This year will see the 90th Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street, when – on 4 October 1936 – tens of thousands of anti-fascists successfully blocked a march organised by Mosley’s British Union of Fascists (BUF), which had tried to go through London’s East End.

 This week, as that historic anniversary approaches, we have seen the Patriot Platform’s far-right and fascist balaclava-wearing thugs block Dover’s port, insult and intimidate the brave volunteers of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in Portsmouth, attack police, picket the right-wing Daily Mail, and even invade a hotel because they thought Pakistan’s Under-19 cricket team were refugees and asylum-seekers. It would appear their intellect is about as limited as their politics is hateful and divisive!

Behind the Patriot Platform

Given that hundreds of these thugs are similarly attired from head to toe in black – the uniform colour also (quite coincidentally, of course!) favoured by Mosley’s fascist Blackshirts and the Nazi SS! – it’s worth asking where, all of a sudden, they have come from. The founder is Daniel Thomas – who likes to be known as ‘Danny Tommo’ – who used to be a bodyguard for fascist ‘Tommy Robinson’. After leaving ‘Robinson’, ‘Tommo’ went on to be a leading light in the ‘Raise the Colours’ stunt, before coming up with his ‘Patriot Platform’ idea.

 In the past, ‘Tommo’ has received over $30,000 from the Middle East Forum: a US-based anti-Islam/pro-Israel right-wing think tank. Although that funding seems to have dried up, the endorsement Musk has given to the Patriot Platform on social media suggests that ‘Tommo’ may have found a new, and much wealthier, funder for his latest attempt to build a street-based fascist movement in the UK. Certainly, in the past, Musk has given large donations to various far-right and fascist movements around the world.

‘Tommo’ himself was once sentenced to two years in prison for an attempted armed kidnapping over stolen drugs. During the ‘Farage Riots’ which followed the Southport stabbings in 2024, he told his followers on social media that ‘Every city needs to go up!’ In April this year, he instigated violent riots in Epsom, by falsely claiming that a woman had been gang-raped by refugees. While, in June, he went over to Belfast during the racist riots there; later saying he found those riots ‘inspiring’.

Keeping women and children safe?

So that is reality of the man, and that is the reality of his movement – which ‘Tommo’ describes as ‘an army of patriots’ – that claims their riots are actually all about keeping ‘women and children’ safe! Yet the facts show that having such people ‘defend’ women and children is like thinking Savile would have kept children safe from sexual abuse!

Because, first of all, many of those who have previously rioted outside migrant and refugee hostels in 2024 and 2026, shouting about their desire to ‘keep women and children safe’, actually have previous convictions for … the physical and/or sexual abuse of women and children! The same holds for several of those who first signed up to be part of the Patriot Platform. Perhaps that is why they wear balaclavas, in case they’re identified as past offenders? You couldn’t – and, sadly, don’t need to – make it up. As Jim Royle would probably say: ‘Patriot Platform keeping women & children safe? My arse!’

The reality about the physical and/or sexual abuse of women and children –  confirmed by academic study after academic study – is that over 90% of all such violent abuse is committed by men already known to the victims. Uncomfortable as this fact may be, that means that the vast majority of perpetrators are family members, partners or ex-partners, family friends, close neighbours, or work colleagues. For women and children, ‘stranger danger’ is relatively very rare.

Another fact is that the level of such domestic violence and abuse of women and children has increased over recent decades. The reason: the increasing poverty and ‘Cost of Living’ crisis resulting from Thatcherite/neoliberal austerity, cuts to public services, and the failure to build decent and affordable social housing since 1979. This is why police chiefs recently declared violence against women and girls a national threat.

Making a mountain out of a molehill

Yet ‘Tommo’ and his fascist Patriot Platform – like far-right Farage, creeping fascist Lowe, and fascist ‘Robinson’ – have NOTHING to say about why so many ordinary people are suffering such economic problems. Instead, they want people to abandon facts and reason, and to give themselves over to a totally-irrational fear and hatred of what is a small, and declining, number of refugees and asylum-seekers arriving in small boats.

In reality, the economic and social problems being experienced by so many ordinary people – such as fuel-poverty, and increasing dependence on foodbanks, clothes banks and heat banks – were here long before the first small boat appeared on the horizon. And such problems will get increasingly worse – with, as warned last year by the UK’s Joint Intelligence Chiefs, the likelihood of food shortages, if the climate and ecological crises are not seriously addressed in the next few years.

