Anti-BNP rally attacked by police
01 November 1993
In the largest anti-fascist demonstration seen in a decade, nearly 40,000 people took part in a "unity" march demanding the closure of the nazi British National Party (BNP) headquarters in Welling, southeast London, during October.
Prior to the march there were unprecedented warnings, issued by the police and media, that "extremist groups" were planning to infiltrate the march in order to cause violence. In reality these warnings seemed designed to exacerbate the tension that followed on from the racist attack on Quaddas Ali, who is still in a coma, and other violence that accompanied the election of BNP by-election candidate, Derek Beacon, in September (see Statewatch 3:5).
The decision by the police to re-route the march away from its planned route past the BNP headquarters, the presence of vast numbers of police in riot gear and extensive police filming of demonstrators, was undoubtedly confrontational. The fact that the alternative route, selected by the police, was also closed off to the march resulted in mayhem.
Following minor confrontations between police and some demonstrators, police snatch squads made repeated baton charges into the front of the march. Few arrests followed and the objective appeared to be to cause as many injuries as possible. Many protesters attempted to escape the charges but found themselves trapped by the police cordons at the front and thousands of demonstrators at their rear. Some attempted to scale a large wall into the cemetery alongside the route and dozens of people were led away with heads bleeding from baton wounds. Others, outraged by the police assault, fought back.
Before the march the BNP had promised, in their literature, to attack it. While this was never likely to happen, because of its huge size, it was predictable that they would launch attacks on small groups of demonstrators as they left.
Throughout the day their members were drinking at public houses in nearby Abbey Wood guarded by the police. They were, effectively, locked into the pubs for about six hours. When their police guard left they carried out a number of drunken attacks on small groups of demonstrators as they made their way home. One man had his jaw broken and his eye kicked out of its socket; others were attacked when BNP/Combat 18 members went on the rampage on a train leaving Welling.
Since the march there has been a concerted campaign to collect information on the anti-BNP demonstrators on the march. One tabloid newspaper has offered rewards of up to £1,000 for information on the "troublemakers". Anti-racist groups have pointed out that none of these papers has offered such a reward for the attackers of Quaddas Ali.
Two days after the march another black man was seriously injured in a particularly brutal racist attack in nearby Ilford, east London. Kevin Harris stopped to fill his car at a petrol station. There he was stabbed with a screwdriver and repeatedly run over with his own car sustaining a fractured skull.