Unite Against Fascism

Unite Against Fascism (UAF) was formed in Great Britain in late 2003 in response to electoral successes by the BNP.[9] Its main elements were the Anti-Nazi League and the National Assembly Against Racism, with the support of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and leading British unions such as the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G) (now Unite) and UNISON.[10] According to Red Pepper magazine, UAF was set up by the Socialist Workers Party and the National Assembly Against Racism.[11] Among the union leaders backing UAF were Billy Hayes of the Communication Workers Union, Andy Gilchrist and Mick Shaw of the Fire Brigades Union, Mark Serwotka of the PCS public service workers' union, and Christine Blower and Kevin Courtney of the NUT.[12]

In 2005, the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight disaffiliated from UAF after an argument over tactics to defeat the BNP.[13][14] At UAF's 2007 national conference, speakers ranged from cabinet minister Peter Hain to Edie Friedman of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality and Muhammad Abdul Bari of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), as well as figures from the major UK trade unions.[15] At UAF's 2009 national conference, Bari was again a guest speaker.[16]

UAF has worked closely with Love Music Hate Racism,[17] described by UAF/SWP's Weyman Bennett as "the cultural wing of our movement".[12]

On 19 August 2009, police arrested 19 protesters during a demonstration by UAF against the BNP's Red, White and Blue Festival in Codnor, Derbyshire.[26] Four people were charged, three with public order offences and one with unlawfully obstructing the highway.[27][28][29]

On 22 October 2009, the UAF demonstration against Nick Griffin's appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme resulted in injuries to three police officers.[30] UAF national officer and (then) SWP National Secretary Martin Smith was found guilty of assaulting one of the police officers at South Western Magistrates' Court, London, on 7 September 2010. He was sentenced to a 12-month community order, with 80 hours' unpaid work, and was fined £450 pending an appeal.[31][32]

On 20 March 2010, demonstrations from UAF and the English Defence League (EDL) in Bolton led to violent confrontations and the arrest of at least 55 UAF supporters, including the UAF protest organiser Weyman Bennett, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit violent disorder.[33][34][35] At least three EDL supporters were also arrested, and two UAF members were taken to hospital with a minor head and a minor ear injury.[33][34] After Bennett was charged and released, he accused the police of being hostile to anti-racists and called for an inquiry into the police's actions that day.[36] The police, while criticising the EDL for "vitriolic name-calling" blamed people predominantly associated with UAF for provoking violence and said that they "acted with, at times, extreme violence".[37] All charges against Bennett were eventually dropped. In response to this news he was quoted as saying, "This is a victory for anti-fascists and for the right to protest. I'm proud to say that the threat of these charges has not deterred any of us from continuing to stand up against the EDL. I can now continue my work without this serious false allegation hanging over me. It is imperative we continue to protest to protect our multi-racial communities."[38]

On 30 August 2010, violence occurred in Brighton, East Sussex, during a UAF protest against a march organised by a group called the English Nationalist Alliance. A spokesman for the police, who were attempting to keep 250 protesters and marchers apart, said, "Unfortunately a small group from the counter-demonstration [UAF] resisted this and threw missiles at the police." There were fourteen arrests during the violence.[39]

On 2 June 2013, 58 anti-fascist demonstrators were arrested by police under Section 14 of the Public Order Act for failing to move up the street[40] away from a BNP demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament against what the BNP describe as Islamic "hate preachers".[41] Of the 58, only five were charged and their cases were dismissed at Westminster Magistrates' Court in April 2014.[42] The police had earlier banned the BNP from marching from Woolwich Barracks to the Houses of Parliament, fearing violence.[43]

In 2006, David Tate argued that the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was seeking to dominate the UAF,[44] and a 2014 report in the New Statesman described it as a "front" for the SWP.[45] The same criticism has been made of UAF's sister organisation Stand Up To Racism.[46]

David Toube claims that the organisations involved in the UAF avoid condemnation of antisemitism.[47] The LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell has accused UAF of a selective approach to bigotry: "UAF commendably opposes the BNP and EDL but it is silent about Islamist fascists who promote anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and sectarian attacks on non-extremist Muslims (see also Islam and violence). It is time the UAF campaigned against the Islamist far right as well as against the EDL and BNP far right."[32]

The journalist Andrew Gilligan has claimed that the UAF's reluctance to tackle Islamism is because several of its own members are supporters of such extremism. The UAF's vice-chairman, Azad Ali, is also community affairs co-ordinator of the Islamic Forum of Europe, which Gilligan describes as "a Muslim supremacist group dedicated to changing 'the very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed from ignorance to Islam'".[32] Nigel Copsey, Professor of Modern History at Teesside University, wrote that Ali's association with IFE made UAF "[run] the risk of turning a blind eye to Islamist extremism".[48] Ali was suspended as a civil servant in the Treasury after he wrote approvingly on his blog of an Islamic militant who said that as a Muslim he is religiously obliged to kill British soldiers in Iraq, in 2009.[49]

According to Gilligan, Michael Adebolajo, one of the murderers of Lee Rigby in 2013, spoke "on the margins" of a 2009 UAF demonstration in Harrow.[32] Secretary Weyman Bennett responded by saying that Adebolajo was not an official speaker.[32]

• Official website
• Stand Up To Racism
• Unite Against Fascism / Rock Against Racism archive at the Bishopsgate Institute