Right-wing hatred of asylum seekers rallies the left in Chesterfield

It’s been one hell of a week whizzing around the country from Glasgow to Manchester, Birmingham yesterday, and now Chesterfield.

I’m here to watch a bunch of fascist wombles and their Fisher-Price journalist mates shout abuse outside a hotel where asylum seekers live.

Take that, concrete. Fuck you, and fuck the fact that you’re (barely) housing poor people.

I was cautiously pleased when I arrived. For once, sense had prevailed, and the auditors had apparently been told to pick sides. They were aligned with their far-right pals.

Still waiting on my press pass, I handed over my passport and work contract to the officers guarding the “sterile zone.” While doing that, I spotted my buddy from Birmingham — the one who thought I was undercover. He’s right there, videoing me, and no…he sadly doesn’t recognise me.

“This’ll be interesting to see what they do with this,” he mutters.

The police let me through, but practically inside it’s all auditors — those guys with wannabe Iron Man phone holsters strapped to their chests. They don’t look happy to see me.

I get a few photos before two officers haul me back out. Apparently my details “couldn’t be confirmed”?

The mad double standard: two-tier policing

I’m so sick of this shit. If these muppets want to scream, “why are you allowed there” or “he’s one of them” — I’ll say it because I have a real job.

That’s not antagonistic, it’s arithmetic. Facts don’t have feelings. It’s not like I’m calling people “nonces” surrounded by police. It’s about a system of enablement, equating self employed instigators with professionals just trying to do their jobs safely.

The double standard is absurd. At a protest in Manchester, I got chatting with an officer about the stark difference in how the two sides are policed.

We stood back from the mess, watching far-right thugs swiping umbrellas and brandishing their phones.

“It’s because of the law”, he tells me, “[that] there’s not much we can do”. Holding a camera isn’t a crime — it’s when it crosses into criminality.

How then are activists on the left threatened with ‘arrest for incitement’ for standing close to right-wing protesters? Or shouting on the side-lines?

It’s as though the police get less reactive when they know the left isn’t going to kick off. Surprisingly, the officer agrees.

It’s wild listening to the police casually acknowledge two-tier policing with zero self-awareness. The implication is obvious — the left gets falsely criminalised because the right has a propensity for violence.

Internal squabbles and fantasy narratives

So back in with the left I go — supposedly no kettling this time — I’ll believe it when I see it.

The fractures from the Sheffield UKIP protest are now starting to show. From the front someone excitedly shouts, “We stopped UKIP from marching!” The crowd cheers. “No we didn’t,” comes the incredulous shout from the back from a masked protestor. A cluster of people chuckle darkly.

“There are many, many more of us than you” isn’t just a chant, one attendee told me. If hundreds of people that came out had stood in the road and refused to move, the police couldn’t have done anything.

The fantasy persists though, with people on Facebook claiming the fascists were “in short supply and low spirits.” Absolute bullshit — they were out in force, and when you get close, you can see who’s in it for money and who’s there with no real purpose or belief.

Playing with their selfie sticks in the woods

A few of the right are escorted out through the sterile zone — the only exit. I do wonder if this was by design?

But then, out of nowhere, a line of officers appears, blocking the road. Something’s kicking off. A group from the right have apparently snuck through the woods to infiltrate the left-wing protest. Now police are hunting them, and the whole thing looms like a comedy sketch — a police force outsmarted by a dozen people hiding with selfie sticks.

 A left-wing protester is waved through the first set of cops, but when he reaches the line where I’m standing, three officers grab him, despite everyone shouting he’s one of ours. Another perfect example of the police having no idea what’s happening.

One officer tried telling me that evidence gatherers and Police Liaison Officers are “independent” from the police.

“Independent?” I asked. “Really?”
“Well… impartial,” he said.

The question that poses itself is: aren’t all police supposed to be impartial? The truth is no one is impartial. We all bring our views and prejudices to work, at the very least subconsciously. The police are no different.

So yeah — Chesterfield. Another town, another batch of auditors; another police force botching their own response.

If this week proved anything, it’s that those supposedly in charge are clueless. Their focus is misdirected, while real problems fester beneath our noses. At this point, I’m not shocked — just tired. And honestly, I’m amazed I ever had faith in the police.

Featured image courtesy of the author