We protected our community from a far right mob, here's what happened

The faces of fam­i­lies, most­ly moth­ers and chil­dren, peered down at us from the win­dows of the Mecure hotel on Red­cliffe Hill, Bris­tol. The res­i­dents of the hotel, which is locat­ed in the cen­tre of the city, were no doubt bewil­dered and anx­ious. Below them 200 of us had rushed up to the entrance of the build­ing and linked arms across the door­way. I was one of those in the crowd and knew that the mob couldn’t be far behind. Tense chat­ter of coor­di­na­tion broke out as we decid­ed who would form the front lines of defence. Moments lat­er, 60 ine­bri­at­ed thugs appeared at the bot­tom of the hill and began shout­ing, march­ing towards us with none of the dis­ci­pline but all the inten­tion of a Nazi bat­tal­ion. We knew what would come next and stood tight togeth­er, ready­ing our­selves for the fight.

In the days run­ning up to that stand off, I’d seen videos of far-right mobil­i­sa­tion across the coun­try. Fol­low­ing avicious attack on a group of young girls in South­port mis­in­for­ma­tion about the attack­ers ori­gins, eth­nic­i­ty and reli­gion spread across social media. Ini­tial­ly offi­cial infor­ma­tion was scarce due to the suspect’s age (17 at the time of the attack) and safe­guard­ing laws. Though a court did lat­er order his iden­ti­ty could be revealed to pre­vent fur­ther unrest, it was of no use.

Start­ing close to where the killings hap­pened in South­port with an attack on a mosque, unrest has spread through the coun­try. Mobs have ram­paged through com­mu­ni­ties attack­ing peo­ple of colour, set­ting fire to shops, cars, and even police sta­tions chant­i­ng ​‘enough is enough’ and ​‘stop the boats’. This was the back­drop to the action in our city this weekend.

On Sat­ur­day 4^th August we gath­ered in the city’s Cas­tle Park from 6pm — an hour before the far-right ​‘protest’ was due to begin. Our counter ral­ly, which reached around 1,000 by the time the mob arrived, was made up of all types of peo­ple. From trade union­ists, fam­i­lies, old com­rades and young queers, anony­mous anti fas­cists and peo­ple who’d just stopped by after some shop­ping. We were there to ensure the mes­sage that racism and hate is not wel­come in Bris­tol was heard loud and clear.

The police were present, telling any­one with a face cov­er­ing to remove it or risk arrest — new pow­ers grant­ed to them by pub­lic order leg­is­la­tion passed in the dying embers of the pre­vi­ous Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment. Peo­ple chant­ed loud­ly over the police’s instruc­tions until I saw one per­son was grabbed by 4 offi­cers for refus­ing to remove their face mask prompt­ing out­rage from the crowd.

At 7pm, a num­ber of peo­ple began to gath­er down­hill from us. The St George flags fly­ing above them made it clear which side of the divide they were on. We chant­ed ​“there are many, many more of us than you” as anoth­er size­able group of far-right demon­stra­tors approached from the oppo­site side of the park, flanked by police officers.

Imme­di­ate­ly the atmos­phere shift­ed. The mob pushed for­wards towards us, shout­ing and attempt­ing to break through the police line. For the next half hour their group moved around the ruins of the church that sits in the mid­dle of the park, try­ing to find a route to the counter-demo. Each time they were either held back by police or by a small but organ­ised group of antifas­cists mov­ing quick­ly from point to point around the square.

We remained above the main bulk of them chant­i­ng and watch­ing on as police lines formed up to stop them get­ting any clos­er. Their side was less of a mixed crowd, most­ly men but some very worked up women, drink­ing heav­i­ly and shout­ing at the police. I saw one man kick at a police dog, nar­row­ly miss­ing the ani­mal’s head. He was not arrest­ed and was allowed to con­tin­ue his aggres­sion against us and the police.

Short­ly after I saw five offi­cers jump on top of a black man while two women screamed and plead­ed at them that they were arrest­ing the wrong guy.

I lat­er saw a video of the pro­ceed­ing inci­dent in which he was rushed by a large bloke in a green shirt, fists swing­ing. The man had no choice but to defend him­self and got a cou­ple of hits back before being piled on by cops. The attack­er walked off back to his mates allowed to con­tin­ue with his day of racist attacks. I did­n’t know at that point I’d be the one face to face with him lat­er that evening.

