draw attention to the EDL’s odious politics and give them greater presence.

Yet this understanding of groups like the EDL is an abstract portrayal which totally removes them from the context of their surroundings and places them in vacuum where they are safe and harmless. In doing so, it renders them as something they are not. It is a view based on the assumption that the EDL will stick by its false promise of “peacefully protesting” when not provoked, when repeatedly their members have shown that they are willing to do otherwise. It is also a view which is far too long-sighted, missing the smaller picture. The risk of the EDL storming parliament is probably quite low, but there are numerous instances where individuals have been attacked, regardless of whether they are actually Muslim or not. No one should be forced to avoid the city centre due to the presence of a group of drunken racist thugs, regardless of whether there are 20 or 200 of them.

What’s more, by ignoring the EDL you allow them to set the discourse, define the boundaries of debate and effectively allow them to prepare an intellectual home ground, giving them a more favourable identity. By demonstrating against them, anti-racists and anti-fascists are able to contest this and give the EDL the image they deserve. Their name may be spread more widely, but in association with the violence, racism and fascism they perpetuate.

Finally, it is not just the EDL whose portrayal is twisted outside of reality. Anti-racists and anti-fascists are often confronted with three condemnatory words that is quite possibly the all time most incredible misuse of a political principle in order to derail debate: “freedom of speech.” Detractors of counter-demonstrations argue that by protesting against hate groups like the EDL, their right to protest and air their views is infringed upon. This is often followed by an argument that it’s the “thin end of the wedge”, “the start of a slippery slope” and that despite their awful views and intentions of stirring up racial hatred, their rights should be defended at all costs, just like any other group.

But here’s the kicker: anti-fascists and anti-racists are not part of the state or in a position of institutional power, trying to silence a dissenting group from the top-down. They are grassroots organisations of individual people who are concerned about the activities of the EDL and for whom anti-racism is a cause worth fighting for, and racism a cause worth fighting against. Freedom of speech is a principle applied against the state, to protect us against the activities of the state, and to invoke it against anti-racists and anti-fascists removes it totally from its proper context.

In fact if the EDL are exercising their legitimate freedom of speech it seems a shame not to do the same: I urge anyone who wants to stop racism and fascism to exercise their freedom of speech, join the counter-demonstration and tell the EDL on 2^nd March that they’re not welcome in Manchester!