Bitter Ashes
2nd November 2009, 18:24
Pogue suggested I posted this on the main forum too, so here we go :)
I left the house with my rucksack filled with sandwiches, a big 2ltr bottle of squash I made, phone, money, etc and my placard (A pretty basic crossed out swastika with "The EDL ARE facists" written underneath). I'd also taken a book for the train journey "Unpeople: A history of Britain's human rights abuses". Once I'd got to the train station it became pretty clear very quickly that I may have made a critical error of judgement. Originaly there was supposed to be 4 comrades that I'd arranged to meet up with here in Hudds to go to the demo with, but all had canceled for various reasons. So, now I was on my way to Leeds alone.
Outside the station there was several people with skinheads and England football shirts on. Fortuantly, my placard was covered up by a plastic bag and I managed to get past without any trouble. As I got close to the platform though I started hearing shouting coming from the train I was intending to board. The train was crammed full of skinheads, who were shouting and swearing at any Asian people they saw. One of the station's staff came running over to me and said "Don't get on that train. It's not safe". The train was delayed while Police were called to board as well and ride with them. Some of the cafe staff were also feeling intimidated by the EDL's chanting and abuse.
Fortuantly, while I was looking around, I spotted a few members of the local SP branch and joined up with them. We were packed onto another train, again with delays for police to ride the train with us. It was very cramped on there, but overall, it was a calm atmosphere, with the vast majority seeming to be anti-facist demonstrators. One guy did push past us wearing a t-shirt with Bin Laden on with the slogan "Wanted: Dead", but he wasnt attacked or intimidated in any way that I noticed, although he was wise enough to keep a low profile the best he could.
Leeds had transformed on Saturday. It did not feel like the same city that I frequent every other week. As we reached Leeds station, there were dozens of police on the plaform, including two FIT teams, one was filming everyone getting off the train. At this point one or two people were grabbed at this point and pulled in front of the other FIT team to get closeups taken of thier faces. I dont know what they had done or what happened to them afterwards, to be honest, I was more intrested in keeping my eyes forward, sticking with the group I was with and avoiding looking suspicous. Just as we were getting to the ticket barriers, a large group of about 20 police ran past us and drew thier battons along the way towards the back of the line. Again, I didnt dare turn aroung to look at what was going on, but I could hear shouting.
Outside the station wasnt much more comforting, 8 mounted policemen were at the taxi rank watching the doors and a helecopter was zipping around in the sky. On the streets of Leeds that afternoon, the only cars had blue lights on the top and the only people I saw on the way to the Headrow were obvious anti-facist demonstrators and the police. All along Park Row, all you could hear was the helecopter and the occasional distant siren. It's very eerie.
While we were walking, I managed to link up with my comrades that I usualy work with who had decieded to come dressed head to toe in black. They had thier banner confiscated, but still had a few generic anarchist flags. I was stood there in a bright red hoodie and felt a bit of the odd one out. Nethertheless, I thanked the SP for letting me tag along and getting me as far as Leeds and then I stayed with the other anarchists for the rest of the time. We'd just been chatting between ourselves and catching up when one of the anti-facists in the street suddenly yelled "THEY'RE IN HERE! The fascists are in Wetherspoons! That's why the Police have these vans hiding the windows and guarding the door". The Police started shouting at him and ordering him to shut up or get arrested. A few of the other demonstrators had slowed down after hearing all this and that's when we noticed about 30 Policemen coming running around the corner in one big group, so we decieded to start moving onwards. We did see the guy again, so we know that he wasnt actualy arrested.
When we got to the designated UAF area there was trouble getting the anti-facists herded into thier pen. The pens were stainless steel barriers about 3 feet tall which were bieng guarded by Police and UAF Stewards This is the scene we faced as the police tried to cram us in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn6XBgC45tQ
As you can see, there's a lot of pushing. What you dont see though is that FIT were stood on the covered up statue filming everyone, the police were confiscating placards and banners left right and centre, as well as a red flare that somebody let off in the crowd to much applause. Those 30 police we'd seen earlier had arrived to start pushing us from behind. I had my own placard confiscated by the police. The constable seemed to plead with me to part with it, rather than demand it, or wrench it out of my hand quickly. He'd moved through the crowd fairly easily to get to me though, so I guess he could have dragged me out just as easily if I'd put up any resistance. I let him have the nasty rotton piece of wood.
Inside the pen there was mainly calm and a lot of space to move around. Several speakers were on megaphone at the porch of the art gallery. I heard two from UAF and one from the unions talking about anti-facism. It was pretty generic stuff really that we've all heard before, although the deputy secretary of UAF did also announce that he'd been ordered by the courts to pay Nick Griffin's cleaning bill for the egg incident and he was refusing to cough up a penny which got some cheers. FIT were on the porch with the speakers pointing thier cameras mainly at the black clad anarchists.