We had intel­li­gence that the far-right planned to march the twen­ty min­utes from Cas­tle Park to the Mecure hotel. As two groups stood off at Bris­tol Bridge, and the num­bers of police in and around the park surged, we got word from a local Green par­ty coun­cil­lor that some of the fas­cists had reached the hotel. We left through a loose­ly guard­ed side street and around 200 of us man­aged to get through before the police closed the opening.

We moved deci­sive­ly and togeth­er, weav­ing past pubs and bars full of patrons enjoy­ing the sun. We were pur­sued by 3 police offi­cers on bikes who occa­sion­al­ly stopped to keep us away from small groups of right wingers who jeered from their smok­ing area seats, hav­ing giv­en up on tak­ing back the coun­try in favour of the pub.

When we arrived at the hotel some of our num­ber instinc­tive­ly went to pro­tect the front doors, stand­ing shoul­der to shoul­der, deter­mined not to let any­one move them. With that line estab­lished, the rest of us gath­ered and kept an eye out for approach­ing groups. We were des­per­ate for more sup­port­ers to appear and bulk out our num­bers but instead our hearts sank as the thugs appeared at the bot­tom of the hill, froth­ing for a fight.

I put on a brave face but I knew the next few moments could go hor­ri­bly wrong. When they reached us they let loose imme­di­ate­ly, throw­ing fists and kicks at any­one they could reach, spit­ting on peo­ple, shout­ing they’d kill us. Pound for pound we were out gunned but a strong resolve to stand our ground and pro­tect each oth­er kept us safe.

The police offi­cers on the bikes who had fol­lowed us were sup­port­ed by 4 lia­son offi­cers. Togeth­er they tried, and failed, to hold a line between us. They briefly pushed back the most rabid of them using their bikes as a bar­ri­er but they were quick­ly out flanked.

It was then that I spot­ted the man in the green shirt, blood now cas­cad­ing down his face. He locked eyes with me and dove for­wards, fists raised. Again and again he came at me while his mates attacked the com­rades around me. Even­tu­al­ly I took a sharp hit to the jaw but not enough to take me out of the line. It ached but I was sure it was­n’t bro­ken, we had to hold the entrance.

Even­tu­al­ly the mount­ed police back­up arrived, push­ing back the mob. Though des­per­ate for a fight and to do god only knows what in the hotel tow­er­ing over us, the fas­cists tried much less to break through now their path was blocked by both hors­es and com­mu­ni­ty members.

We went back to chant­i­ng. We waved at the fam­i­lies in the win­dows of the hotel who con­tin­ued look­ing down. Moth­ers still vis­i­bly shak­en seemed relieved to see they were well pro­tect­ed. Chil­dren threw out heart sym­bols with their hands. The night dragged on and slow­ly but sure­ly the far right tod­dled off. We had done it. For this day at least, in our city, we’d won.

Lat­er that evening, final­ly com­ing down off the adren­a­line, we got a harsh reminder of the ever present dan­ger of the far right. As we entered a gay bar to cel­e­brate our friend’s birth­day the bounc­er warned us that there was the poten­tial that the venue would be attacked by the mob, and if that hap­pened they would go into lock down. This is the real­i­ty of far-right mobil­i­sa­tions in towns and cities all over the coun­try. It’s why, no mat­ter how scary it is, we have to stand up for each oth­er, and fight back in defence of our com­mu­ni­ties where necessary.

The next day I saw hor­rif­ic scenes from Tam­worth and Rother­ham flood­ing twit­ter and news chan­nels. In both loca­tions hotels like the one I’d stood out­side of just 24 hours before were attacked and set alight by a mob. The peo­ple who did it were no dif­fer­ent to the ones we’d been facing.

We can­not risk that hap­pen­ing again. The only way to ensure that is to active­ly reach out and organ­ise our com­mu­ni­ties. The more of us turn up the safer we all are. Make no mis­take, it is not easy, but we have no option but to win.

After Saturday’s events Bris­tol Anti-Racist Action has formed to organ­ise a response to the far right street activ­i­ty. We will be in Old Mar­ket on Wednes­day 7^th at 7pm defend­ing our neigh­bours and an activist meet­ing will be tak­ing place on Weds 14^th at a venue that will be announced soon via Face­book.

This Wednes­day the far right is on the move again, with reports sug­gest­ing they will tar­get immi­gra­tion advice cen­tres and lawyers offices across the coun­try. You can find your local counter protest here.

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