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No Retreat: The Secret War Between Britain's Anti-Fascists and the Far Right
History of the unapologetically militant fight against modern day fascism in the UK.
283 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 7, 2020
These guys are the real deal.
January 8, 2015
Pretty decent account of the actions of 'Anti-Fascist Action' in the North-West of England in the 1980's and 90's.
The authors describe their entry into the world of direct action against fascists and accounts of their physical opposition to fascists on the streets.
On one level the book does read like a 'hooly-book' as numerous street battles are recounted. There is limited political analysis but at the same time I think this book is targeted at people who may not consider themselves dedicated anti-fascists. The key issues are presented but this book is more about 'what happened on the streets' rather than an in depth investigation into fascism.
The book is pretty inspirational as it recounts many key battles that helped keep the far right off the street. What this book proves is that people can stand up to fascism and actually physically opposing them works, particularly as far right groups gain from their aura of invincibility and power on the streets. Sadly, it also shows that the effective dismantling of AFA and it's change in direction was a mistake as the recent history of EDL etc. shows. EDL wasn't beaten or even bothered by UAF waving lollipops at them. Fortunately the Far Right are as splintered, deluded and fractious as ever which covers the militant left but in no way counts as a 'victory'. (Indeed one could argue that UKIP stealing all of the far rights policies and imagery and appealing to the working class with a pint rather than a boot has been a more effective strategy for the right.
It's not a book for those who abhor violence but it's a decent read. However for a more in depth history of AFA (at least from one perspective)I recommend Sean Birchall's 'Beating The Fascists'.
It's important to note that the authors have been discredited by some elements within militant anti-fascism. Tilzey has been alleged to be a Searchlight asset whilst Hann had been accused of an anti-social crime. Sadly, Hann is deceased and is not in a position to answer his critics. One may infer a 'political' motivation behind the release of the book and whether this is true or not seems irrelevant a decade or so later. I do believe that the authors were dedicated to the fight against fascism even if their are concerns over some of their conduct.
It's interesting that all the negative reviews on amazon and the one here (originally written by Peter Rushton from the fascist group Heritage and Destiny) rate the book as 'one star'. Of course they would. The Master Race doesn't want to read about having it's head kicked in. There are accusations that only one 'side' is presented and that AFA are virtually always victorious. I fully accept that the authors would want to present the fight as favourable to anti-fascist resistance and the occasional defeats are not mentioned. I don't think the book is an 'objective' account and it isn't presented as such. It is however an inspiring account of Manchester AFA's successes. It is important to note that much of the mystique of the Far Right is their fear and intimidation on the streets - anything that quells their white supremacy image is of course going to be dismissed.
The review from a fascist publication on here states that elements of Red Action had links to Irish Republicanism and terrorism. There are documented allegations of people linked to Red Action being linked to the IRA. That said, mud slinging about individuals is disingenuous - yes people within anti-fascism may be sympathetic to Irish Republicanism but by naming names the reviewer suggests AFA was littered with IRA terrorists and not a broad base of ordinary people opposed to fascism. Yes, AFA came out of the SWP and Red Action but to a large extent AFA was always more relevant due to the sum of it's parts rather than the groups and individuals involved.
Likewise, the naming of criminal elements within AFA is another smokescreen. I don't agree with the idea of associating with gangsters against a common enemy. However, let's make no mistake - the Far Right in Britain have long established links to organised crime, gun running, drug dealing, racist attacks and the odd nail bomb. It's also noted that the Far Right is not just a 'bunch of thugs' - that's the danger of a book like this. Physical opposition is important but the politics and organisation of the Far Right must be opposed ideologically as well as physically.
It's a good book and should be read with a critical eye but I did enjoy a slice of recent anti-fascist history.
The authors describe their entry into the world of direct action against fascists and accounts of their physical opposition to fascists on the streets.
On one level the book does read like a 'hooly-book' as numerous street battles are recounted. There is limited political analysis but at the same time I think this book is targeted at people who may not consider themselves dedicated anti-fascists. The key issues are presented but this book is more about 'what happened on the streets' rather than an in depth investigation into fascism.
The book is pretty inspirational as it recounts many key battles that helped keep the far right off the street. What this book proves is that people can stand up to fascism and actually physically opposing them works, particularly as far right groups gain from their aura of invincibility and power on the streets. Sadly, it also shows that the effective dismantling of AFA and it's change in direction was a mistake as the recent history of EDL etc. shows. EDL wasn't beaten or even bothered by UAF waving lollipops at them. Fortunately the Far Right are as splintered, deluded and fractious as ever which covers the militant left but in no way counts as a 'victory'. (Indeed one could argue that UKIP stealing all of the far rights policies and imagery and appealing to the working class with a pint rather than a boot has been a more effective strategy for the right.
It's not a book for those who abhor violence but it's a decent read. However for a more in depth history of AFA (at least from one perspective)I recommend Sean Birchall's 'Beating The Fascists'.
