Recent “anti-fascist” protests have been presented as an organic uprising of the British working class. A closer inspection shows this not to be the case.

The following is a clip from yesterday’s UK Column News where Ben Rubin discussed why the government doesn’t want us to know what is happening on the streets during protests and riots.  It is because they may well be coordinating it.

Last week it was claimed that there was a spontaneous, organic anti-fascist uprising in response to riots across the north of England; in response to so-called “far-right thugs” and “fascists.”

Last Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported that “nearly 6,000 police officers have been drafted in after a list of 39 locations where the yobs could wreak havoc – including immigration centres, refugee shelters and lawyers’ homes – emerged late last night.”

Rubin showed a copy of the messages listing the 39 locations that were being widely spread.  “It was very well distributed,” Rubin said, everyone in London was talking about it.  “In response to that, we saw a whole bunch of street-level activity,” he said.

The street-level activity that Rubin was referring to has been dubbed “counter-protests” by corporate media.

On the same day that the Daily Mail was reporting on the list of 39 locations, Paul Mason, who is a confirmed MI6 asset, was tweeting about the counter-protests it gave rise to:

The next day, 8 August, Hope Not Hate’s Chief Executive Nick Lowes confirmed the list of 39 locations was a hoax. He tweeted: “Yes, the list was a hoax, but just look at the front pages of today’s papers. An anti-racist message is being transmitted to millions of homes this morning.”

That a false message was widely publicised by corporate media was “a big propaganda win [for Hope Not Hate],” Rubin said.

The week before, on 3 August, Lowles had disseminated propaganda about an acid attack on Muslim women in Middlesbrough. His false report was quite rightly branded as dangerous by Conservative MPs.

Hope Not Hate is sinister, The Spectator wrote earlier this year. “It wishes to change the political weather in our country, and it operates like a gangster. As with so many self-proclaimed ‘anti-fascists’, their name is wrong. They really should drop the ‘anti’ bit and rename themselves Hate Not Hope.”

Another person who is using the situation to terrorise the population is Stand Up to Racism’s Jo Cardwell.  Stand Up to Racism’s website was stripped down to the bare minimum sometime in 2019; it now shows very little information. However, a March 2019 archived copy shows that Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, was the organisation’s President. 

The 2019 ‘About’ page listing the organisation’s officers also features a video which includes a speech by Jeremy Corbyn, who has been the MP for Islington North since 1983 and was expelled from the Labour Party in 2024.  On Stand Up to Racism’s website, the featured video (below) was shown under the heading ‘Why You Should Join the Movement’ and was embedded from Stand Up to Racism’s Facebook page.  The video was uploaded onto Facebook in 2016; at the time, Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party, a position he held from September 2015 to May 2020.  The video was accompanied with the following comment:

Join the movement – Stand Up to Racism

On Saturday 8 October [2016] over 1,500 people – including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and Alf Dubs – launched a mass movement against racism. We want to build a network of activists to support refugees and confront racism, islamophobia and antisemitism.

We need a Stand Up to Racism group in every town and city. Join, donate and get involved in your local group.

The video ends with a statement from Stand Up to Racism co-convenor Weyman Bennett.  He said: “Where is the EDL? One of our biggest problems is to make sure there’s an anti-racist atmosphere where they can’t come back.  And that’s why we need a mass movement.  We need an organisation that can do it.  Join us.  Organise.  You’re the leadership.  We can defeat Thersa May and we can unite our class and our people and make sure that we aren’t divided.  Stand together and join.  Let’s fight back.”

It sounds very much like a political party campaign speech that is weaponising racism to defeat its political opposition.  Which political party was running such a campaign? Labour, which is now the party that forms the UK government.

Public protests are a crucial means of exercising the right to free speech and assembly, allowing people and groups to express dissent, demand change and hold those in power accountable.

If Labour, the governing party, is orchestrating protests on the streets, it will be perceived by the population as endorsing a particular viewpoint or ideology and alienating other groups or communities. It will be seen as coercive or manipulative and will fuel existing or spark further unrest.  By organising “counter-protests” against the “far-right,” the Government would be escalating tensions and creating more conflict.

Fascism arose during the 1920s and 1930s partly out of fear of the rising power of the working classes; it differed from contemporary communism by its protection of business and landowning elites and its preservation of class systems.

The term was coined by Benito Mussolini to describe his movement, the National Fascist Party.  Shortly afterwards other movements adopted fascism, one of them being Adolf Hitler’s National Socialists (“Nazi”) Party.

Once in power, Hitler’s Nazi regime responded to public protests by appeasing protests by “racial” Germans, attempting to discredit others, banning extra-party demonstrations and, when protests grew in size and frequency, employing mass repression tactics.  Hitler’s regime was known for its authoritarian nature and suppression of dissent but even the detestable Nazi regime did not stoop so low as to organise protests to counter genuine public protests.

Further resources:

The following are links to resources referred to in the clip from UK Column at the beginning of this article:

• Paul Mason’s covert intelligence-linked plot to destroy The Grayzone exposed, The Grayzone, 7 June 2022
• Suspended Labour councillor charged with encouraging violent disorder over protest speech, Independent, 9 August 2024
• Former Labour councillor charged with violent disorder at counter-protest, Labour List, 9 August 2024
• Covid patient at Darent Valley Hospital and Dartford councillor Ricky Jones’ key message to follow social distancing as he reveals impact of coronavirus on the ward, Kent Online, 8 January 2021
• “While social media is full of violent scenes, across the UK thousands have come out to challenge racism, support their neighbours and take care of each other.  Racism has no place in our society.” Amnesty International on Twitter, 7 August 2024
• Amnesty UK announces appointment of Sacha Deshmukh as permanent Chief Executive, Amnesty International, 21 June 2022
• Stand Up To Racism’s about page (2018)
• Unite Against Fascism, Wikipedia
• Paul Mason’s Twitter thread

Featured image: ‘5,000 marched in London to oppose fascist Tommy Robinson & his 15,000 racist, far right and Nazi supporters’ Stand Up to Racism, 27 July 2024