Anti-Fascist Action

Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) was a militant anti-fascist organisation, founded in the UK in 1985 by a wide range of anti-racist and anti-fascist organisations.

It was active in fighting far-right organisations, particularly the National Front and British National Party. It was notable in significantly reducing fascist street activity in Britain in the 1990s.Birchall, Sean, ''Beating The Fascists: The Untold Story of Anti-Fascist Action'' (London: Freedom Press, 2010). AFA had what they called a "twin-track" strategy: physical confrontation of fascists on the streets and ideological struggle against fascism in working class communities.

Among its more notable mobilisations were violent confrontations such as the "Battle of Waterloo" at London Waterloo station in 1992 and non-violent events such as the Unity Carnivals of the early 1990s.

History

AFA was launched in London in 1985 at a large public meeting representing a wide range of anti-fascist and anti-racist organisations and individuals, including Red Action and the Direct Action Movement, Searchlight, the Newham Monitoring Project, and the Jewish Socialist Group. It was partly a reaction to the perceived inadequacies of the original Anti-Nazi League (ANL), which had recently wound up its operations. AFA members accused ANL of failing to directly confront fascists, of allying with moderates who were complicit in racism, and of being a vanguardist front for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Jeremy Corbyn was either national secretary or honorary president of this first incarnation of AFA in 1985.Copsey, Nigel
"Crossing Borders: Anti-Fascist Action (UK) and Transnational Anti-Fascist Militancy in the 1990s."
''Contemporary European History'' 25.4 (2016): 707-727. However, according to historian Nigel Copsey, "this original AFA unravelled due to internal tensions between militant anti-fascists and more moderate anti-racists... By 1988, fractured by in-house sectarianism, AFA had all but collapsed." In 1989, though, it "was resurrected as a militant, physical force anti-fascist group." Although many Trotskyist groups, independent socialists, anarchists and members of the Labour Party were active in AFA in the 1980s, after its relaunch in 1989 the main members were from various anarchist groups and Red Action, a group founded by disillusioned militant anti-fascist ex-SWP members who had criticised perceived populist or popular front politics of the ANL.

Thousands of people took part in AFA mobilisations such as the Remembrance Day demonstrations in 1986 and 1987, and a mobilisation against a Blood and Honour gig, "the Main Event", in May 1989. In 1988, AFA formed a musical arm, Cable Street Beat (named after the Battle of Cable Street, a 1936 confrontation between fascists and anti-fascists), on similar principles to the Anti-Nazi League's Rock Against Racism. Cable Street Beat launched a magazine, ''Cable Street Beat Review'', in early 1989. Among the artists who performed for early Cable Street Beat events were Blaggers ITA, Angelic Upstarts, Attila the Stockbroker, The Men They Couldn't Hang, Forgotten Sons and Blyth Power.

In 1989, there was a split in AFA between militant anti-fascists and other members, such as the Newham Monitoring Group, whose views were closer to liberal anti-fascism. The militant groups relaunched AFA that year, with the affiliates Direct Action Movement and Workers' Power, as well as several trade unions.

Early 1990s

In the early 1990s, AFA continued the pattern of twin-track physical and ideological confrontations with fascism. Examples of the former include the first Unity Carnival in east London in 1991, with 10,000 participants, and a demonstration in Bethnal Green, with 4,000 participants (under the slogan “Beating the Fascists: An old East End tradition”). In September 1991, AFA launched its magazine ''Fighting Talk'', of which 25 issues were published between 1991 and April 1999; the magazine incorporated ''Cable Street Beat Review''. The first issue reported the recent launch of a Dublin branch and a Glasgow branch, the latter with the support of Red Action, Class War, Direct Action Movement, Workers Party Scotland, Scottish Anti-Racist Movement and the Republican Bands Alliance.

Cable Street Beat continued in the early 1990s, with the involvement of bands including the reformed The Selecter, Bad Manners and Gary Clail.

Physical resistance to fascism also continued. In 1990, three AFA members were jailed for a total of 11 years following an attack on a neo-Nazi activist. AFA's militant approach to anti-fascism was given media airing in May 1992, when the BBC
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