It's important to note that the authors have been discredited by some elements within militant anti-fascism. Tilzey has been alleged to be a Searchlight asset whilst Hann had been accused of an anti-social crime. Sadly, Hann is deceased and is not in a position to answer his critics. One may infer a 'political' motivation behind the release of the book and whether this is true or not seems irrelevant a decade or so later. I do believe that the authors were dedicated to the fight against fascism even if their are concerns over some of their conduct.
It's interesting that all the negative reviews on amazon and the one here (originally written by Peter Rushton from the fascist group Heritage and Destiny) rate the book as 'one star'. Of course they would. The Master Race doesn't want to read about having it's head kicked in. There are accusations that only one 'side' is presented and that AFA are virtually always victorious. I fully accept that the authors would want to present the fight as favourable to anti-fascist resistance and the occasional defeats are not mentioned. I don't think the book is an 'objective' account and it isn't presented as such. It is however an inspiring account of Manchester AFA's successes. It is important to note that much of the mystique of the Far Right is their fear and intimidation on the streets - anything that quells their white supremacy image is of course going to be dismissed.
The review from a fascist publication on here states that elements of Red Action had links to Irish Republicanism and terrorism. There are documented allegations of people linked to Red Action being linked to the IRA. That said, mud slinging about individuals is disingenuous - yes people within anti-fascism may be sympathetic to Irish Republicanism but by naming names the reviewer suggests AFA was littered with IRA terrorists and not a broad base of ordinary people opposed to fascism. Yes, AFA came out of the SWP and Red Action but to a large extent AFA was always more relevant due to the sum of it's parts rather than the groups and individuals involved.
Likewise, the naming of criminal elements within AFA is another smokescreen. I don't agree with the idea of associating with gangsters against a common enemy. However, let's make no mistake - the Far Right in Britain have long established links to organised crime, gun running, drug dealing, racist attacks and the odd nail bomb. It's also noted that the Far Right is not just a 'bunch of thugs' - that's the danger of a book like this. Physical opposition is important but the politics and organisation of the Far Right must be opposed ideologically as well as physically.
It's a good book and should be read with a critical eye but I did enjoy a slice of recent anti-fascist history.
March 8, 2009
Not exactly a manual or how-to, but thorough and candid enough to give a person a pretty good idea of tactics and techniques that have worked, and might again work, for battling neo-naziism in our every day lives. Granted, not everyone lives with neo-naziism intersecting their everyday lives—and maybe you can thank Messers Hann and Tilzey, and their fellows, for that—but it's far more alive than many would like to admit.
This is a violent, unsettling story. If you are interested in the topics and have no illusions, such as "We can love the Nazis until they pick a flower and join us," then you might well enjoy this book. If you don't understand how cracking someone's skull open and running them out of town might save lives and strengthen your community, then this might not be the book for you. Or perhaps the contrary is true.
Mad props and great respect to these chaps and everyone like them. Ya Basta!
This is a violent, unsettling story. If you are interested in the topics and have no illusions, such as "We can love the Nazis until they pick a flower and join us," then you might well enjoy this book. If you don't understand how cracking someone's skull open and running them out of town might save lives and strengthen your community, then this might not be the book for you. Or perhaps the contrary is true.
Mad props and great respect to these chaps and everyone like them. Ya Basta!
November 28, 2018
I personally really enjoyed this book. I know for some the violence might be
A) too much
B) too repetitive
C) too repetitive
But like it or not that is what things were like for a long period at gigs & in the streets.
Respect to Steve & all Antifa then & now
A) too much
B) too repetitive
C) too repetitive
But like it or not that is what things were like for a long period at gigs & in the streets.
Respect to Steve & all Antifa then & now
November 29, 2013
"The most usual criticism of the racial nationalist movement in Britain is that we are a gang of violent morons devoted to racial attacks and mindless vandalism. One national newspaper columnist recently described us as "racist thugs whose whole politics are based on violence and hate."
Our anti-fascist opponents have enjoyed a more benign public image. Their researches and exposés, endorsed by mainstream print and television journalists but usually originating from the magazine and intelligence network Searchlight, have been trumpeted widely by media magnates such as Robert Maxwell and Richard Desmond. Bishops, actors and pop stars have lined up for the cameras alongside Auschwitz survivors to denounce the politics of hate.
Yet there has always been another face of anti-fascism. For more than forty years Sir Oswald Mosley's political organisations faced well-financed and extremely violent efforts to drive them off the streets and wreck their meetings. The National Front, British National Party and others later became the main targets for this mostly Jewish and/or communist opposition, which was augmented from the early 1970s by new generations of anarchists and Trotskyists, and by the Irish republican movement which now saw itself as part of a worldwide anti-imperialist coalition (except when soliciting funds from Irish-Americans).
The new book No Retreat by two prominent anti-fascists from Manchester openly admits this aspect of their struggle. Steve Tilzey and Dave Hann were active in 'The Squad', a violent faction of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party which was expelled from the SWP and later became a tiny pro-IRA group called Red Action allied to other groupuscles in an umbrella alliance called Anti-Fascist Action.
The authors positively revel in their violent exploits, which mostly took place between 1977 and 1994 in South-East Lancashire and especially Manchester – then as now the capital of militant anti-fascism.