The actual cause of all those existing and future problems is the greed of the over-rich multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires who, since 1979, have paid less and less in taxation. The very people, in fact, who found, fund and lead such far-right and creeping fascist parties as Reform and Restore Britain. And who even fund outright fascist groups such as those led by ‘Tommo’ and ‘Robinson’. The over-rich do so for a very good reason. They want to distract people from the real causes of their problems (i.e., the greed of the over-rich). Their aim is to divide working people and, instead, to get them to direct their justified anger and frustration against a small minority who are absolutely not the real problem. Distraction is a trick long-used by magicians – and it was the trick used by the Nazis in Germany during the Great Depression; only then, the minority singled out as the fascist scapegoat were Jewish people.

Bringing it forth

The big questions people should be asking today are:

• why are so many people suffering such economic hardships? and
• why is our political scene today being contaminated by creeping fascism and fascism?

Both  those questions were answered by, amongst others, the radical German playwright Bertolt Brecht, in his Five Difficulties essay of 1935:

‘How can anyone tell the truth about Fascism, unless he is willing to speak out against capitalism, which brings it forth?’

Similar economic problems to those of today – and the same hateful fascist politics – affected most countries in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. In Italy, Germany and then Spain, fascism – in various forms – came to power: precisely because of crises caused by capitalism. And, importantly, such fascist parties were secretly funded by their respective over-rich/over-greedy multi-millionaires.

Today, people in the UK, and many other countries in Europe, are experiencing similar economic hardships – and, in most of those countries, creeping fascism and fascism are on the rise: helped by not-so-secret ‘donations’ from multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires. Earlier this month, Germany’s extreme right AfD party – which has known neo-Nazis and Holocaust-deniers in its leadership – won nearly 44% of the vote in a state election, almost taking control.

 Like the Alliance for Germany (AfD) result in Germany, the emergence – and actions – of the Patriot Platform show that it’s high time a lot more people woke up and ‘smelt the coffee’ as regards the real possibility of fascism in today’s UK. Of course, a lot of people will try to dismiss such developments as a ‘passing phase’, and even think there is nothing to worry about. But as  William K. Wolfrum is reported as having said: ‘The road to fascism is lined with people telling you to stop overreacting.’

Full-spectrum resistance

To be clear, by no means are all those who have been suckered into supporting the groups set up by fascists like ‘Tommo’ and ‘Robinson’, fascist themselves. But the important thing is that the rallies they’ve attended, and the movements they’re supporting, do have a definite fascist origin and a definite fascist direction.

In such circumstances, anti-fascists need to use all available means of preventing the slide towards fascism. There are some excellent anti-racist and anti-fascist groups who have been active for decades: such as Unite Against Fascism and Stand Up to Racism. In addition, many trade unions are fully aware of the threat fascist parties pose to wages and working conditions.

 However, despite some political weaknesses, the newly-formed Together Alliance is already proving to be another valuable tool in the anti-fascist tool box. No other anti-fascist organisation has been able to match its achievement in March this year, when it put 500,000 people on the streets of London in a demonstration which was explicitly-billed as being ‘Against the Far Right’. It was the by far the biggest anti-fascist demo in UK history – and massively dwarfed the fascist ‘Unite the Kingdoms’ demo ‘Robinson’ organised in London in September 2025.

Anti-fascists should thus do all they can to build the Together Alliance into a really effective anti-fascist movement. The Together Alliance – which includes most of the major trade unions – is clear that one-off demos are not enough to push back the political filth that is fascism. This is especially true as evidence is increasing of far-right and fascist attempts to intimidate individuals and local organisations opposed to fascism.

One core aim of the Together Alliance is to build community cohesion to oppose the far right and the fascists. As the next step, there will be two Summits next month: one in Manchester on 17 October, and one in Manchester on 24 October. So one useful thing anti-fascists can do, right now, is to get together with anti-fascists in the area and book tickets for one of those Summits. This can be done via this link: https://www.togetheralliance.org.uk/organise-together

Time to make a reality of the anti-fascist slogan which first emerged during the Spanish Civil War: ¡No Pasarán!