Unite Against Fascism

Unite Against Fascism (UAF) was formed in Great Britain in late 2003 in response to electoral successes by the British National Party (BNP). Founding signatories included David Cameron, later Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Until 2013, SWP national organiser Martin Smith played a leading role in the organisation. In 2012, Smith's position as UAF's assistant secretary was unsuccessfully challenged at its annual conference, and Azad Ali, of Islamic Forum of Europe was elected vice-chair. described by UAF/SWP's Weyman Bennett as "the cultural wing of our movement". Richard MacSween of the Pendle UAF said, "The BNP have left a wreath and we have removed it because we don't approve of fascism." In response, Labour Councillor George Adam, from the Nelson and District branch of the Royal British Legion, said, "I'm annoyed – they have no right to remove that wreath. The BNP is a legitimate political party and they have a right to lay down a wreath just as any other members of the public do." BNP Councillor Brian Parker added, "It's disgusting, and it's theft." After 2010, UAF's focus increasingly turned from the BNP to the English Defence League (EDL). At its 2012 conference, UAF debated whether it should call for state bans on the EDL (as advocated by Socialist Action) but this was rejected (as advocated by the SWP). Later activities In 2020, during the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter, Stand Up To Racism launched a doorstop "take knee" campaign. ==Arrests and violence==

On 19 August 2009, police arrested 19 protesters during a demonstration by UAF against the BNP's Red, White and Blue Festival in Codnor, Derbyshire. On 20 March 2010, demonstrations from UAF and the English Defence League (EDL) in Bolton led to violent confrontations and the arrest of at least 55 UAF supporters, including the UAF protest organiser Weyman Bennett, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit violent disorder. At least three EDL supporters were also arrested, and two UAF members were taken to hospital with a minor head and a minor ear injury. The police, while criticising the EDL for "vitriolic name-calling" blamed people predominantly associated with UAF for provoking violence and said that they "acted with, at times, extreme violence". All charges against Bennett were eventually dropped. In response to this news he was quoted as saying, "This is a victory for anti-fascists and for the right to protest. I'm proud to say that the threat of these charges has not deterred any of us from continuing to stand up against the EDL. I can now continue my work without this serious false allegation hanging over me. It is imperative we continue to protest to protect our multi-racial communities." On 30 August 2010, violence occurred in Brighton, East Sussex, during a UAF protest against a march organised by a group called the English Nationalist Alliance. A spokesman for the police, who were attempting to keep 250 protesters and marchers apart, said, "Unfortunately a small group from the counter-demonstration [UAF] resisted this and threw missiles at the police." There were fourteen arrests during the violence. On 2 June 2013, 58 anti-fascist demonstrators were arrested by police under Section 14 of the Public Order Act for failing to move up the street away from a BNP demonstration outside the Houses of Parliament against what the BNP describe as Islamic "hate preachers". Of the 58, only five were charged and their cases were dismissed at Westminster Magistrates' Court in April 2014. The police had earlier banned the BNP from marching from Woolwich Barracks to the Houses of Parliament, fearing violence. ==Criticism==

In 2006, journalist David Tate argued that the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) was seeking to dominate the UAF, and a 2014 report in the New Statesman described it as a "front" for the SWP. The same criticism has been made of UAF's sister organisation Stand Up To Racism. For example, in 2020 the women's and BME officers of Cambridge University Students Union accused Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) of being a "front for the Socialist Workers’ Party, an organisation which systematically covers up sexual violence", and attempting "to co-opt the work of black organisers and the Black Lives Matter movement in order to rehabilitate their own reputation and recruit members", and urged students to refuse any SUTR materials at protests. Commentator David Toube asserts that the organisations involved in the UAF avoid condemnation of antisemitism. The LGBT rights activist Peter Tatchell has accused UAF of a selective approach to bigotry: "UAF commendably opposes the BNP and EDL but it is silent about Islamist fascists who promote anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism and sectarian attacks on non-extremist Muslims (see also Islam and violence). It is time the UAF campaigned against the Islamist far right as well as against the EDL and BNP far right." Ali was suspended as a civil servant in the Treasury after he wrote approvingly on his blog of an Islamic militant who said that as a Muslim he is religiously obliged to kill British soldiers in Iraq, in 2009. According to Gilligan, Michael Adebolajo, one of the murderers of Lee Rigby in 2013, spoke "on the margins" of a 2009 UAF demonstration in Harrow. Secretary Weyman Bennett responded by saying that Adebolajo was not an official speaker. ==References==