It was around this time that things started kicking off. Somebody in the middle of the crowd was suddenly set on by everyone arround them. Presumably because they thought he was EDL, although I've heard since that he may have been a BBC runner who was getting some batteries for the camera. I was nearby and managed to see that there was at least 10 anti-facists kickign somebody on the floor. The police stormed in and rescued the man without drawing thier battons and carried him away. Intrestingly, West Yorkshire Police claims that there was no injuries at the demonstrations. http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/s...id=12&iid=8669 (http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/section-item.asp?sid=12&iid=8669)
We then realised that we'd lost a member of our group and spotted him on the other side of the barriers talking to the UAF stewards, clearly trying to get back on the other side. He was not bieng aggressive in any way and was smiling and holding his hands out peacefully. The UAF steward put his hand on our comrade's chest and gave him a firm shove away from the barriers. Still, mainting his cool, our comrade walked back to the barrier and was grabbed this time by the steward and thrown into the arms of an approaching policeman who quickly dragged him away from the barriers, towards the shops where the Police were keeping thier vans. Despite us trying to reach our comrade from the second we saw him on the wrong side of the barrier, we were not quick enough and by the time we'd got to the barrier, we was having his face held up to a FIT camera and bieng dragged away towards Park Row. We had no idea what had happened to him and understandably, most of us were very upset that the UAF had literaly handed over our friend to the Police. The stewards' response to our accusations of collaberation with the state was that they didnt personaly agree with anarchist ideoligly. They made no attempt to justify thier actions, or even deny them, other than thier own personal preffernces. One member of our group fiercly defended anarchism and direct action, while other anti-facists started asking questions about what had just happened. Within about five minutes, a substantial number of the anti-facists had heard about what had happened and began to chant "We want to march!", in what appeared to be a rebellion against the UAF's "leadership". Several hundred anti-facists began to march towards Greek Street to try meet the facists and/or rescue our comrade.
Soon the pace began to pick up and along the way I saw a young man hold out his hand to somebody with a placard, to be handed it, where he tore off the UAF sign, threw it behind him and began walking briskly with the 3ft piece of wood in his hands like a club. Several other such clubs began to become common and by the time we'd reached Greek Street, there was very few UAF placards in sight. I never did see the clubs used though and there was no sign of them bieng abandoned on the ground. We began to try moving down Greek Street to reach Park Row and the Square where we knew the facists were hiding and where we thought our comrade may be held. The Police came screaming down from Park Row in thier vans to block us off, but there wasnt many. Maybe 40 at most to hold off what looked like at least 200 anti-facists. As we approached the police lines, we linked armed and began to chant "'ere we go". The police line lasted no longer than 30 seconds under the weight of the demonstrators and a small group of us managed to push through, followed by another few similar sized groups that had managed to rupture through the lines. Unsure what to do, we put a bit of distance between the police and ourselves and waited for our comrades to finish off the line. The police retreated back, abandoning thier vans and setting up a new line, this time with battons drawn. We started walking up again, with our little group at the front. Mounted officers started forming up behind the new police line and came after ourselves, herding us into a corner and telling us to get back with the rest of the marchers. We complied and as we were moving, the police on foot had shouted a charge and were coming at us all. People paniced and abanonded the vans. As we ran back the other way, we saw that the Police had formed another line at that side of the street. The only way out was the way we had come and there was yet another FIT team there, this time with an unconcious man at thier feet in a pool of his own blood, bieng tended to by other demonstrators. Again, West Yorkshire Police is currently saying that there was no injuries.
With nowhere else to go and nobody being too eager to charge horsemen and battons, the marchers began to make thier way back the way they'd come. Our group reformed and decieded what to do, which was to eat our sandwiches and then see if there was any other way to get around to the facists and find out what had happened to our comrade. There was a nearby park and we noticed that we were bieng followed by an officer and about a dozen constables. We sat down on the benches in the park and unpacked our sandwiches and began eating, believing that they had no reason to come after us. The officer walked to within a few metres of us and stopped, the constables forming a wide semi-circle around the benches. It did twig then that maybe we should move on. We considered climbing the trees to tie up the police and allow us to finish our lunch, but decieded against it as a pointless move, so we approached the officer, asked what he was doing and he claimed we were committing a public order offence if we did not stop eating and left immediatly. Section 14 if I remember him quoting correctly. Yup, eating lunch with intent to cause riot.
