Do We Need Defending?: The History, Tactics and Modern Relevance of Antifascist, Antiracist and Antisectarian Resistance in the United Kingdom

‘This panel will seek to investigate the rationales that have led many groups, throughout the four nations of the UK, to forcefully counter invasive mobilisations and discriminatory violence, from far right political groups, fellow civilians and often, state forces. By comparing different mobilisations across time and space, this panel will seek to address three pressing questions:

1) Why have people, across multiple times and contexts, deemed it necessary to enact their own resistance, rather than rely on the British state for their protection?

2) What methods do people use to resist, why did they choose them, and did they have the desired effect?

3) In the context of the modern UK, a context that includes an emboldened far right, increased racist violence, and the re-emergence of the Irish Question, is renewed resistance necessary, and if so, what form should it take?’