We Keep Us Safe: Lessons from Whitechapel’s Defence

By: Hajera Begum

Last Saturday, the far right tried once again to march on East London. They failed — spectacularly.

UKIP’s latest attempt to “reclaim Whitechapel from the Islamists” was over before it began. Banned just days before they were due to march, they mustered barely a hundred supporters, and ended up shuffled by police to a replacement route between Knightsbridge and Hyde Park. In Whitechapel itself, several hundred locals - gathered in defiant community defence, joined by over a thousand antifascist demonstrators. Market traders pinned Stop Islamophobia signs to their stalls, Palestine flags flew from lampposts, and the message was clear: fascists don’t stand a chance marching here.

It was a day that exposed the far right’s weakness, demonstrated the output of community strength and was called a victory by many including the Council in Tower Hamlets. But it also revealed the dangers of relying on police bans - leaving organisers just days to replan whilst fascists are moved from one community to another.  

What really happened

UKIP had spent months trying to build momentum, promising to “reclaim” parts of Britain they imagined as lost to Muslims, migrants, and the left. But a few days before their planned march, the Met Police stepped in, banning them from Tower Hamlets after pressure from local leaders. They decided to instead gather in Knightsbridge, march to Hyde Park, and end at Speakers’ Corner.

The police framed this as a safety decision and to prevent the threat of violent disorder. But in reality, the ban simply displaced the problem — moving the threat from one community to another, from East to Central/West London, with little time for people nearby to respond. Antifascists mobilised with just a few days’ notice, and even so police responded with sweeping Section 12 and 14 orders under the Public Order Act banning counter-protests across Westminster and Central London; the very provisions used to block UKIP’s Whitechapel march.

Meanwhile, the far right spun the story in their favour. “Two-tier policing,” they called it — the same phrase that has become a staple of their propaganda. According to their narrative, the police are supposedly “protecting Muslims” and “silencing patriots.” The irony, of course, is that these same bans are and were used just as much to silence anti-fascists and criminalise community defence. But the effect is the same: fascists claim victimhood, and police use that excuse to tighten control on everyone else.

The illusion of police protection

It’s easy to celebrate when a far-right march is cancelled. After years of street violence, of threats to mosques, to migrants, to queer and racialised communities, any cancellation feels like a win. But the state’s intervention always comes with a cost.

Every time the police “deal” with fascists on our behalf, they strengthen the very system anti-fascism seeks to dismantle. Police bans aren’t victories — they’re instruments of repression that hollow out our capacity to act collectively. Each ban reinforces the illusion that safety comes from their control, not from the community. Section 12 and 14 orders are not neutral tools; they criminalise anti-racist organising and pro-Palestinian mobilisations and fragment solidarity. 

And they did just that - banning “Stand Up to Racism’s” counter-demonstration in Hyde Park just a day after their mobilisation was called. Stand Up To Racism surprisingly defied those conditions, historically being an organisation that works closely with the police. Calls had also been made by grassroots organisations ACAB, Young Struggle and Coalition for a Free Palestine. Despite the police restrictions in place, anti-fascists still went to their original meeting point to ensure the safety of those who had responded to their earlier calls. On the day, a counter-demonstration was held. 

The non-compliance of the police bans is in itself a show of strength and resistance. Every time we move our acts of protest due to order of the police, it gives them further authority to enlist such bans. In fact, most marches and protests organised by large unions or Stand Up To Racism seek pre-approval from the police. It is not logical for us to seek approval from the very powers that oppress us — the same powers we are demanding be dismantled. Collaboration with the police doesn’t just weaken the politics of a protest; it shapes its outcome. On the ground, these agreements narrow what is considered “acceptable” dissent, restrict the political range of a demonstration, and expose autonomous participants to surveillance, targeting, and arrest. The very fabric and power behind a protest are diluted and sanitised — its edges blunted to fit within the boundaries of state tolerance.

Community defence as power, not panic

What made Saturday significant wasn’t that the police stopped the fascists. It’s that the people did.

Whitechapel’s defence wasn’t organised from above — it came from below: from South Asian and Palestine solidarity networks, mosques, estates, football clubs, and through sharing with families and friends. The long-history of anti-fascism in East London was used to galvanise the community.

The people turned up in their masses. There were people of all ages and genders - local aunties, families, queer blocs, union blocs, Jewish blocs, migrants and working-class groups all marching together. It was a beautiful display of collective self-defence in practice. The local men - dressed in black bloc came in their hundreds and were clearly the largest bloc and the group that has been singled out by the far-right to further push their agendas afterwards. 

It showed what real safety looks like: not police vans on the corners, but communities in motion, ready to protect one another. That’s precisely what scares both the fascists and the state.

The community gathering in collective self-defense is a rejection of the white nationalist homogeneity fascists seek to violently impose. Policing, as a project of enforcement, and repression, relies on the idea that people need external saviors. By refusing to conform or submit and instead standing in solidarity, communities weaken fascists and deny the police any claim to defining what safety looks like.

Beyond reactivity: building what protects us

If we want to stop fascism at its roots, we need to stop waiting for bans, and start building infrastructure of our own. That means building before the fascists announce they are coming. Tower Hamlets was able to rely on existing networks and mobilise in our thousands. But the same could not be said when we were considering mobilising in West London. 

There are clear lessons to take from Tower Hamlets — and more work still to be done. The mobilisation showed the power of using the networks that already exist: faith communities, football clubs, youth groups, tenants’ unions, anti-racist collectives. These are the foundations of real community defence, not imported from outside but grown from the neighbourhoods themselves. The next step is to move beyond surface-level “protection” of our streets, and toward confronting fascism as a political ideology that embeds itself in everyday life. It’s not enough to repel fascists when they march; we have to challenge the narratives that let them organise in the first place — the racism in our media, the scapegoating of migrants, the myths of national decline and “lost Britain.” The lesson from Tower Hamlets is that self-defence works best when it’s linked to political education, solidarity, and a shared vision for liberation. Community defence isn’t just about keeping fascists out of our areas — it’s about transforming what those areas stand for.

There is work to be done to build the understanding that “anti-fascism” isn’t a niche scene or a subculture. It’s the collective work of communities defending themselves — Muslims, migrants, workers, queer people, unions — all standing together, not just in reaction to the far right, but in daily resistance to the systems that sustain them: capitalism, nationalism, the carceral state.