Battle of Lewisham - National Front March

National Front March

In the following weeks, the National Front announced plans for a march from New Cross to Lewisham. Martin Webster, NF national organiser, told the press: 'We believe that the multi-racial society is wrong, is evil and we want to destroy it'. Local church leaders, Lewisham Council and the Liberal Party all called for the march to be banned, but Metropolitan Police Commissioner David McNee declined to make an application to the Home Secretary for a ban to be imposed. McNee reasoned that if a ban were imposed, then this would lead to "increasing pressure" to ban similar events and would be "abdicating his responsibility in the face of groups who threaten to achieve their ends by violent means." Deputy Assistant Commissioner David Helm asked the NF if they would voluntarily abandon the march, which they refused to do. Helm also asked how they would respond if the march was banned, and received the reply that they would simply march elsewhere. This meant that any ban would have to be imposed - and subsequently manned and enforced - across the entire Metropolitan Police district, which would still not prevent the NF from marching outside of the proscribed area. A ban on marching would also not prevent the NF instead holding a static public meeting - "perhaps in provocative circumstances" - which would still attract a counter-demonstration. The police dilemma was further compounded by the limitations of the Public Order Act 1936, which granted no powers of arrest in the event that a ban was ignored.

There were political differences between anti-fascists about how best to respond, and as a result there were three distinct mobilisations for the counter-demonstration. The All Lewisham Campaign Against Racism and Fascism (ALCARAF) called for peaceful demonstration earlier on the day of the National Front march. The 13 August Ad Hoc Organising Committee, called on people to occupy the National Front's intended meeting point at Clifton Rise in New Cross. A third organisation, the Anti Racist/Anti-Fascist Co-ordinating Committee (ARAFCC, the London-wide Federation of Anti-Racist/Anti-Fascist Committees, including ALCARAF) also mobilised activists from across Greater London and published leaflets and posters calling for support for the ALCARAF march and for a physical attempt to stop the NF march.

In the week before the demonstration, a meeting took place in a pub in Deptford between ARAFCC and the Socialist Workers' Party Central Committee member responsible for their mobilisation. This meeting was intended to produce an agreed joint plan (as both organisations intended to physically block the streets to stop the NF march). However, the SWP insisted that the London Ant-Fascist Committees must accept the leading role of the SWP and mobilise their supporters under the direction of the SWP appointed stewards. This demand was rejected by the ARAFCC (whose members included many veteran Anti-Fascists, some anarchists, Communist Party and YCL members and trade union activists) and thus ARAFCC appointed its own stewards and made detailed plans to combine support for the ALCARAF demonstration in the morning with a physical blockade of New Cross Road in the afternoon. Although the official position of ALCARAF was that it was only mounting a peaceful demonstration on the morning of 13 August to show public opposition to the racist march planned for that afternoon, a number of ALCARAF activists collaborated with and supported the ARAFCC plans to mobilise for two events on the day.