As I’ve finally got a minute, I’ll post some of my pics of the fash that came to shout at drag queens and children at the Honor Oak pub in SE London on Saturday…
The guy in the sunglasses here is Philip Curson from Essex, a veteran of several fascist organisations, who has served time for a really horrific racist attack.
This little guy really fancied himself as a hard man — while he was protected by two rows of cops.
This creepy guy (#fagin_mr?) spent most of the morning masked up filming anti-fascists.
Among the aging thugs was this trio of posh-voiced wannabe influencers from “Students Against Tyranny” #SATOfficial_1, including comedic anti-vaxxer Nazarin Veronica.
Loads of the far right activists there fancy themselves to be vloggers, such as this guy (who is also antisemitic, anti-vaxx, pro-Nazi and pro-Putin, of course).
This little guy had a Tommy Robinson News logo on his camera (that’s “Tommy” for reference in the right-hand pic - not at Honor Oak at the weekend!). Not sure if he’s an affiliated vlogger or just a fanboy of the diminutive demagogue
This lady, attending with her kids (who really didn’t look like they wanted to be there), spent most of the morning holding her Turning Point placard upside down.
This banner helpfully explains what Turning Point UK want to see: “adult sex entertainers, not pantomime dames.”
The master race
Roy Brinkley
This guy tried to get up close with the counter protestors to show how hard he is, but was swiftly removed by anti-fascists and slunk back behind police lines.
No defence of children and British morality is complete without a few cans of Stella at 11 am.
PS this thread on how the cops always side with the fascists. At the end of the demo, five police vans full of cops were parked outside another local pub so the fash (many of whom had already been drinking at their own demo) could have a pint in peace.
Make no mistake, the ageing thugs who turned up for Turning Point would’ve loved to have a fight. Here’s one. This guy was also at the insane march against traffic calming in Oxford last month; weird overlap between men who get triggered by drag queens and anti-LTN activism.
1/ These are not people who care about children or who have critical questions about gender; they’re hardened, violent far right activists, plus grifters trying to use culture rage to build an audience.
…
2/ Looking at their social media accounts, you see a mix of themes. The top ones, as well as gender, are: migrant boats, vaccines/lockdowns, celebrating resistance (including violent &/or illegal acts) against traffic calming— the key current gateways to right-wing radicalisation
3/ In February, they were utterly humiliated by their tiny turnout and huge local counter-turnout, so they made an effort this week to gather their forces. We still outnumbered them, but ordinary locals have better things to do with their Saturdays so that might change.
4/ Liberal strategies — relying on the cops to keep the order — won’t protect our community from the fash. We need to keep physically showing them they’re not welcome here, while politically contesting their toxic ideas.
Update 2: Luca from “Students Against Tyranny” has a profile pic that’s him with David Icke, Britain’s leading Holocaust denier. The smattering of “diversity” TPUK like to parade does not mean they’re not riddled with Nazism.
#NAFO fellas have flooded the replies to this to say it’s fake news. Thing is, it’s not exactly *fake*; it’s heavily *embroidered*. Specifically (1) “embedded with Azov” seems to be Alex’s invention. In fact the guy was “in contact with” Above.
(2) Alex zooms to trivial 🇺🇦 links but misses links to Assad (the European Solidarity Front for Syria shares the same chemical weapons conspiracy theories as Grayzone) or or the way it promotes some of the same anti-vaxx messages shared by Grayzone editor, Max Blumenthal
(3) I think Alex might have mistranslated Italian sources as saying some group members travelled to Israel 🇮🇱 to train in Krav Maga. The Italian sources I’ve read say that they travelled to Poland for this. But Israel gets the conspiracy theorist pulse racing a bit more…
On the eve of war, Grayzone hosted the Russian ambassador to the UN scoffing at the silly idea that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. Definitely not a Russian state propaganda site.
Oh it wasn’t a Russian invasion. Russia was “sending peacekeeping troops to END the grInding conflict”. Definitely not a Russian state propaganda website.
I’ve been holding off on this thread until after the elections.
Now it’s clear Starmer’s Labour didn’t do as badly as the Tories & JC-loyalists hoped, but it didn’t do as well as the current leadership’s loyalists were hoping…
…Crucially Labour advanced in southern marginals it needs to win to form a government, and gained ground in some key “red wall” areas such as Dudley…
…The fact Lab didn’t win as many Con seats as & LDs in England isn’t that big a worry, as it shows solid foundation for tactical anti-Tory vote — and unless it regains Scotland, Labour can only form government in some kind of “progressive alliance”, so needs this foundation…
This has been a traumatic time for my Syrian friends. The world’s been focused on Ukraine but here’s two Syria stories you need to know about if you don’t.🧵
1/ Thanks to the extraordinary work of Annsar Shahhoud & @ugur_umit_ungor, the Tadamon massacre has been exposed:
[CW: violence]
The massacre in 2013 involved the shooting of 100s of opponents of Assad’s regime, their bodies piled in a massive pit, filmed by the perpetrators.
It closely resembles the shootings carried out by Heydrich’s Einsatzgruppen in the early phase of the Holocaust…
I haven’t been able to watch the video, but so many Syrians have had to: looking for a glimpse of a disappeared relative lost in that period. The mental health toll of living with the dictatorship’s brutality is unfathomable…
So @paulmasonnews has been talking about Socialist Action as an example of pro-Putin politics on the British left. The blue tick left have been responding saying that what he’s attacking has no meaningful existence off the Internet…
2/ I think Socialist Action (whose guru John Ross was one of Ken Livingstone’s advisors) are, despite their tiny size, particularly pernicious due to the organisational power they have in many of the UK’s (trade union bankrolled) key left organisations.
3/ For example, behind big name figureheads, Socialist Action share control of Stand Up To Racism/Unite Against Fascism with the SWP (they each have a full-time? national organiser in them, presumably funded by union affiliations). workersliberty.org/story/2012/02/…books.google.co.uk/books?id=C2a5D…
A new entry for the #ToryAntisemitism file: Conservative Party parliamentary staffer grabbed a Jewish journalist’s head to check if he has a Jewish nose…
Noticed I haven't updated the #ToryAntisemitism file in 2022. Some more entries, in light of Liz Truss's bad faith weaponisation of antisemitism, which she blames on the "woke".
Also April: Hertsmere Labour candidate told “go to the gas chambers”, labelled a “Jew c**t, and told that he “lacked a Jewish soul” in smear campaign led bf five Tory councillors.