The Football Lads Alliance (FLA) have announced that they are to march next year, in the months of March and May. They claim that these will be the biggest mobilisations they are yet to hold. Locations have not been announced, but the FLA say they will not be in London.
This weekend, some of the FLA are set to march alongside Veterans Against Terrorism (VAT) in Edinburgh. (The VAT group have themselves, some deeply unpleasant views e.g., the VAT leader Richard Inman believes that ‘the entire Muslim religion is antichrist’ and encourages fellow Christians to join ‘the struggle against Islamisation’.
He opposes abortion and has castigated Nicola Sturgeon as ‘the vile wicked witch of the north’ for suggesting that Northern Irish women should be able to access abortions in Scotland.
Inman supports ex EDL leader, Tommy Robinson and helped organise a ‘Last Day of Silence’ demonstration in London. Speakers included former EDL figure ‘Tommy English’ and the disgraced ex UKIP leadership candidate, Anne-Marie Waters. Waters was recently exposed by an ITV documentary as an extreme Islamophobe, who believes that ‘Islam is a killing machine’).
The FLA’s founder John Meighan has been in Scotland on a recruitment drive to drum up support for his organisation amongst football fans from Scotland’s biggest clubs. His organisation was of course, founded in the wake of the terror attack at London Bridge.
An allegiance to the VAT group, again puts into question the FLA’s claim to be anti racist. Despite claiming that notorious, far right figures such as Frank Portinari and Toni Bugle have been removed as FLA supporters, both are still listed as members on the FLA secret, Facebook wall.
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott is regularly subject to vile abuse, some of it openly racist, by FLA members.
Scottish anti racist football fans have leafleted a number of grounds about the FLA and have attracted the support of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. Supporters found little backing for the FLA, with many fans being suspicious of the FLA’s motives.
Racist and Islamophobic posts on the FLA page were one reason why the veterans’ charity Walking with the Wounded pulled support for the FLA’s second demonstration.
Since then Meighan has wished “good luck” to a far-right, Islamophobic demo at the East London Mosque and the FLA promoted an Islamophobic rally outside the BBC in London. In response to why he backed, but then deleted his support for a known fascist mobilisation in East London, Meighan said he’d support “any demonstration against Islamic terror”.
The Muslim community in East London was the unsubtle target of those who Meighan backed in East London. Those who led the small march included fascist thugs from the Chelsea Headhunters, hooligan gang. Meighan was made aware of this (he would have known, surely) but would not condemn them; why?
This is at a time when hate crimes against Muslims are rising at a dramatic rate. Anti racists in East London are meeting and organising to ensure no such fascist provocation happens again. The FLA are also looking to organise a Football Youth Alliance, as they claim “youth are the future”, presumably of the FLA.
The vast majority of football supporters oppose racism and many clubs have invested much time and effort in supporting anti-racist initiatives. But it is clear some on the fascist right are attempting to use the FLA to win an audience for their political agenda.
We have to ask why an organisation that says it is not racist has failed to deal with the far right racists it is attracting. The FLA leadership is opening the door to those who want to divide us. They have long had the option now to turn people away from their ranks, Tommy Robinson eventually, was asked to leave the last, FLA march. But others, equally dangerous, are not being turned away.
Football is known as the beautiful game, but many in the FLA are threatening to turn the clock back to when some fans, essentially Muslims, are afraid to go to games, for fear of being targeted by racists.
We believe that, like the whole of society, football is for everyone, women and men, black and white, LGBT+ or straight, people of all religions or none. Anti racists are working with others in football to challenge Islamophobia and will see that whichever cities the FLA marches in, an anti racist message will be loud and clear.