My belief it is that it is now time for Antifa to be treated as a uniformed paramilitary group and prosecuted as such. Their black outfits and masks would in my view certainly count as a ‘uniform’ as defined by the 1936 Public Order Act. Antifa use these uniforms both as a method of avoiding detection during street disturbances and as a way of in group recognition when they are carrying out violent actions. Antifa’s public image is that of a paramilitary uniformed group, not a collection of like minded individuals with a common political cause. Anyone who has seen Antifa in action will be struck by the similarity that they have when they are operating with similar uniformed paramilitaries of the past such as Hitler’s Brownshirts, Mosley’s Blackshirts and the various uniforms worn by Maoist and other Leftist revolutionaries across the world over the years.
Antifa are not nice, reasonable Lefties that one could have a reasoned debate with and walk away unscathed afterwards. Antifa are violent thugs and have authoritarian views that are ironically just as ‘fascist’ as the fascists that Antifa claim to counter.
President Donald Trump has recently decided to classify Antifa as ‘domestic terrorists’ but personally I think he’s not going far enough. Antifa does have a trans-national aspect to them and should also be considered as international terrorists as well.
Britain has the ability to rein in Antifa just as other groups that have a unformed public image have been targeted in the past. The 1936 Public Order Act’s restrictions on paramilitary political uniforms has been used against groups as diverse in politics as members of the Irish Republican Army and Britain First and I can see no reason why if Antifa turn out dressed in black and masked and turn protests into war zones, this law cannot be used against them.
To treat Antifa with the same degree of vigor as Mosley and the IRA’s violent nutters were treated only takes a willingness to do so on the part of the political and legal Establishment. They were willing to use the 1936 Act on a group like Britain First who dressed up in uniforms a while back so there is no reason at all why Antifa cannot be treated the same. If Antifa turn out at demonstrations all dressed in black and try to control these demos and turn them violent then we have a prima face case of a uniformed group, acting as a political mob and disturbing the peace. I see no reason why Antifa cannot be treated as the dangerous and violent subversives.
Sadly, I don’t think that Antifa will be subjected to the full force of the law. We have after all a double standard when it comes to policing and justice in the UK. Because Antifa are ostensibly of the political Left, they are likely to be treated with a lot less vigour than they would be if this group came from the Right. We only have to look at recent events to see this double standard in full view. Recently there were two demonstrations that took place in London. The first was an anti lockdown demo that was also attended by a few science-ignorant tin foil hatters moaning about 5G that took place at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park. The second demonstrations was a Black Lives Matter demonstration that was held in Trafalgar Square and was plainly backed and promoted by the far Left. How the police dealt with these demos, both of which took place during what is becoming an increasingly frayed and laughable ‘lockdown’, is highly instructive and also illustrative of how Britain’s policing and justice system has become two tier.
According to an account published in the conservative publication Salisbury Review, a witness to the anti lockdown protest and the Black Lives Matter/Far Left demo noticed a distinct difference in how these two demonstrations were policed. The anti-lockdown/tin foil hatter demo was said to be policed with extreme aggression with masses of police going in hard to a relatively small group of demonstrators. Contrast this behaviour by the police, said the Salisbury Review article with how the police treated the Far Left/BLM demonstration in Trafalgar Square.
Salisbury Review said:
The unsocially distanced crowd held placards and chanted about racist police. Their anger was provoked not by an incident in Tottenham (as in the 2011 riots) but in America.
Numerous officers stood by at ease, as if watching a game of cricket on a village green. No fines, no arrests, not even polite requests to go home. So much for the ‘new normal’. Or maybe this is normality now, and moral relativism has won. It seems that some protests are more equal than others: a few peaceful anti-lockdown protestors who are no threat to anyone get the Full Monty, but hundreds of highly divisive race activists are treated with kid gloves. Anyone with an ounce of critical thinking can see that this is wrong.
This sort of policing and in particular the different styles of policing between how the two groups were handled are indeed wrong. They do represent a victory of moral relativism over sound and equitable policing.
What the Salisbury Review author describes is also why I believe that sensible moves against Antifa, such as making them the target of the 1936 Public Order Act anti political uniform provisions will not be swiftly forthcoming, even though it is sorely needed. Because the political Left, including the Far Left is so deeply embedded in Britain’s political system in places ranging from third sector organisations right through to parts of the Civil Service, it’s likely that the Left will be given a free pass to destroy and agitate and bring about division. It’s hard to imagine that the government or the justice system would give sanction to a far right violent group that behaved like Antifa have behaved in the USA and who are likely to behave the same here, but what the UK Government has done is the equivalent of that.
It’s ironic to recall that a previous incarnation of Antifa was thoroughly smashed by the UK police, ironically under a Labour Government, but it was back in 2009, unfortunately things are very different today. Sympathisers for the violent Left abound in various charitable organisations, in mainstream Left organisations and parties and among the various far left agitators that target demographics such as the student population for indoctrination. It’s going to be much harder for the democratically elected government of today to deal with these violent Leftist thugs than it was in the past as some of these leftist groups and causes even have sympathisers for their causes among the police in large part because successive governments have allowed the police to become politicised. Antifa and groups like them need to be taken down again and their sympathisers removed from positions of influence and authority. But this will only happen if ordinary people, you know the ones who are likely to get their homes and businesses trashed by Antifa tell their representatives to do this. There is nothing at all wrong with not liking fascism just as there is nothing wrong with not liking Communism or Islamism, but thuggery of the sort practised and encouraged by Antifa is wrong and needs to be stopped. When Antifa step out from under the stones that they dwell under, wearing their uniforms then the full force of the 1936 Public Order Act needs to be applied.
