Yorkshire Anarchist Federation

Many voters feel disappointed, maybe even betrayed, by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Leading up to the general election Clegg presented himself as a progressive voice and as an alternative to the two major political parties. But when it came to the crunch not only did the Lib Dems support the Conservative bid for power, but Clegg and his party are now behind widespread attacks on welfare, cuts in pay and redundancies for public sector workers. This shouldn’t, however, come as a surprise. Clegg is only following the example set by every politician before him – making sure the state guarantees the future stability of the capitalist system, even if this means betraying the voters.

The nature of parliamentary democracy means that it’s the capitalist class who always call the shots. They control the media, investment in trade and finance, millions of jobs, even the value of the currency itself. By capital flight (companies choosing to invest their money elsewhere), business can ensure that any government which becomes too independent and starts to consider the interests of those who elected it will be put back into its place. We shouldn’t expect a different group of politicians to react in different ways to the same institutional influences and interests.

For all his attempts to put himself forward as an “alternative” at election time, Clegg ultimately gained power because he represents the best interests of the business world. In 2004 for example, Clegg was a contributor to The Orange Book, a Lib Dem policy paper that stressed the role of the free market, i.e. privatisation, in reforming public healthcare, pensions, the environment and local government. It should be of little surprise that not only is the pro-free-market Clegg now in power, but four of the five current Lib Dem cabinet ministers were also contributors to The Orange Book.

Any politician, whether red, yellow or blue, would be carrying through the same cuts, privatisations and austerity measures the market demands. After all, let’s not forget that it was Labour, not the Lid Dems or the Tories, who were hastily privatising the NHS, cutting benefits and pay AND signed the cheque for the billion pound bail-out of the banks while in government. In Greece it’s the “socialist” government, elected in the wake of the December riots, which is carrying out a massive and vicious programme of cuts and attacks on the living standards of working people.

We need to stop blaming this or that politician and realise that it’s the whole system which is rotten. Only by taking action ourselves, not putting our trust in leaders or officials, can we hope to push forward real change. We need direct, self-organisation of working class communities to fight this wave of cuts. Only then can we start to push back and push even further still for radical change, working towards a world governed not by profit and greed but organised for human needs.

- Anarchist Federation (Sheffield)

Nick Clegg will be visiting Sheffield Town Hall on Friday 5th September from 5pm. A protest has been called by Sheffield Trades Council.



7pm, Tuesday 20th July, upstairs @ The Rutland Arms

The meeting will be in two sections; the first hour discussing what anarchist feminism is, with a view to preparing for chapter/section titles for the pamphlet and the second discussing organisational things. Please volunteer to facilitate if you feel able as this is a role that should be shared.

On Sat the 3rd Leeds Anarchist Federation called a meeting for an Antifascist Coalition in Leeds with the intention of discussing the EDL and ideas for how to respond to their plans to march in Bradford in August. The people attending the meeting were aware of the EDL’s intention to attack the meeting but decided to go ahead with it anyway. Preparations were made for this possibility with the intention to try to de-escalate first, as a fight in the Swarthmore Center was in no way what we wanted, and we were prepared for other eventualities should a de-escalation fail. However, this predicted attack never materialised.

What did happen was that 5 unknown people arrived. The door was locked and so they rang the buzzer and waited. They claimed to be antifascists wanting to go to the antifascist meeting. When they came in one of them told us they were antifascists from Wakefield and asked us what we were going to do about the EDL. Two of them stood nervously in the doorway and the others sat down, one of them went and sat quietly at the other end of the room from his friends. We asked why they wanted to confront the EDL and they said because some of them are racist. We tried to question them further about this but it seemed that the guy doing most of the talking didn’t feel he was doing a very convincing job. He said “You know who we are, don’t you?”, so we asked who and he said they were the EDL. At this point, a number of people in the meeting stood up and positioned themselves more conveniently, so this man started insisting they didn’t want a fight and they were just here to explain that they weren’t racist. He insisted repeatedly that he was just here to talk and made numerous defensive bids for acceptance (“don’t tar us all with the same brush”, etc). They seemed to be more concerned about PR than anything else but the brief exchange we had with him was predictably ridiculous and it wasn’t the time or the place to discuss what he wanted so we asked them to leave and after a few repetitions of “But just let me finish…”, they did.

Despite being less of an attack and at most a mild inconvenience, it is in the interest of this man, called Snowy, to exaggerate this incident and his role in it as much as possible. Since the rooftop protests in Dudley he’s been trying to rise higher in the ranks of the EDL and is obviously hoping that he and his faction will gain more credibility if he makes it in and out of an antifascist meeting unscathed (no matter how this was accomplished). Snowy’s political ambitions are pretty transparent and his attempts to make his strange behaviour look impressive are equally transparent.

The politics of the EDL feed into an agenda that poses a threat to the unity of the working class and has to be confronted. All over the world the bosses and politicians are using the recession to attack the working class using the nationalist rhetoric that “we’re all in this together”, while the EDL serve to focus concerns away from these attacks onto immigrants and foreign culture, simultaneously encouraging the white working class to identify with the white ruling class in an act of pseudo-rebellion that only serves to undermine their own interests. Although the EDL is not a fascist organisation, their presence on the streets of Bradford will only serve to strengthen the division of the working class according to tribalist principles of ethnicity and culture. Having said this, testosterone laden politics that responds with merely street violence fails to adequately address the situation. Our response has to be in accordance with our political aims.

Anarchist Federation Leeds

On August, 28th the English Defense League is planning to take the streets of Bradford. To date the revolutionary left failed to show a unified response that militantly challenges the politics of the EDL. The bigoted nationalist ideology of the EDL as well as the oppressive and reactionary influence of Islamism in our communities, both divide the working class. Therefore the Anarchist Federation Leeds calls for all independent proletarian antifascists in the region to work together. Work together for an antifascist coalition that can win the fight on the streets for the anti-capitalist offensive of the working class. In this respect the tactics applied in a recent confrontation with the EDL in Newcastle can be seen as successful. As AF Leeds we would like to build on this experience and propose a united political response of the revolutionary left, that will show our strength as well as allow a diversity of people to attend the protest before the EDL dares to march. Let’s create an antifascist coalition that can militantly fight fascist activities in West-Yorkshire. Bash the EDL! Let’s get organised!

First meeting :

July, 3rd at 1 pm
Swarthmore Education Centre
2 - 7 Woodhouse Square
Leeds

Michael Schmidt, author of Black Flame, at McMaster University; part 1 of 4 from Common Cause on Vimeo.