In 2001 the far right National Front staged a series of demonstrations in Bermondsey in an unsuccessful attempt to whip up racist fervour in this part of South London.
Amongst those mobilising to oppose them were at least two undercover cops infiltrating anti-racist groups. The Undercover Policing Inquiry has heard recently of the activities of spycop HN81, cover name “David Steven Hagan”, codename ‘Windmill Tilter". 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. N104 Carlo Soracchi, cover name "Carlo Neri", code name "Craggy Island", infiltrated the Socialist Party and a militant anti-fascist group, No Platform, which included some of its members.
There were three NF marches 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 [this was under the railway bridge on Rotherhithe New Road near Ilderton Road junction]. After that there was the usual running round the back streets to little effect.
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'.
Carlo Soracchi reported that No Platform were hoping to ambush NF activists at Liverpool Street Station.
See previously on spycops:
Jim Sutton - undercover in East Dulwich
May Day 2001 - a police spy at the Elephant and Castle
Undercover - police spies in South London (including their sometime Camberwell HQ)