This didnt seem like a battle we could win, so we packed up and began walking towards the UAF demo again. Along the way, our "lost" comrade came belting at us on a pushbike and a fresh set of clothes. Apparantly he'd not been charged, but had been ordered to leave Leeds for 48 hours or face arrest. He just got changed instead and came looking for us when he heard that we'd gone looking for him. We were pleased to see him and sat down on some steps close to the art gallery to discuss what to do next. There was a wedding going on behind us and we did feel a bit sorry for those people who were getting married that day and had the EDL ruin everything for them no doubt. The officer from the park had caught up with us again and had told us to move along again. Either get in the pen, or leave the City Centre for 48 hours, or go to the cells were our choices. Aparantly our meeting was an illegal demonstration now.
After this we just wandered around Leeds trying to spot any small straggling groups of facists. We came across quite a few which were in Yates' near the Corn Exchange, and we could hear them chanting near the rail station. Outside of Yates' a young black man was beaten up against the escaulators and then arrested, for no apparant reason by the police. Everyone there was shouting for him to be released and that he'd done nothing wrong. A few tried to grab at the young man, but he was taken away all the same. The police had formed up a line outside Yates' to keep us and the facists apart. I think everyone was too down and demoralised to begin chanting again, or making any challenges to the EDL, even when a small march came right past us draped in England flags.
The last thing we did was take a walk to the rail station where we saw a group of maybe 40 EDL kettled in a tiny circle by mounted police on the pavement. Again, we were told to leave and by the sounds of things everything that trickled away to nothing throughout Leeds. The facists were contained, at the very least, in pubs, if not these little kettles. I made sure that I wasnt wearing anything that would identify me as politicaly involved and made my way to the bus stop to get myself to this party.
I'm not unsure what to make of this. I think that 1,500 anti-facists learned some important lessons yesterday about organising, the police and other tactics. Did we prevent the EDL from networking? Not really. Did we prevent them from marching? I'm not sure. I think the police's efforts to keep us apart did most of the work for us there in regards to preventing an EDL march, but the police did fail too as there was a breakout at Boar Lane which apaprantly was nasty. So, who came out trumps on this? Well, it was the police really. The wanted to keep us apart and they did it. They wanted to get all the pretty photos of us nasty leftists and they did. They wanted to keep us controled without beaking 10 bells of shit out of us, and they did. I think we must learn from this and make sure it's not a regular occurance.
I left the house with my rucksack filled with sandwiches, a big 2ltr bottle of squash I made, phone, money, etc and my placard (A pretty basic crossed out swastika with "The EDL ARE facists" written underneath). I'd also taken a book for the train journey "Unpeople: A history of Britain's human rights abuses". Once I'd got to the train station it became pretty clear very quickly that I may have made a critical error of judgement. Originaly there was supposed to be 4 comrades that I'd arranged to meet up with here in Hudds to go to the demo with, but all had canceled for various reasons. So, now I was on my way to Leeds alone.
Outside the station there was several people with skinheads and England football shirts on. Fortuantly, my placard was covered up by a plastic bag and I managed to get past without any trouble. As I got close to the platform though I started hearing shouting coming from the train I was intending to board. The train was crammed full of skinheads, who were shouting and swearing at any Asian people they saw. One of the station's staff came running over to me and said "Don't get on that train. It's not safe". The train was delayed while Police were called to board as well and ride with them. Some of the cafe staff were also feeling intimidated by the EDL's chanting and abuse.
Fortuantly, while I was looking around, I spotted a few members of the local SP branch and joined up with them. We were packed onto another train, again with delays for police to ride the train with us. It was very cramped on there, but overall, it was a calm atmosphere, with the vast majority seeming to be anti-facist demonstrators. One guy did push past us wearing a t-shirt with Bin Laden on with the slogan "Wanted: Dead", but he wasnt attacked or intimidated in any way that I noticed, although he was wise enough to keep a low profile the best he could.
Leeds had transformed on Saturday. It did not feel like the same city that I frequent every other week. As we reached Leeds station, there were dozens of police on the plaform, including two FIT teams, one was filming everyone getting off the train. At this point one or two people were grabbed at this point and pulled in front of the other FIT team to get closeups taken of thier faces. I dont know what they had done or what happened to them afterwards, to be honest, I was more intrested in keeping my eyes forward, sticking with the group I was with and avoiding looking suspicous. Just as we were getting to the ticket barriers, a large group of about 20 police ran past us and drew thier battons along the way towards the back of the line. Again, I didnt dare turn aroung to look at what was going on, but I could hear shouting.
