Most readers will have been following how two weeks ago thousands of anti-fascists mobilised on the streets of Edinburgh to defeat the racist Scottish Defence League through militant direct action. If you haven’t, you can read what the Scottish Socialist Youth had to say about the day here and here.

Although the day was a great success, one of the things that clearly needs to be tackled if we’re going to build mass opposition to the far right in Scotland is unity within the anti-fascist movement.

SSY and the SSP have argued that there was room for both a mass demo and rally against racism (even if we had some reservations about some of the characters on the platform, like Edinburgh City Council Leader Jenny Dawe) and for those willing and able to take mass direct action by peacefully occupying the streets.

But on the day there were tensions and disagreement between the Edinburgh Anti Fascist Alliance, who argued for direct action, and Unite Against Fascism and Scotland United, the organisers of the march and rally.

Now EAFA have written an open letter to UAF, arguing for these tensions to be resolved to allow us to make sure that the SDL won’t be able to march in Lockerbie later this month. We should stress that this letter is by the Edinburgh Anti Fascist Alliance, which involves loads of different groups and individuals, and it’s not just by SSY or the Scottish Socialist Party. Nevertheless I think it’s fair to say that SSY endorses pretty much everything it says.

Here it is:

“Subject: Open Letter to the UAF

Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance Open letter to the UAF, 28 February 2010

Fellow Anti-Fascists,

We recognise the hard work of the UAF in building for the anti-Scottish Defence League demonstration, and were pleased with the cooperative relationship we had with Unite Against Fascism in the lead up to it. We were working together in the spirit of a united response to the SDL.

We were heartened to hear in the UAF meetings we attended, that the UAF considered that there was room for the two complimentary demonstrations on the day. We hoped that the problems that occurred in Glasgow were behind us, and that the UAF and Anti-Fascist Alliance could cooperate this time.

However on the day of the demonstration some members of the UAF intended to disrupt our protest, and take it back to the Scotland United march,despite these previous assurances, and the spirit of cooperation that existed before. Some UAF and Scotland United organisers spread disinformation, and said things that were known to be untrue, to the crowd as it marched to confront the SDL at the bottom of the Royal Mile.These untrue statements included: “there are no SDL in that pub, only Hibs casuals”, and “150 fascists are about to attack the Scotland United demonstration”. This led to confusion and people leaving.

Unity and superior numbers are our strengths against violent racists like the SDL. However these strengths were jeopardised by this behaviour, and put the safety of anti-fascists at serious risk. We would not like to imagine what the situation could have been like, had the depleted number of anti-fascists met a large group of SDL thugs at the bottom of the hill.

We hope that this letter will start a fraternal discussion about how we can avoid similar situations in the future, and how we can ensure greater level of unity and cooperation between the UAF and Anti-FascistAlliance so that we have the best chance of defeating fascism. We look forward to cooperating with you against the SDL/EDL in Lockerbie and Bolton.
In Solidarity,

Edinburgh Anti-Fascist Alliance.”