By Sam Wise.
Last night, Southampton made me proud. I’m sure everyone was aware of the brief spate of far-right violence that had happened in the last week or two, using the excuse of the tragic stabbings in Southport to justify “peaceful protests” which devolved into fighting with the police, breaking into businesses and looting. Understandably, people were scared, and when the organisers published a list of locations where they would protest at what they described as “Immigration Centres” (in Southampton, the chosen target was a law consultancy firm that helps people get visas to LEAVE the UK. These are not incredibly smart people), a lot of people panicked.
In Southampton, many businesses closed for the whole day, or from lunchtime, or otherwise early in the afternoon. Some boarded their windows over. The City Centre was much quieter than usual, and many people were expressing fear. Not everyone, however; as soon as the list came out, local people swung into action to organise a counter-protest. Word spread fast, and support was plentiful; whatever was going to happen, we would turn out plenty of people to show that our city did not agree with the thugs. On the night, hundreds of people poured into East Park to rally at the Peace Fountain. After a few short speeches, a crowd that I estimate at around 400 marched from there to the planned site of the right wing protest. There, we met the full force of what the EDL, Nigel Farage, and the fictional character Tommy Robinson (played on tv by the actor Stephen Yaxley Lennon) could muster. This turned out to be about 12 people wrapped in England flags, and mostly masked. They seemed to be chanting something, some of the time, but it could not he heard over the noise of the anti-fascist counter protest. One single person attempted a flanking manoeuvre and tried to run into the crowd from a side street, but was saved from the potential consequences of his actions by the police.
While this was taking place in Southampton, over 1000 people had surrounded 3 or 4 right wing protestors in Brighton, and played them some samba music. An estimated 10,000 marched in Walthamstow, and the racist protestors were unable to get to their stated location. Reports suggest that the fascists were outnumbered by at least 10-1 everywhere in the country. That’s the story, really; not a fight, not a pitched battle, not a test of strength. Simply a very clear message that normal people in this country do not support the agenda of hatred against immigrants, asylum seekers and let’s be honest, as well all know, people of colour. And that if you come to our cities to try to prosecute that agenda, normal British people will turn out in very large numbers to prevent it. Across the country, the protests and counter protests turned out to be largely peaceful, and honestly, the reason is that there are just very few of these racists. They could turn out enough people in some areas to cause trouble when they acted without warning. When they tried to replicate it across the whole country, they could not muster significant numbers anywhere, and very large numbers did muster in opposition. We took our country back, and we took back the narrative from the Cosplay Crusaders. Long may it continue.
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