Outside the station wasnt much more comforting, 8 mounted policemen were at the taxi rank watching the doors and a helecopter was zipping around in the sky. On the streets of Leeds that afternoon, the only cars had blue lights on the top and the only people I saw on the way to the Headrow were obvious anti-facist demonstrators and the police. All along Park Row, all you could hear was the helecopter and the occasional distant siren. It's very eerie.
While we were walking, I managed to link up with my comrades that I usualy work with who had decieded to come dressed head to toe in black. They had thier banner confiscated, but still had a few generic anarchist flags. I was stood there in a bright red hoodie and felt a bit of the odd one out. Nethertheless, I thanked the SP for letting me tag along and getting me as far as Leeds and then I stayed with the other anarchists for the rest of the time. We'd just been chatting between ourselves and catching up when one of the anti-facists in the street suddenly yelled "THEY'RE IN HERE! The fascists are in Wetherspoons! That's why the Police have these vans hiding the windows and guarding the door". The Police started shouting at him and ordering him to shut up or get arrested. A few of the other demonstrators had slowed down after hearing all this and that's when we noticed about 30 Policemen coming running around the corner in one big group, so we decieded to start moving onwards. We did see the guy again, so we know that he wasnt actualy arrested.
When we got to the designated UAF area there was trouble getting the anti-facists herded into thier pen. The pens were stainless steel barriers about 3 feet tall which were bieng guarded by Police and UAF Stewards This is the scene we faced as the police tried to cram us in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vn6XBgC45tQ
As you can see, there's a lot of pushing. What you dont see though is that FIT were stood on the covered up statue filming everyone, the police were confiscating placards and banners left right and centre, as well as a red flare that somebody let off in the crowd to much applause. Those 30 police we'd seen earlier had arrived to start pushing us from behind. I had my own placard confiscated by the police. The constable seemed to plead with me to part with it, rather than demand it, or wrench it out of my hand quickly. He'd moved through the crowd fairly easily to get to me though, so I guess he could have dragged me out just as easily if I'd put up any resistance. I let him have the nasty rotton piece of wood.
Inside the pen there was mainly calm and a lot of space to move around. Several speakers were on megaphone at the porch of the art gallery. I heard two from UAF and one from the unions talking about anti-facism. It was pretty generic stuff really that we've all heard before, although the deputy secretary of UAF did also announce that he'd been ordered by the courts to pay Nick Griffin's cleaning bill for the egg incident and he was refusing to cough up a penny which got some cheers. FIT were on the porch with the speakers pointing thier cameras mainly at the black clad anarchists.
It was around this time that things started kicking off. Somebody in the middle of the crowd was suddenly set on by everyone arround them. Presumably because they thought he was EDL, although I've heard since that he may have been a BBC runner who was getting some batteries for the camera. I was nearby and managed to see that there was at least 10 anti-facists kickign somebody on the floor. The police stormed in and rescued the man without drawing thier battons and carried him away. Intrestingly, West Yorkshire Police claims that there was no injuries at the demonstrations. http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/s...id=12&iid=8669 (http://www.westyorkshire.police.uk/section-item.asp?sid=12&iid=8669)
We then realised that we'd lost a member of our group and spotted him on the other side of the barriers talking to the UAF stewards, clearly trying to get back on the other side. He was not bieng aggressive in any way and was smiling and holding his hands out peacefully. The UAF steward put his hand on our comrade's chest and gave him a firm shove away from the barriers. Still, mainting his cool, our comrade walked back to the barrier and was grabbed this time by the steward and thrown into the arms of an approaching policeman who quickly dragged him away from the barriers, towards the shops where the Police were keeping thier vans. Despite us trying to reach our comrade from the second we saw him on the wrong side of the barrier, we were not quick enough and by the time we'd got to the barrier, we was having his face held up to a FIT camera and bieng dragged away towards Park Row. We had no idea what had happened to him and understandably, most of us were very upset that the UAF had literaly handed over our friend to the Police. The stewards' response to our accusations of collaberation with the state was that they didnt personaly agree with anarchist ideoligly. They made no attempt to justify thier actions, or even deny them, other than thier own personal preffernces. One member of our group fiercly defended anarchism and direct action, while other anti-facists started asking questions about what had just happened. Within about five minutes, a substantial number of the anti-facists had heard about what had happened and began to chant "We want to march!", in what appeared to be a rebellion against the UAF's "leadership". Several hundred anti-facists began to march towards Greek Street to try meet the facists and/or rescue our comrade.
