Far-right attack on Bookmarks bookshop

They filmed themselves and it's been posted on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvZM_-dQFIw

Is this another sign of an emboldened far-right?

Sort of yes, sort of no. The group involved very much weren't organised street fighters, being affiliated to the largely ineffectual and laughably inept Make Britain Great Again, and did more damage to their own side's reputation than the the shop. There's a video (below) and many of the main people involved have already been identified, which gives an idea of how totally ridiculous these people are.

[youtube]GvZM_-dQFIw[/youtube]

The initial Tweet report seems very much like the shop staff were shaken by the whole thing (understandably, it looks very unpleasant) while the left response since has been imo somewhat overblown (wasn't surprised at all to see the SWP fundraising off it despite the episode clearly having had no appreciable economic impact - though I suppose there's worse ways to punish far-rightists who try to intimidate bookshops than making sure the outcome is the opposite of what they intended by boosting the victims).

That said, the fact these idiots felt bold enough to film themselves "confronting" a left-wing bookshop in broad daylight says a lot about the increased confidence of what is currently an unorganised bunch of conspiraloons and wannabe edgelords who think they're part of a movement. Cack-handed opportunism is one of those steps that go between rhetoric and more organised violence.

This wasn't an attack.

They rip up a placard and knock some books onto the floor. Sure it must have been fairly intimidating but this is hardly far-right violence. I don't remember this much anguish from the left when the Clapton Ultras were violently attacked by 40 tooled up far-right hooligans.

But, the level of far-right violence has been increasing steadily for years and is now at a level which the left really needs to take seriously, so hopefully this minor incident will help with that.

Jim

This wasn't an attack.

Yes my feeling too. Still an attempt to intimidate and an unpleasant experience for the bookshop staff and customers thoygh

Ukip suspends three members over socialist bookshop attack

wojtek

Ukip suspends three members over socialist bookshop attack

I wonder what Class War-turned-UKIP-member Paul Stott makes of it!

Just wait for the Spiked hot take.

he is currently busy defending Boris Johnson

Tbf, "wanting to piss off the trots" is one of the only things that I can think of that would belong in the middle of the Class War/UKIP Venn diagram. Also, when I first heard about this I wondered if this was them being really clever and making a strategic decision to go after targets that would be divisive and perhaps not get automatic sympathy, I really can't get over the fact that these clowns actually decided to have a go at the SWP's bookshop without taking five seconds on google to find out anything about who the SWP are.

R Totale

Also, when I first heard about this I wondered if this was them being really clever and making a strategic decision to go after targets that would be divisive and perhaps not get automatic sympathy

One thing I noticed on twitter when this happened is a lot of people had no idea that Bookmarks shop was SWP-linked, even people who would be well aware that SUTR is an SWP front.

Strangely there was a small piece about in in a swedish broadsheet, at least the online edition. Sounded like a proper attack from that piece...

I guess it makes sense that more people would be aware of the back story to an org like SUTR that holds high profile events all over the country than for a bookshop that you'd have no real reason to encounter unless you've ever decided to buy leftie books in central London. Also probably reflects the declining influence of the SWP in recent years, I imagine Bookmarks' ownership must be common knowledge among anyone who's ever been even peripherally close to them, but I guess anyone coming into politics since 2013 or so probably won't ever have gone to Marxism and so on.
Branding-wise it is an interesting turnaround: not so long ago, a lot of the media, and even the less sharp cops and fash, would assume any antifascist was automatically from "the UAF", now you have dopey alt-right chumps standing around outside the SWP's bookshop trying to work out if it's an "ant-eef-uh" shop.

What stays with me about this 'action' is the perceptive literary criticism offered by the guy who picked up three books from the shelves: first, "Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity" and "Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain". This was clear evidence that the shop was encouraging paedophilia. Finally he seized upon Abram Leon's "The Jewish Question, a marxist interpretation" to prove that it was selling "Jew hatred".

Everyone is mixed up these days.

Whipping Girl is one of my favorites

Not sure about all of them, but UKIP cleared and reinstated their prior Swindon election candidate Martin Costello.
His piss weak defence, was that he'd just gone in to have a chat and buy a book, and that other people had been disruptive and intimidating (not him) so he'd left. Even though he was quite clearly with them before at both their 'anti-BBC bias' demo, and in the street outside.

UKIP just used the excuse that no offence had been committed (I mean arguably conspiracy to cause criminal damage to a placard, and section 5 public order act, but they wern't pursued by anyone).

I think a few years ago UKIP would've got rid of Martin if for no other reason that he was a fucking embarassment. However now they are more desperate to hang on to those active organisers they still have, and far farrrr more tollerent of people being openly far right.

Their current strategy appears to be to orientate themselves towards the British version of the alt-right reinvigoration of the far right in America, to be increasingly islamophobic and hope to ride the wave of electorial success that similar parties have seen across Europe.

The three main visible aspects of this strategy so far have been allowing people like Costello to remain in the party (even though he is clearly a key player in the 'make britain great again' group, arguably a competitor to ukip), when they used to be very 'on it' about visibly distancing themselves from those 'outed' as being racist / far right / conspiracy theorists.

Secondly their new recruits - Here's a guardian article on some of their more high-profile 'alt-right' recruits lately https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/25/ukip-welcomes-social-media-activists-linked-to-alt-right-into-party .

And thirdly how keen they were to ride the coat tails of the 'free tommy' protests and movements, which makes sense as Steve Bannon disussed the creation of a europe wide anti-islamophobic movement. UKIP are arguably well positioned to fight to be the leading force within this, though if Tommy put his weight behind yet another political grouping (a new-new-new EDL, a new-pediga UK etc), with Bannon's strategic nouse and the US funding he brings it may well take off. Though ofc Tommy's prior groupings have all fallen apart in infighting.
Worst case scenario for anti-fascists would be Tommy and UKIP combining forces with Bannon and his US mates pulling the strings.