In February 2026, a social media account associated with the far right group March for England announced that an anti-immigration march would take place in Brighton on 13 June 1 They planned this to call for “mass deportations now.”
In the following months, a local Sussex-based far right group called ‘South East Patriots’ took over the main organising role for the demonstration, partnering with Ryan Bridge from ‘Raise the Colours’ – the group that carries out ‘flagging’ operations to attach England flags to lampposts to intimidate ethnic minorities and marginalised communities. They invited several minor far right celebrities to speak at the rally, including the leader of UKIP Nick Tenconi and fraudster-and-former-London-mayoral-candidate Shyam Batra – who believes that extraterrestrials are hiding in British communities.
Heartened by far right mobilisations in nearby towns and cities like Crowborough and Southampton, the fascists believed that they had the numbers and the momentum to target Brighton – a sanctuary city that welcomes and celebrates migrants and refugees. In multiple livestreams before 13 June, a South East Patriot activist shared his hope that the march in Brighton would be the biggest far right demo in the city’s history and that – building on this success – they could turn it into an annual event.
Without maximalism, without surrender
However, they underestimated the strength and talent of Brighton’s activist community. As soon as the march had been announced, Brighton Antifascists declared that they would be organising a counterprotest. At the start of April, they issued a callout to other activist groups in the area to join the ‘Carnival Against Fascism’ – alluding to the antifascist history of Notting Hill Carnival and the work of communist activist Claudia Jones- to coordinate the local response to far right provocation. A*CR Brighton was one of the member groups of this Carnival Against Fascism coalition, which included Brighton Antifascists, AntiRaids Brighton, Young Struggle, Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Sussex rs21, StopL3Harris, Greens Organise, Collective Action Brighton & Hove, Jollof Cafe, Unite the Union, and others.
Each group in this coalition signed up to two basic points of minimal unity: 1) we will physically stop the fascists from marching, and 2) we will refuse to work with the police. To borrow a slogan from our comrade Ugo Palheta, we adhered to the principle of “without maximalism, but without surrender.” We agreed that we needed to organise a community-based mobilisation to counter the far right’s demo, blending a festival-like atmosphere of music and creativity with a militant confrontational approach. We spoke at gigs and dance nights across the city, handed out leaflets at the train station and the Clocktower, worked with artists and drag queens, and built links with local trade union branches and community groups. We distributed stickers and posters to countless ordinary Brightonians who plastered the city with our message of unity and resistance. In the weeks leading up to June 13th, we firmly implanted the idea that ‘Brighton is an antifascist city that stands up to the far right and can stop them from marching’ in people’s minds.
As 13 June drew closer, the Carnival Against Fascism member groups announced a number of blocs for the counter-demo: Young Struggle and Antifascist Students of Sussex (A.S.S.) formed the Revolutionary Youth Bloc, the Folk Against Fascism led a ‘folk bloc’ to sing subversive shanties and folk songs, Plan C coordinated a situationist-esque ‘beach bloc’ with inflatables, Disability Action Brighton gathered a Disabled Bloc to hand out masks and earplugs, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign brought together a Palestine bloc. The Brighton Hove and District Trades Union council, with help from A*CR Brighton, Unite, and Trade Unions Fighting the Far Right (TUFF) ), assembled an impressive trade union bloc that included comrades from UNISON, NEU, Unite, PCS, and UCU. As the route of the far right march was never disclosed, we understood that we needed these blocs to be mobile and confrontational – they needed to move autonomously through the city to block the fascists wherever the police tried to take them.
Fascists in hi vis jackets
On the morning of 13 June antifascist crowds gathered outside Brighton train station – the meeting point for the far right demonstrators – to surround the fascists and make it harder for them to go on their march. Even when the police tried to force their way through the crowd to allow the march to go ahead, the blocs held their ground. When the far right was led down Surrey Street, the Revolutionary Youth Bloc stood in their way. When the far right were led up Terminus Road, the Trade Union bloc (along with the Folk Bloc and the Beach Bloc) had managed to rush to the top of West Hill – up Upper Gloucester Road, through Dyke Road and Seven Dials, and along Buckingham Place – to block them on the other side. In contrast to static antifascist counter-demos, the Carnival Against Fascism proved the necessity and usefulness of mobile blocs – led by trusted organisers with local knowledge – that were ready to disobey the police’s instructions and move through the city with confidence and agility to oppose the far right threat. Eventually, the police directed the far right march back down Terminus Road and steered them down the steep and narrow Trafalgar Street into a massive crowd of antifascist Brighton residents. And that’s when the Battle of Trafalgar Street took place.