Soon the pace began to pick up and along the way I saw a young man hold out his hand to somebody with a placard, to be handed it, where he tore off the UAF sign, threw it behind him and began walking briskly with the 3ft piece of wood in his hands like a club. Several other such clubs began to become common and by the time we'd reached Greek Street, there was very few UAF placards in sight. I never did see the clubs used though and there was no sign of them bieng abandoned on the ground. We began to try moving down Greek Street to reach Park Row and the Square where we knew the facists were hiding and where we thought our comrade may be held. The Police came screaming down from Park Row in thier vans to block us off, but there wasnt many. Maybe 40 at most to hold off what looked like at least 200 anti-facists. As we approached the police lines, we linked armed and began to chant "'ere we go". The police line lasted no longer than 30 seconds under the weight of the demonstrators and a small group of us managed to push through, followed by another few similar sized groups that had managed to rupture through the lines. Unsure what to do, we put a bit of distance between the police and ourselves and waited for our comrades to finish off the line. The police retreated back, abandoning thier vans and setting up a new line, this time with battons drawn. We started walking up again, with our little group at the front. Mounted officers started forming up behind the new police line and came after ourselves, herding us into a corner and telling us to get back with the rest of the marchers. We complied and as we were moving, the police on foot had shouted a charge and were coming at us all. People paniced and abanonded the vans. As we ran back the other way, we saw that the Police had formed another line at that side of the street. The only way out was the way we had come and there was yet another FIT team there, this time with an unconcious man at thier feet in a pool of his own blood, bieng tended to by other demonstrators. Again, West Yorkshire Police is currently saying that there was no injuries.
With nowhere else to go and nobody being too eager to charge horsemen and battons, the marchers began to make thier way back the way they'd come. Our group reformed and decieded what to do, which was to eat our sandwiches and then see if there was any other way to get around to the facists and find out what had happened to our comrade. There was a nearby park and we noticed that we were bieng followed by an officer and about a dozen constables. We sat down on the benches in the park and unpacked our sandwiches and began eating, believing that they had no reason to come after us. The officer walked to within a few metres of us and stopped, the constables forming a wide semi-circle around the benches. It did twig then that maybe we should move on. We considered climbing the trees to tie up the police and allow us to finish our lunch, but decieded against it as a pointless move, so we approached the officer, asked what he was doing and he claimed we were committing a public order offence if we did not stop eating and left immediatly. Section 14 if I remember him quoting correctly. Yup, eating lunch with intent to cause riot.
This didnt seem like a battle we could win, so we packed up and began walking towards the UAF demo again. Along the way, our "lost" comrade came belting at us on a pushbike and a fresh set of clothes. Apparantly he'd not been charged, but had been ordered to leave Leeds for 48 hours or face arrest. He just got changed instead and came looking for us when he heard that we'd gone looking for him. We were pleased to see him and sat down on some steps close to the art gallery to discuss what to do next. There was a wedding going on behind us and we did feel a bit sorry for those people who were getting married that day and had the EDL ruin everything for them no doubt. The officer from the park had caught up with us again and had told us to move along again. Either get in the pen, or leave the City Centre for 48 hours, or go to the cells were our choices. Aparantly our meeting was an illegal demonstration now.
After this we just wandered around Leeds trying to spot any small straggling groups of facists. We came across quite a few which were in Yates' near the Corn Exchange, and we could hear them chanting near the rail station. Outside of Yates' a young black man was beaten up against the escaulators and then arrested, for no apparant reason by the police. Everyone there was shouting for him to be released and that he'd done nothing wrong. A few tried to grab at the young man, but he was taken away all the same. The police had formed up a line outside Yates' to keep us and the facists apart. I think everyone was too down and demoralised to begin chanting again, or making any challenges to the EDL, even when a small march came right past us draped in England flags.
The last thing we did was take a walk to the rail station where we saw a group of maybe 40 EDL kettled in a tiny circle by mounted police on the pavement. Again, we were told to leave and by the sounds of things everything that trickled away to nothing throughout Leeds. The facists were contained, at the very least, in pubs, if not these little kettles. I made sure that I wasnt wearing anything that would identify me as politicaly involved and made my way to the bus stop to get myself to this party.
I'm not unsure what to make of this. I think that 1,500 anti-facists learned some important lessons yesterday about organising, the police and other tactics. Did we prevent the EDL from networking? Not really. Did we prevent them from marching? I'm not sure. I think the police's efforts to keep us apart did most of the work for us there in regards to preventing an EDL march, but the police did fail too as there was a breakout at Boar Lane which apaprantly was nasty. So, who came out trumps on this? Well, it was the police really. The wanted to keep us apart and they did it. They wanted to get all the pretty photos of us nasty leftists and they did. They wanted to keep us controled without beaking 10 bells of shit out of us, and they did. I think we must learn from this and make sure it's not a regular occurance.