A History of Antifascists Beating the Shit Out of the National Front

Remembrance Sunday is the high point in the UK white pride calendar – a day for the fascist National Front (NF) to parade past the Cenotaph, sullying the day with their presence, while others try to peacefully pay their respects to those who've died at war.

This year there was a split among the NF ranks, meaning there were two separate marches and the slim chance of confrontation. However, thankfully, ​it turned out to be a relatively low-key event – not like NF marches in the past.

In the 1980s, the Remembrance Day march was a much bigger deal, drawing thousands of racist boneheads to London. As such, people who hate fascists wanted to oppose it. And over a period of a few years in the late-1980s, Anti-Fascist Action (AFA), a militant anti-fascist organisation, was able to significantly reduce the number of people attending the National Front's annual march through a combination of audacious organising matched with gratuitous violence.

I recently caught up with Joe, a former organiser for AFA. We chatted about beating up Nazis in pubs and burger bars, and he explained how AFA was able to bring the number of people going on the march down to a tenth of what it was at its peak.