British Fascists Attacked an Anti-UKIP Meeting Last Night

This post originally appeared on VICE UK.

Remember the bizarre public fracas the other week, where UKIP leader Nigel Farage called a bunch of fancy-dress wearing protesters that interrupted his pub lunch "scum" because they scared off his kids? Well round two happened last night, as a bunch of British fascists attacked a meeting of the organizers of the "Beyond UKIP Cabaret."

The 'Kippers have since tried to move on from the pub debacle, launching their election campaign, urging people to switch lights on to "strike a blow to climate hysteria," and preparing to kidnap Obama.

However, the fall out from the anti-UKIP conga lingers on. Since the carnival, one of the organizers has received death threats ("cry me a river" said Nigel) and last night, click-bait fascist street team Britain First, decided to take matters into their own hands.

Around 25 Britain First activists headed down to Hoxton, where the organizers of the "Beyond UKIP Cabaret" were meeting. Their plan was "to give them a taste of their own medicine." Beyond UKIP's action had been in fancy dress, and likewise Britain First turned up in their paramilitary garb. They broke into the building where the meeting was taking place, intimidating everyone by shouting things like "lefty scum," and getting one of their number arrested for assault.

The above footage shows a Britain First activist screaming "Socialist scum off our streets" as a man in an orange jumper who works in the building tries to reason with them, standing in front of the door of the meeting.

"Why don't they come out and face us?," Paul Golding, leader of Britain First asks.

"Come out and face us, we're not here for violence we're here to talk," someone shouts in the manner of someone offering someone out for a fight.

Footage shot from inside the meeting room shows how freaked out the attendees of the Beyond UKIP meeting were. "This is so scary," says one.

"Britain First fighting back" shout the Britain First activists on the other side of the door, thumping the glass. Paul Golding leads the chants while making Churchill style "peace" signs. He also spends a lot of time calling the Beyond UKIP crowd bullies, while his large shouty henchmen try and break into a room of frightened people.

A further video shows Paul Golding making threats to one of the Beyond UKIP activists. "You overstep the mark and you'll find us on your doorstep", he says before the pair exchange tit-for-tat insults. "You're a stupid, socialist, lefty…" says Golding, struggling to marshal more disparaging ways to call someone left-wing.

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The threats continue. In a piece to camera for a Britain First propaganda video, Paul Golding says, "This is a warning to the left-wing to the politics in this country. No longer will we take you harassing and confronting families and children. You've overstepped the mark."

As Britain First leave, Golding says, "You tell Dan Glass that Paul Golding is looking for him."

Dan Glass is one of the Beyond UKIP organizers. When I last spoke to him he was receiving death threats. He crashed at a hotel last night, not wanting to be at home.

According to Ray Malone, one of the anti-UKIP activists who was at both the protest and the meeting last night, "We were sat in groups chatting quietly. Then one of the girls went outside, and came running back in shouting 'Britain First are in the fucking building, shut the fucking doors'."

As they arrived at the center, Britain First leader Paul Golding asked where the beyond UKIP-cabaret meeting was. Thankfully, someone suspected these angry middle aged racist white blokes in uniform might not be here to gently mock Nigel Farage, so they sent them the wrong way, up a flight of stairs, to buy them some time.

Diarmaid McDonald, who is based at the center and appears in the videos in the orange jumper, followed Britain First for a while. "I did my best to politely encourage them to leave, hoping they wouldn't see the guys hiding in the room. But just as they were giving up someone saw movement in the room where everyone was hiding and they twigged they were in there."

"Suddenly I was standing between them and the door, barricading it closed surrounded by a dozen fascists trying to get past me. For the most part they tried to intimidate me into moving out of the way by shouting at me and chanting 'Britain First' and 'left-wing scum.'"

"But then they said, 'right if you think you're going to stop us getting in there let's see about it,' and they started trying to physically manhandle me away from the door and push me away. I stood my ground and after shoving me about for a bit they gave up."

Ray, a 16-weeks-pregnant teacher, was terrified. "They say it's like giving us a taste of our own medicine, but they didn't turn up with a conga line and fancy dress." I asked what she thought they might do if they made it in, "that's what we were afraid of, there were lots of them and they were angry, just the stress level was pretty scary."

After a while the cops turned up, one of the Britain First lads got nicked for assault, and the far-right group decided they'd made their point and left.

Britain First say their action was a reaction to the pub protest. If you're gonna freak out someone's children, maybe you're fair game for some shouting, some chanting, and a bit of common assault? Ray was having none of that. "We didn't see any kids at Nigel's pub, there were categorically no children," she said.

She continued, saying that the UKIP pub protest, "was a lively and happy event, very light and jovial. I was one of the first people though the door to Nigel's pub, and I could hear one of my mates saying 'please take a citizenship test' to Farage."

Britain First have produced their own account of what happened last night in a video complete with Hollywood style stirring music, watched over 150,000 times already.

There's something quite bizarre these guys standing up for Farage, when UKIP has banned them all from the party. A UKIP spokesperson told me, "UKIP has no relationship with Britain First. We do not communicate with them nor condone their activities." But whether they condone it or not, it seems that UKIP has picked up an unwanted gang of racists, going about like bouncers, threatening and bullying Nigel Farage's boo-boys and girls.

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