The Battle of Honor Oak, round 2

February counter-protest, via RS21

At the end of March, the Honor Oak pub in Southeast London saw the second monthly mobilisation of far right activists under the brand of "Turning Point UK" (originally trading as a conservative student group) to protest against a private commercial family-friendly drag storytime held at the pub on some Saturday mornings. The protest was dominated by ageing football thug veterans of far right and fascist groups including the British National Party and Blood and Honour. The far right were vastly outnumbered by local people and anti-fascists, including our vicar, our MP, councillors and trade unions. 

Copied from Threadreader (so forgive the format glitches), here's my Twitter thread on what happened. [UPDATE: For some updates and corrections, as well as the what happened in April, start here.] 

Bob From Brockley 🥤

@bobfrombrockley

Mar 29 • 23 tweets • 14 min read  Read on Twitter

 Scrolly

As I’ve finally got a minute, I’ll post some of my pics of the fash that came to shout at drag queens and children at the Honor Oak pub in SE London on Saturday…

Cc @London_AFA @LondonAFA_South @hopenothate @AmarDeepSinghD @TransActionBloc @redflareinfo @LadsLasses @lowles_nick

The guy in the sunglasses here is Philip Curson from Essex, a veteran of several fascist organisations, who has served time for a really horrific racist attack.

amp.theguardian.com/society/2003/a…

hopenothate.org.uk/2012/12/24/bnp…

https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2003/apr/23/raceequality.lawrence

BNP Thug Finally Jailed After 10 Years – HOPE not hateA Neo Nazi who had been on the run for over ten years for an unprovoked racially aggravated attack is finally behind bars. Alan Thompson was sentenced on December 18th at Southend Crown Court to 11 y…https://hopenothate.org.uk/2012/12/24/bnp-thug-finally-jailed-after-10-years/

(See stills from 2018 via @libcom and article link above from @hopenothate)

This little guy really fancied himself as a hard man — while he was protected by two rows of cops.

This creepy guy (#fagin_mr?) spent most of the morning masked up filming anti-fascists.

Among the aging thugs was this trio of posh-voiced wannabe influencers from “Students Against Tyranny” #SATOfficial_1, including comedic anti-vaxxer Nazarin Veronica.

Loads of the far right activists there fancy themselves to be vloggers, such as this guy (who is also antisemitic, anti-vaxx, pro-Nazi and pro-Putin, of course).

This little guy had a Tommy Robinson News logo on his camera (that’s “Tommy” for reference in the right-hand pic - not at Honor Oak at the weekend!). Not sure if he’s an affiliated vlogger or just a fanboy of the diminutive demagogue

This lady, attending with her kids (who really didn’t look like they wanted to be there), spent most of the morning holding her Turning Point placard upside down.

This banner helpfully explains what Turning Point UK want to see: “adult sex entertainers, not pantomime dames.”

The master race

Roy Brinkley

This guy tried to get up close with the counter protestors to show how hard he is, but was swiftly removed by anti-fascists and slunk back behind police lines.

No defence of children and British morality is complete without a few cans of Stella at 11 am.

PS this thread on how the cops always side with the fascists. At the end of the demo, five police vans full of cops were parked outside another local pub so the fash (many of whom had already been drinking at their own demo) could have a pint in peace.

Make no mistake, the ageing thugs who turned up for Turning Point would’ve loved to have a fight. Here’s one. This guy was also at the insane march against traffic calming in Oxford last month; weird overlap between men who get triggered by drag queens and anti-LTN activism.

See also:

Take homes:

1/ These are not people who care about children or who have critical questions about gender; they’re hardened, violent far right activists, plus grifters trying to use culture rage to build an audience.
… 

2/ Looking at their social media accounts, you see a mix of themes. The top ones, as well as gender, are: migrant boats, vaccines/lockdowns, celebrating resistance (including violent &/or illegal acts) against traffic calming— the key current gateways to right-wing radicalisation 

3/ In February, they were utterly humiliated by their tiny turnout and huge local counter-turnout, so they made an effort this week to gather their forces. We still outnumbered them, but ordinary locals have better things to do with their Saturdays so that might change. 

4/ Liberal strategies — relying on the cops to keep the order — won’t protect our community from the fash. We need to keep physically showing them they’re not welcome here, while politically contesting their toxic ideas.

/🧵over. #NoPasaran 

Update: the Tommy Robinson fanboy in the thread above is Nick Pledger, an SS enthusiast and “migrant hunter” banned from Twitter.

Details from @AntifascistRC: network23.org/arc/tag/nick-p…

https://network23.org/arc/tag/nick-pledger/

• • •

Further reading:

RS21: Mobilising against the convergence of the far right and transphobia (source of image at top of this post, from the February mobilisation)