The Right To Protest Peacefully

We live in a society, in which the right protest has long been enshrined in to our 'rights', but since the 1970's there has been a trend towards that right only being extended to certain groups.

The self appointed guardians of what is allowable in a democracy is the far left, who patrol our streets attacking anyone they deem to be 'fascists' ..... regardless of whether they are exercising their democratic rights to free assembly, and peaceful demonstration or not. A right that they are apparently to be denied because a Marxist party doesn't recognise that right for anyone they don't approve of.

I am old enough to remember the rise of the leftwing agitprop movements in the 1970's and 1980's under the guise of being "Anti Fascist" movements .... with names such as the Anti Nazi League (which in practise appeared to simply be the Socialist Workers Party using a different name) they were supposedly marching to stop 'fascist' or 'far right' parties .... a designation that the US Republican Party would have qualified as. Membership included many Labour Party MP's - apparently its OK on the Left to be associated with these sort of movements, including the SWP.

But at that time there was no one except the Thatcher Conservative Party who really qualified as 'far right' (The National Front, and the British Movement were pathetically small and insignificant), so the marches invariably ended in attacks on the local police (after smashing a McDonalds window). Eventually the shallow youth who made up the shock troops (i.e. the street fighters) of the movement 'grew up' and instead of joining the SWP and ushering in the "revolution" they just melted away.

Some of these ex-ANL and SWP members went on to form Red Action and with others organised Anti-Fascist Action, who are even less opposed to using 'violence' to intimidate groups and individuals they subjectively deem as 'fascist.'.... the SWP later relaunched the ANL to 'combat' the British National Party but they have never garnered the support of the 1980's.

However the tactics of naming any party or group the far (or not so far) left don't like as 'fascists' or 'racists' (the terms are largely interchangeable) has continued. So when the BNP marches its numbers are largely out numbered by both the police and the 'anti fascists' who assemble as well. And now they have found a new class enemy in the English Defence League (EDL)

The new vehicle of these left wingers is the Unite Against Fascism organisation which has as one of its joint secretaries Weyman Bennett of the Socialist Workers Party and the Anti-Nazi League, as well as a chairman of the former Labour Party mayor of London Ken Livingstone.

The reason why I am raking this all over is because the UAF has been involved in violence against both the BNP and the English Defence League in recent weeks ..... both of whom were ostensibly attempting to exercise a democratic right to march and expound their views (whether you agree with them or not). Oddly its the labour parties immigration policies that have led to something of a right wing resurgence inthe UK (not that they would admit it).

So once again I am seeing democracy being bypassed by left wing groups who consider that they have the right to decide what's legal or not, and to use violence to silence opposition ...... what with this, and the rail and air strikes led by dinosaur unions, its just like the end of the last Labour government in 1979.