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Police round-up anti-fascists

01 January 1994

Police rounded up anti-fascist demonstrators and loaded them on to empty "football special" trains during a day of demonstrations against a "Blood and Honour" concert in London on January 16. The gig was billed as a memorial concert for Blood and Honour organiser and Skrewdriver lead singer, Ian Stuart. Stuart died in a car crash late last year. Their concert was booked to take place at the Piper public house in Becontree, Essex, but was cancelled at the last minute.

Anti-fascists were present in numbers at the venue in Becontree. They were also at Bow, in east London, where about one hundred members of Combat 18 - who were acting as "stewards" for the planned concert - were drinking at the Little Driver pub. Following confrontations between fascists and anti-fascists outside the pub about two hundred anti-fascists were rounded-up by police in riot gear and detained outside Bow underground station. After about an hour they were shunted on to an empty train and, unaware of their destination, taken non-stop to Earls Court in central London. Shortly afterwards a second train arrived at Earls Court station carrying about four hundred anti- fascist demonstrators who had been rounded up at Becontree. This provocative policing resulted in running battles between police and demonstrators at Earls Court. Several demonstrators were injured.

Later that evening Blood and Honour skinheads arrived at Waterloo, south London, where they assembled at the Wellington public house. A number of nazis were arrested, including two from Belgium and one from Germany,after fighting broke out between the nazis and police.

On the same day 32 nazis were arrested, and released on bail, by police after attacking an "alternative" bookshop in Nottingham. The fascists smashed computers and destroyed books. They were arrested by police after a coach and minibus were stopped.