National Front, anti-fascists and spycops in Bermondsey 2001

The Undercover Policing Inquiry has been hearing recently of the activities of spycop HN81, cover name “David Steven Hagan”, codename ‘Windmill Tilter" who infiltrated anti-racist groups in London  at the turn of the century. He spied on the Stephen Lawrence family campaign and on radical anti-racist group Movement for Justice (MFJ) among others. One of the documents published by the inquiry is a report he submitted on opposition to a National Front march in Bermondsey on 12 May 2001.

Numbers on both sides seem to have been small with around 70 anti-fascists. Hagan reported that 'MFJ and the 'Irish anarchists' walked off together through one of the local estates whereupon they were confronted by a group of some 20 local fascist supporters. However when the anti-fascists stood their ground, the youths thought better of the idea and ran'

The march was actually one of three held in quick succession in South Bermondsey in this period. The National Front had been the dominant force on the racist far right of British politics in the 1970s but by this point they had been overtaken by the British National Party. The NF called its first march for April 2001, seemingly prompted by Millwall playing a match sponsored by Kick Racism out of Football. They clearly hoped to mobilise Millwall fans but they only attracted a handful of people.  

I attended the first and largest counter demo, which gathered on Ilderton Road near to South Bermondsey station. These notes are from a report I wrote for the aut-op-sy radical discussion list at the time:

'On Saturday April 7 2001 the National Front march in Bermondsey, South East London followed a predictable course. No more than 20 flag waving NFers emerged from the train station, protected from around 300 anti-fascists by a police force outnumbering both. The police effort to contain the counter-demo (organised by the Anti-Nazi League and Southwark Trades Council) on the pavement was undermined by a surge onto the road, and a further surge when the NF appeared was surprizingly successful in pushing the police line back to within 10 metres of the fascists. After that there was the usual running round the back streets to little effect. 

 This part of South London has seen it all before. In 1937 barricades were set up in Bermondsey as 15,000 took to the streets to oppose a march by the British Union of Fascists. A mile down the road in New Cross, police used riot shields for the first time in London in 1977 when an NF march was physically confronted by a black and white crowd. There were skirmishes between Anti-Fascist Action and British National Party and NF paper sellers in Bermondsey at various points during the 1990s.

These historical continuities can disguise what has changed in recent years. In the 1970s the National Front was becoming a significant political force nationally, with a growing share of the vote, large demonstrations and support for its 'Keep Britain White'  policies. Today the NF and BNP demonstrations have a tiny number of participants. In practical terms the far right seems to have lowered its immediate sights to defending the 'white ethnicity' of small working class areas, hence the ‘Keep Bermondsey White' theme of Saturday's march. It would easy to be complacent and imagine that they are now irrelevant - easy but mistaken.

The march might have been poorly attended, but that doesn't mean it found no echo locally. While few local people joined the march, some of those who stood around to watch were certainly sympathetic, including the woman who called me a ‘n* lover’, the people cheering the NF outside the Golden Lion pub, and the group with their ‘Keep the Blue White’ banner outside the Canterbury Arms on the Old Kent Road. A few hours after the march a 24-year-old Asian man was knocked to the ground in a racist attack on Rotherhithe New Road.  A group of local young people has carried out a number of racist attacks in the past few months. In February a 15-year-old schoolboy was bottled in the face and left unconscious with a fractured skull near the route of the NF march'.

On the following Saturday and again on May 12th there were very similar scenes as the NF again marched in the area but with dwindling numbers. The NF marches were clearly designed to build up a head of steam for the general election, in particular to build support for their candidate in the Southwark North & Bermondsey constituency. In the event their candidate. Lianne Shore, gained a pathetic 612 votes. 

The South London Press (10/4/2001) reports on the first march, with 'around 30 NF members' marching from South Bermondsey station to Jamaica Road, kept apart from opponents by hundreds of police:

The second march a week later (14 April_ was even smaller with the Southwark News reporting that  only 'a rag tag group of around 12 NF supporters' took part, compared with 100 anti-fascists and 1000 police. The NF complained that the police had confiscated their Keep Bermondsey White banners the week before.

The Southwark News comments on 'the lack of local support' for the NF 'Who made a very sorry sight as they shuffled quietly through the streets. Just a few hooded teenagers milling around at the edges; excited by all the fuss'