Republican News · Thursday 10 October 2002

London loyalist 'day of action'

BY FERN LANE

Emerging from beneath a UFF banner and cheered on by members of Combat 18 and other British fascists - including Andrew Frain, member of the Chelsea Headhunters and serial thug, who together Jason Marriner was jailed in December 2000 for attacking members of the Bloody Sunday march in London - a group of east Belfast loyalists, claiming to be residents of Cluan Place, handed a letter of 'protest' into 10 Downing Street on Saturday afternoon last.

As they crossed the road and returned to their comrades, they took the opportunity to scream sectarian and other abuse at members of the Wolfe Tone Society and anti-fascist protestors who had mounted a counter-demonstration a few yards further down Whitehall. The WTS was also protesting against the police raid on Sinn Féin's Stormont offices on Friday.

The Cluan Place letter was part of the so-called loyalist 'day of action', organised by the England-based fascist group the British Ulster Alliance. They managed to muster around 100 neo-nazis, most dressed in wannabe loyalist paramilitary regalia and who, just as the incipient loyalist feud was cranking into action in Belfast with one fatal shooting and one serious injury, waved placards demanding that the British government 'Stop the genocide of British citizens'.

Although relatively few in number, the gathering necessitated a large police presence, partly because of the violence associated with Combat 18 but also because, as one police officer pointed out, most of its members had been drinking heavily before the protest began.