Instead of acknowledging that they could not shift the crowd, the police were hellbent on pushing the march down Trafalgar Street. They donned riot gear, took out the pepper spray and batons, and started to brutalise defenceless and peaceful antifascist protestors. They shoved people over patio furniture at a nearby Lebanese restaurant, causing significant damage and injury. Despite facing considerable unjustified police violence, the people of Brighton did not give up. They pushed back against the police line and refused to give them an inch. Cries of “every cop is a fascist” and “who protect the fascists? police protect the fascists!” could be heard as officers punched and kicked innocent people who were simply trapped in the crush. People quickly put together a station to help those who had been hit with the pepper spray, distributing bottles of water and performing first aid on the injured. Many people testified that the Battle of Trafalgar Street was the worst instance of police violence they had ever encountered in the city. However, the police were unable to crush the fighting spirit of Brighton’s antifascist community. When the police finally realised that they could not break our line, they were told to stand down – each one of them aware that they had suffered a humiliating defeat.
In this brief respite, I overheard one police officer tell a protestor that they were only there to protect the freedom to protest and they weren’t taking sides – only half an hour or so after they had unjustifiably pummelled and pepper-sprayed the antifascist crowd. It was a reminder that, despite this ideological conceit of “not taking sides,” the police are not a neutral institution. They are an instrument of the state to control, brutalise, and discipline the working class and the oppressed, as well as a key element in an unfair immigration system that seeks to punish and deport so-called “illegal immigrants” in our communities. Whenever you are at an antifascist demo, it is crucial to remember that – as A*CR and TUFF comrades chanted on the day – every cop is a fascist in a hi vis jacket.
There was a brief moment of panic when a line of police officers with riot shields came down Trafalgar Street, seemingly for a second round of unprovoked aggression and belligerence. People around me were clearly terrified of what might happen, but ready to defend our streets. Thankfully, this line of riot cops was there just to allow other officers to lead the far right march back into the train station to depart the city. And, as these riot cops started walking backwards up Trafalgar Street, there was a huge sense of elation as Brighton residents took back their streets. Many people rushed along Over Street and Fredrick Place to head to the station to join in with chants like “Brighton is antifascist” and “Whose Streets? Our Streets” as the fascists scurried onto their trains.
There are many things that I can only mention in passing: Brighton legend Fatboy Slim performed a dj set outside the station, then came down to Trafalgar Street to push against the police with the rest of us (reportedly yelling “hold the line!”); many activists formed frontlines against the police in multiple locations throughout the city and held their ground against riot cops and police horses; Ryan Bridge, the leader of Raise the Colours, was unable to join the march and was chased down Queens Road where he eventually hid in a bus as antifascists surrounded him; several fascists were trapped in a pub called the Sussex Yeoman as antifascist protestors banged on the windows and taunted them with mocking chants; a tiny handful of far right protesters were escorted by police on the train to the endpoint of their march on Hove Lawns, where they managed to do roughly 20 minutes of speeches (without any of their main guests), before they were forced to give up and retreat to Hove train station to leave the city.
In the past day or so, several left-wing activists have shared their reflections on 13 June , coming to the conclusion that the Carnival Against Fascism has established a new and radical model of antifascist organising that can and should be recreated in other towns and cities.
This is great to hear, but it is important to remember that fighting the far right on the streets is only one part of the struggle. We need to combat fascism in our workplaces, our unions, our community spaces. We need to break the appeal of the far right by offering a real alternative, by showing people the possibility for a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for.
I am so proud of my fellow organisers in the Carnival Against Fascism coalition, and I was overjoyed that comrades from A*CR could participate in the biggest antifascist demonstration in Brighton for over a decade. Our work is not over, but – for now, at least – we can celebrate our victory.
They did not pass. They will never pass. Brighton is an antifascist city.