I remember well the counter-demonstrations that I used to attend against the far right. The main demonstrations were usually organised by outfits such as the National Front (NF) or British National Party (BNP), both of which were populated by leaders and activists who displayed overt racist tendencies and quite often harboured genuine fascist and Nazi sympathies.
Our side, by contrast, was comprised of the foot soldiers of the Left – anti-racist activists, members of assorted political organisations, and labour movement foot soldiers such as me.
One event at which I was present – a march held by the NF in Bermondsey, south-east London, in 2001 – very nearly turned into a mass brawl, with the opposing sides prevented from getting at each other only by the presence of three or four ranks of police officers (some of whom had their truncheons drawn and were deploying them quite liberally).
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Things were simpler then. When the far right demonstrated or marched – frequently through towns and cities with large numbers of ethnic minority citizens – we on the Left would turn out in force to confront them.
We knew who they were. They were people who believed in racial supremacy and repatriation. Some celebrated Hitler’s birthday and dreamed of a white-only Britain. Most decent folk would go nowhere near them.
I have noticed from the hours of footage captured at the recent immigration protests that have taken place across England that the Left is still doing its thing – turning up and confronting the protesters head on. And the chants are still the same: ‘Nazi scum off our streets!’, ‘Whose streets? Our streets!’. All the old numbers.
A fundamental reset is coming down the track. Just look at who is protesting these days - Paul Embery
|Getty Images
But here’s the thing. While the counter-protesters claim to be opposing fascists and Nazis in the traditional way, the rest of the world can see that most of those attending the main protests simply do not fit that bill.
Far from being tightly organised around a distinct political creed, the protests are largely impromptu and inchoate affairs. Most protesters appear to be local citizens who happen to share a real and growing anxiety over the impact that our broken immigration and asylum system – and, in particular, the billeting in local hotels of large numbers of young men about whom we know nothing – is having on their communities.
While the far right will of course seek to exploit these protests for its own ends – perhaps even hijack some of them – there is scant evidence that most of the protesters have any sympathy with that brand of politics.
Many are likely repelled by it. I suspect that some would even consider themselves traditional Labour voters – that was until the party betrayed their trust by turning on the immigration taps to a degree that ultimately proved unsustainable.
These people know all too well that the situation is now out of control – and the price is being paid in the fraying of our social fabric. That doesn’t make them extremists in any sense.
And so the Left’s usual slogans and chants, useful for their time, are now rendered largely meaningless. They were designed for a political and cultural landscape that has since evolved into something very different.
Earlier this week, a group of women protesters, all dressed in pink, danced the conga outside the Britannia hotel in Canary Wharf, where coachloads of asylum seekers have been accommodated.
The women, some of whom spoke to the media, were there to express their fears about the implications for their own security and that of their children.
With recently published data showing that asylum seekers from certain countries are far more likely to commit crimes – including sex crimes – than native Britons, those fears cannot be said to be misplaced.
Nobody is forced to agree with the women’s stance, of course. But to suggest that such protestors belong to the ‘far right’ is patently absurd – and demonstrates the degree to which the term itself has become utterly debased.
Those among the Left who continue to dismiss the legitimate concerns of voters over immigration need to realise that they have lost the argument.
By continuing to smear as fascists and Nazis everyday folk who have little experience of political activism but have taken to the streets because they are worried about the eye-watering numbers that have been arriving in our country in recent years – and in particular the relentless fleet of small boats turning up our shores carrying mainly undocumented young males – they demonstrate to the world that they are incapable of engaging in a serious discussion about what has become a national emergency.
In doing so, they also show that they are unable to adapt their thinking and tactics in the face of new facts.
I was proud to stand with counter-protesters opposing the far right in years gone by. But I have little in common with the current crop of agitators. For they have picked the wrong targets and are screaming the wrong insults.
Doubtless, they will conclude this makes me a Nazi, too.
I’ll live with that.