Friday 9 August 2024

The truth about the riots and the anti fascist rally in North Finchley

 It has been an appalling few days for everyone in the UK who genuinely cares about our country. It started with the murder of three schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift dance event. As a father, the horror of what happened sickened me to my very core.  What was even more worrying on a personal level for me, was that I run a business that hosts just such events. We had a quick review of our arrangements. How can you legislate for a lunatic armed with a knife forcing their way in and stabbing people? Of course we have made some sensible adjustments to our protocols but it was a horrible thing to have to contend with. We have panic alarms connected  to the police and CCTV coverage and a few other changes to our protocols, such as not giving information about summer courses to people unless they are in reception and are parents etc. I suspect our security is far superior to the many such events at Church halls etc, but something is wrong when you have to plan for such atrocities.

When hard right yobbo's started rioting, it made what was a tragic scenario repugnant. As a small business owner, I feel for the shops which were looted. I know quite a few Asian small business owners. All are people who work long hours and work incredibly hard. In Mill Hill, we had the terrible situation where a muslim shop worker was murdered by thugs a few years ago. I helped to organise a multi faith reconciliation event at The Sacred Heart Church, where all faiths were welcome. At the time, it seemed that we'd managed to bring something positive from a tragedy. That was simply a robbery, there were no political overtones. Since then, the situation has become ever more toxic. Sadly, we have a new generation of populist Islamaphobes, who use platforms such as Twitter to spread hate. They are a tiny minority, but are well able to rabble rouse and get dim hooligans irate enough to cause trouble (with the bonus of a free tray of pies from Greggs). I spoke to a mate who is a retired TSG Police officer on Monday. He told me that this current wave was very small scale compared to many riots he'd seen. Apparently police leave was not cancelled and they simply asked for volunteers, keen to get a bit of overtime. But the images of burning hotels is a powerful one. 

As the days went on, the trouble seemed to be spreading. On Tuesday, I got a phonecall from a friend. They live in North Finchley, are of Jewish Israeli heritage and told me that there was a planned far right protest in Percy Road, near Tally Ho Corner on Wednesday evening. They also told me that there was a counter demonstration by Anti Fascists being planned to show the local community that such behaviour wouldn't be tolerated. They asked if I would be attending. I had a long standing commitment elsewhere, so I couldn't, but I asked if they could keep me informed of what was happening and supply pictures etc. They promised me they would. They also told me that there would be Twitter #Tag of #NorthFinchley.

As Wednesday unfolded, two things became clear. The first was that the planned fascist rally did not materialise, in the face of a large demonstration. The second was that a huge row had broken out about a leaflet which included Zionists in the list of groups not welcome in North Finchley, along with fascists, racists and nazi's. I hadn't seen the leaflet until it appeared on the Twitter feed. Newly elected Jewish MP Sarah Sackman unsurpringly took extreme exception to the leaflet, reporting it to the police. There was also some comment that the protest had been 'Hijacked by Palestinian protestors'. There was a developing narrative that the protest was an anti semetic mob in an area with a large Jewish population. So what was the truth about the actual rally. 

I checked through the tweets, etc. Reports of the crowd vary from 250 (Brian Coleman's estimate and he hated the protest) to 3,000 (from an organiser).  From what I can see, the number was somewhere in the middle.  As to the claims of it being hijacked by Palestinian protestors, the best video I could see, there appeared to be one or two Palestinian flags and a bloke riding up and down the road on a bike with a big flag (probably less than 1% of the people who attended). The video in this tweet seems to give the best view of what went on. Look for yourself and form your own opinions.

Here are couple of other tweets with pics and videos


For balance, here is a tweet from someone who was upset by the presence of Palestinian flags. I have to say that when I looked at her picture, I again saw two Palestinian flags. As to the pre Taliban Afghan flag,  this is an unfair comment. Barnet has a fair few Afghan refugees who fled due to the Taliban, many who worked for the British armed forces. A Taliban flag is a completely different matter.


I contacted an organiser for comment. This was their response.

"Last night there was close on 3,000 anti fascists all organised in two days notice. Many of the stewards were locals who you would know. They were going round the demo checking and being visible to everyone and asking if people were ok. In any protest there is likely to be some with their own agenda. The organisers made it clear they did not support the poster which had been tweeted on social media. The demo was friendly one chant was “we are black white Muslim and we’re Jew” which was loudly sung. Lots of young people. A few far right turned up a few tried to provoke but it was quickly dealt with. Police were fine. Even the Daily mail acknowledged the counter protesters as dealing with the far right"

So what is the truth?  The facts that can be established from these tweets are as follows. The protestors were peaceful. There were a couple of Palestinian flags in a protest of hundreds or thousands, depending on whether you believe Brian Coleman or the organisers. The video seems to indicate somewhere in the middle. The organisers have, sensibly, distanced themselves from the poster mentioning Zionists. As far as I am concerned, the poster was out of order and divisive. Given the history of the Jewish community with the far right, it was offensive, highly insensitive and doubtless put off perfectly decent people who would have otherwise joined the protest.

In some circles there is some debate whether Zionist = Jewish. It is 100% true that not all Zionists are Jewish and not all Jewish people identify as Zionists (I know a fair few left wing Jewish people who are avowedly anti Zionist). That will be the argument that whoever designed the poster will say, but if you are a Jewish person and you see a poster like that, I would not blame you for feeling intimidated. The last thing that any truly anti fascist person should ever do is seek to intimidate people in their own neighbourhood. By adding that one word, they have needlessly alienated many people who would be more than happy to see Fascist thugs chased out of Finchley. I am of the opinion that if your aim is to bring people together, you have to have a bit of respect for people's feelings, even though you don't agree with them on every single issue in the world. We have to start mending fences rather than building them. It is just a shame that something that was a hugely positive event in the Borough of Barnet had this completely unneccessary issue and I really hope that whoever designed that poster reflects on what they have done. 

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