Lessons from an asylum hotel counter-protest: calling our opponents fascist' doesn't work | David Renton

"Earlier this month, I helped organise a protest to defend the refugees holed up at the Thistle City Barbican hotel in London. We mobilised 800 people to support the asylum seekers, who waved back at us from the hotel to show their gratitude. On the other side of the road, about 250 people had gathered to demand the hotel be closed. Speakers there called refugees illegal, invaders and parasites."

"Seeing and hearing our opponents, the anti-racists responded with a spontaneous chant of Nazi scum, off our streets, which our side was able to sustain for more than an hour. I understand why people wanted to express their contempt for the people who tell lies about refugees, but the chant didn't strike me as effective when I heard it, and the more I have thought about it since, the more convinced I am that it was the wrong strategy."

"There were fascists present at the demonstration one banner advertised a small hard-right group but they were not the organisers; they hung back, mute, at the edge of the protest. The crowd did chant in support of Tommy Robinson. The latter, I suspect, is probably the link that organisations like Stand Up to Racism lean on when labelling the current anti-refugee movement as fascist. (Many of the protests, their spokesperson has said, are organised by known fascists and Hitler admirers.)"

Eight hundred people gathered to defend asylum seekers at the Thistle City Barbican hotel while about 250 demonstrators demanded the hotel close, calling refugees illegal, invaders and parasites. Anti-racists responded with a sustained chant of 'Nazi scum' for over an hour, a tactic later judged ineffective. A small number of fascists were present but not organizing; they remained at the protest edges while some in the crowd chanted in support of Tommy Robinson. Labeling the anti-refugee movement as fascist relies on a mainstream willing to isolate and shame Nazis, a context that currently does not obtain. Anti-fascists publicized a photograph linking Robert Jenrick with Eddy Butler.

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