No Retreat

[Djehuti]

"In the late 1970s, racism was on the march. The bootboys and skinheads of the National Front and the British Movement paraded their extremist views and targeted etnic minorities and political opponents-until a group of working-class, left-wing activists decided to fight back. They vowed to drive the nazis off the streets not with placards and speeches but by any means necessary. The Squads: were born-and so began the secret conflict between the anti-nazis and the far right. Shopping centers, meeting halls, concert venues and pubs became the settings for a series of pitched battles that raged from London to Glasgow, Leeds to Machester. And slowly the far right were beaten from the streets. In 1985 Anti-Fascist Action was formed to carry on the fight and to "oppose fascism both physically and ideologically." AFA's Stewards' Group superceded the Squads and led the assault on the emergent British National Party and its violent henchmen." You can buy it here.



Interwievs with the authors:
http://revfront.org/kultur/spikemagazineco...atinterview.pdf
http://www.fightdemback.com/2005/08/09/no-...rom-the-streets


Red Action statement:
http://www.redaction.org/news/oct_03.html#31_10_03

"Due to the controversy surrounding the launch of a book called 'No Retreat' by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzley due out on November 1, which is presented by the authors as a true and honest account of their involvement in militant anti-fascism over two decades, we are now putting out this statement.
As preview copies of the book have not been made available we cannot comment with any authority on the contents.
Of the character of the authors we can say this. As a result of serious breaches of trust, Tilzley and Hann were either expelled or forced to resign from Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) and Red Action respectively.
Following the attempted theft of extremely important AFA intelligence data, Steve Tilzley was shown the door by AFA in 1993.
Sometime in 1994 Dave Hann was arrested and charged in connection with a street robbery involving a gay man. It was many months before the national leaderships of RA or AFA were made aware of the charges. An immediate investigation revealed disturbing evidence of Dave Hann's involvement in similar anti-social activity. Shortly after his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where his co-defendant pleaded guilty, Dave Haan resigned from Red Action. On being confronted with the testimony of former associates, and in the presence of two officers representing national AFA, and a leading anti-fascist resident in the city, Hann confessed his guilt and offered his immediate resignation from AFA. He also surrendered his involvement in the football fanzine Red Attitude with which AFA was publicly associated. Not long afterwards he left Manchester.

End of Statement"

[Djehuti]

It should be mentioned that Dave Hann was found not guilty on all those charges pointed against him.


Red Action was a marxist, but non-leninist antifascist group in London and made up the larger part of AFA London. Dave Hann was a member of AFA Manchester but also a supporting member of Red Action, but resigned that membership when he got in conflict with RA. The AFA-network was very sucessfull in their work and managed to beat the nazis of the streets in the mid 90-ties. The BNP, the B&H, C18, NF etc were all forced to retreat and hide. When they were gone, the RA wanted to turn the AFA-network away from militant antifascism and into a network for radical socialist politics in general, but this line was opposed by Hann and the larger part of AFA in the north. There was a lot of infighting and the AFA-network split and was basicly destroyed. To bad, cause the fash did return as you well know....

However, it should be mentioned that AFA Manchester did have som very doubtful members. Dessie Noonan (he was shoot dead two years ago) for example, who has been described as britains leading crime boss. He pretty much owned Manchester and had access to more weapons than the police. An extremly powerful ally, but on the other hand he was involved in murders and drug dealing etc.


Well, you should really read this book. "No Retreat" is great!