Indymedia York

Saturday's anti-fascist leafleting in Acomb saw 6 students from the University including leading member of the Islamic society and another 4 of us, so a good turn out. Public response was good.

The most notable event was that one Ian Dawson a BNP National Group Support Officer showed up towards the end and attempted to take photos of us (I recognised him from a photo, plus he eventually came clean when I confronted him for the second time.) He also gave out a few leaflets before disappearing. Another person later told me that he had overhead someone phoning Dawson up on his mobile telling Dawson that he had better come down. The Islamic soc guy told me that Dawson told him to "get out of his country".

Afterwards we discussed what to do. I thought that due to Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) on 27 Jan, we should skip a week. The plan was for someone to go to Acomb and fetch people down only if the BNP were there. By the way, the main York HMD event is a vigil at Cliffords Tower from 6pm.

Afterwards someone persuaded me on the phone that this was a mistake, since the BNP might think that they had scared us off. (Oddly, I found the whole affair surprisingly unintimidating - what with 10 of us and 1 obviously nervous BNP organiser.)

This does show that the BNP are a threat in York, especially if they have an organiser on call (he can't live far away). York Unite Against Fascism will be holding their AGM on February 8th and this will be a key chance to plan ways to stamp them out during the May local elections.