Newcastle city centre felt like the theatre of the absurd on Saturday, 1 November. On the chilly early afternoon in front of the New Bridge Hotel, the familiar characters from the far right trudged onto the stage.
While the mainstream media would likely gloss over it as just another clash of protesters, the reality on the ground is almost a cartoonish illustration of the UK’s political divide. This divide runs straight through the heart of our movement as well.
Stained tracksuits, football shirts, and glazed-over eyes: the far-right out in Newcastle
We faced down a crowd of about fifty fascists, united solely by the usual bitterness and hate. They gathered under a sea of shit Union Jacks sourced from Temu, the one emblazoned with a hilarious AI lion reading ‘The Storm is Coming.’
The shouting, stained tracksuits, and glazed-over eyes of balding men (some dancing weirdly, as if fueled by something a lot stronger than patriotism) painted the same picture. This wasn’t a random local uprising; it was a desperate, imported political show for the broken, angry working class:
On our side, the energy could not have been more different—a beautiful mix of diverse solidarity and righteous fury. We stood together: trade Unionists, members of the Youth Equality Coalition, Stand Up to Racism, veteran anti-fascists, and comrades from the Newcastle Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Yes, we had fewer numbers, but a way better sound system that cut through the far-right’s bullshit:
Coordinated hate isn’t locally grown, but imported
The media narrative that all the protests we’re seeing outside of asylum hotels are organic. ‘Local Community concerns’ is the lie used by the media to normalise the mobilisation of the far-right. Yesterday’s Newcastle protest, like dozens going on across the UK, was just another chapter in a meticulously organised, national campaign.
Data from groups monitoring extremism says that these actions are indeed coordinated, not just spontaneous. Since April of this year, over 40 police officers have been injured and over 160 people arrested as far-right groups like the Homeland Party and UKIP flex their strategies under the guise of ‘Mass Deportation Tours.’
These aren’t just local people having a whinge. These are organised campaigns, amplified by a media that doesn’t give a fuck and peddles absolute bullshit to a lost working class.
Their tactic is straightforward: identify and exploit genuine problems within our communities.
The lack of social housing, the collapse of local services, spiralling costs, and over a decade of austerity. And the far-right have galvanised that anger and fear, and directed it towards some of the most vulnerable people.
This is how the far-right bastardised the very flags the people were waving yesterday. Both the Union Jack and St George’s Cross, once neutral national symbols, have become banners of exclusion. Those waving them wielded them to declare who does not belong in the UK. When you wave that flag whilst screaming vile slurs at a hotel full of trauma victims, you’re not protecting ‘British values ’; you are showing the world you’re aligning yourself with the very forces that want to divide and destroy our communities.
The kids aren’t alright
And to make it worse, these movements are explicitly courting young people.
Whilst the core of agitators we saw were often middle-aged, they are successfully dragging kids into their politics of hate. And looking across the police line, my heart crumbled as I saw a face I knew. A young girl I had once worked with, disenfranchised, lost, and screaming her hatred at us from behind a flag emblazoned with Tommy Robinson’s face.
I knew her, and I knew her well. I remember her face once covered in tears, a bullied child afraid of the world and her future when I knew her… what was this expression of pure hatred I could see twisting her face? What the fuck had they done to her?
UK government Prevent statistics reveal that for the fourth year running, referrals for ‘Extreme right-wing concerns’ made up 19% of referrals in 2023/24, exceeding those of ‘Islamist concerns’ at 13%. Kids aged 11 to 15 account for the most significant proportion of Prevent referrals, with far-right ideologies dominating this age group.
They use platforms such as Discord, Reddit, TikTok, and viral memes – like the shit AI lion – to bypass traditional left-wing reaches. They offer these lost children something I know they all crave—a sense of belonging and a place for their anger. And I could see that in the face of the girl I once knew.
Let’s face it, the police are shit
This normalisation creates an environment of aggression. Throughout the afternoon, the police lazily kept up the line. They milled around, even appearing friendly with the fascists as they shared a laugh and swore at us.
