BRIGHTON DEFENCE LEAGUE

The English Nationalist Alliance, a much smaller group have taken things a step further, moving on from targeting ‘radical Islam’ to taking a stand against ‘extremist students’ and their ‘anti-English’ activities (see SchNEWS 736). Very much a poor cousin to the EDL, the ENA is essentially a response to the mobilisation against the March for England earlier this year (see SchNEWS 720).

There were fears that a success for the EDL in Bradford would have a knock-on effect in Brighton. However, only thirty idiots assembled at the train station with a few allies scattered around in local pubs. Those there soon dropped the ENA banner and openly paraded EDL flags and shirts.

The UAF for once did the right thing by arriving at the station en masse and together with other anti-fascists they succeeded in preventing the fash from marching for over an hour, before caving in to police requests to turn tail and march towards a pre-prepared cordon in Victoria gardens.

This left it up to the few non-aligned Brighton anti-fascists to try and stop the march. Sussex Police had clearly made a political decision to allow the march to go ahead, and with batons, dogs, and horses they proceeded to do exactly that. Even so they were forced to change the route of the march. Instead of parading through the town’s main roads, the ENA/EDL were forced on a detour of Brighton’s boutique-ridden North Laines, where they entertained locals with a healthy mixture of moronic racism and homophobia.

The small group of anarchos battled on for the next hour dragging wheelie bins into the road and resisting police charges by hand. They were joined by groups splintering away from the UAF demo and passers-by. Eventually however the fash were escorted back to the station, followed closely by a growing crowd of nosiy anti-fascists, who were clapped through the streets by passers-by. Small bands of racists continued to roam loose and on a couple of occasions breakaway groups were cornered in local pubs and had to be escorted away by police. The day ended with fourteen arrests, nine of ours and five of theirs.