At one point, a tall, bald man in a tracksuit crossed the thin police line, his eyes fixed on a comrade. The police didn’t move a fucking inch to stop him until he landed a pathetic punch. It’s like they wanted a little action, although I have to admit, it was stunning to see his face hit the floor as he disappeared under a sea of coppers:
The message was unmistakable.
The far-right thugs are treated with kid gloves by the cops, whilst they continue to reserve their full force for us, those protesting against the state.
And this is where the true crisis for the left emerges. The far-right has learned to embrace a fast, online, and aggressive way to recruit and empower the youth. And the older, hierarchical left is failing to keep up with the pace. Worse still, it is actively stifling the very energy it needs to survive.
The old guard vs the new: the left’s internal crisis
Yesterday, I spoke to a few of the younger people who felt utterly excluded from politics. But, being Gen Z, possibly the most admirably impatient and wild generation we have ever seen, they don’t give a fuck. Instead of letting their disillusionment win, they have turned it into action.
An 18-year-old activist, whom I shall keep anonymous, is so frustrated with the pace of the left and the already established groups around him that, founded the new ‘Youth Equality Coalition.’ And this group has fucking exploded from under 50 members a week ago, to over 1,000 today.
And the reason? They are sick of being excluded.
YEC’s success lies in its methodology. It’s inclusive, fast-paced, and devastatingly effective. They operate with speed and a sense of humour that the old guard mocks. They hit the streets, their social media is bloody hilarious, and they have shed the bureaucracy that is holding back the left.
These kids don’t just protest; they smash direct action in the face. They get up at 6am to blockade the Israeli Rafael Factory and, more symbolically, steal the shit Temu flag from all over the streets of the North-East.
But this necessary energy is often met with hostility from the older, more affluent members of the movement. These young people spoke of being belittled and of their brilliant efforts being suppressed by old-school bureaucratic structures that result in slow, hierarchical processes. This old guard needs a rigid structure over actual function, pushing these young people out.
Our own fractured unity
This internal division doesn’t just slow us down; it actively undermines solidarity. The politics of division, which we spend our days actively fighting on the streets, is still thriving in our own ranks. I saw this first hand yesterday when I asked a woman demonstrating under the ‘Stand Up to Racism: Women against the Far Right’ banner if I could take her photo. Jarringly, she responded with ‘Will you stand up for biological women?’
My jaw hit the floor. The far-right were literally yards away, screaming their hateful anti-trans rhetoric, and here was a woman in our ranks agreeing with them. That was a powerful and painful lesson.
Whilst many on the left champion trans rights as fundamental human rights, here we were, allowing a toxic culture war to fracture our unity.
The far right is gaining strength not because its ideology is compelling, but because its hatred is simple, and they unify under it.
Our side, supposedly unified by solidarity and justice, is struggling to keep up because we allow microscopic differences and generational arrogance to override what we actually stand for. When we have exclusionary voices at a protest for solidarity, we give the other side a moral victory.
The path forward? Drop the old guard.
If we, as a movement, want to survive let alone win this battle against this terrifying battle against fascism, we need to wake the fuck up. And we need to learn from the very methodologies we oppose.
We need to empower the youth.
It is time we finally set aside the slow, affluent methods of this old guard. It is based on the political party structures we are actively trying to destroy.
The old ways of rigid meetings, slow decision-making, and looking down on the youth are bullshit.
They are turning off the most energetic generation from politics entirely. The left needs to embrace the Youth Equality Coalition’s inclusive, effective, and rapid model. We have to finally trust young activists to set at least part of our agenda, lend them our resources, knowledge, and platforms, and get the fuck out of their way.
Our strength has always been in our numbers, our diversity, and our commitment to dismantling hate, including the kind festering in our own ranks.
Watching young people fighting for the fundamental rights of asylum seekers in Newcastle offers more hope than any bureaucratic bullshit.
We are stronger together than we ever are apart. If we drop the internal politics of division, actually embrace and galvanise this raw, creative energy of the youth, we can absolutely ensure that the storm the far-right is waiting for, never arrives.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
By Antifabot
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