Here, for example, is Tilzey's account of an attack on NF paper sellers in Manchester city centre in 1978:
I was right at the front of our lot as we steamed in, hitting anyone who got in my way with a lead-filled chair leg. The element of surprise was on our side, and the Fronters were caught cold and flat-footed as we tore into them. Five or six of them were battered into the ground and stayed there. They were hit with all kinds of weapons, and a couple of them were begging for mercy as they attempted to shield themselves from the blows raining down on their heads. Not one of them fought back, or rather they were not given the chance to.
And here is Hann's description of an attack on BNP members at the Brunswick pub in Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1992:
I was about the fifth or sixth in the pub and the scene was already one of complete carnage. Bottles, pint pots, barstools and pool balls filled the air as the whole place erupted into complete mayhem. I saw Gerry battering some bonehead over the head with a bottle as he tried to make good his escape out the back door, and everywhere you looked anti-fascists were brawling with fascists... To add to the general confusion someone threw a big glass chandelier into the bar from the room upstairs, which exploded on the floor sending shards of glass flying everywhere.
Superficially then No Retreat seems more honest about the true nature of anti-fascism than almost all previous accounts. Yet on closer examination this book is revealed as yet another self-serving concoction of lies, evasions and distortions.
One of the most infamous incidents in Steve Tilzey's career was his imprisonment for kidnapping a young skinhead. Chapter 3 of No Retreat gives a partial account of this case, omitting several key facts. Tilzey does not tell us that the main purpose of the kidnapping was to threaten his victim and discover the address of the Barker family, well known NF activists who then lived in the Lancashire town of Littleborough.
He plays down the violence involved in the case – in fact the judge passing sentence said "the weapons you took with you are quite dreadful, capable of inflicting the most serious injuries and of killing in many cases."
And he attempts to disguise the identities of his accomplices in this and other acts of violence. One of the main characters in Tilzey's early chapters is identified only as JP. This is John Penny, SWP branch organiser and founder of the Squad, then a sociology lecturer at Mid-Cheshire College of Further Education, now 51 years old and living in Scotland.
Tilzey names "the Squad armourer" as Coops – this is Stephen Cooper, then unemployed, from the Wythenshawe district of Manchester. Mick B, named in the book as "a Squad member from Day One", is actually Michael Butroyd who then lived in Stockport. Other communist thugs referred to by Tilzey but not properly identified in the book include Mark Kent, Brian Broadley, Paul Hallatt, Robert Piatt and David Smith.
The subject on which No Retreat's authors are least candid is their relationship with Searchlight. Since Tilzey was Searchlight's main northern operative for many years, they can hardly deny any knowledge of each other, but Tilzey manages only a coy reference to Searchlight "passing information on to groups and individuals best placed to use it."
The Searchlight gang's intimate connections with the Jewish establishment and with British police, security and intelligence agencies make them embarrassing allies for hardcore leftists such as Tilzey and Hann. One imagines the embarrassment is mutual, especially after several incidents in 1992 and 1993, which forced [Page 16] at least a cosmetic split between Searchlight and AFA/Red Action.
In January 1993 a package containing 1lb of Semtex plastic explosive ripped the front off the world famous Harrods store in London. Well placed video surveillance cameras helped the police track down the two IRA bombers responsible, Jan Taylor and Patrick Hayes, who received thirty year prison sentences. There were red faces on the British left when it transpired that Hayes was one of the leaders of Red Action – less than two years earlier he had liaised with police as chief steward for an AFA march through East London protesting against John Tyndall's BNP.
A few weeks after the Harrods bombing Manchester-born Red Action member Liam Heffernan was arrested while trying to steal explosives from a quarry in Somerset. Heffernan was a prominent anti-fascist, but also an active terrorist for the INLA, an ultra-militant splinter from the IRA. He was sentenced to twenty three years in prison for his INLA activities.
The list of AFA contact addresses swiftly disappeared from issues of Searchlight after the Hayes and Heffernan arrests!
Tilzey and Hann choose to ignore the republican terrorist activities of two of their colleagues, but they hint very briefly at the even more sinister criminality closer to home in Manchester.
Hann gives a partly accurate account of the collapse of South Manchester BNP in 1993 after the branch organiser was singled out for intimidation by an anti-fascist gang. One member of this gang is identified in the book only as "Dessie, an anti-fascist from the Eighties who was by now a well-known local 'face' about town." Hann gleefully tells the tale of how Dessie personally threatened the BNP organiser, ordering him to tell AFA everything he knew about the party in the region.
This gentleman's full name is Dessie Noonan, recently described by a Manchester journalist as "the underworld equivalent of Robocop." He was head doorman at the notorious Konspiracy Club in Fennel Street, Manchester, from November 1989 until police closed it in December 1990. This was the era of 'Madchester', when Salford's white gangs controlled the booming ecstasy and amphetamine trade, while the black gangs of Moss Side and Cheetham Hill dominated the heroin business.
Noonan has several brothers whose names all begin with the letter D – their father's tribute to Dublin, the city of his birth. Dominic Noonan is a convicted armed robber; Damian became head doorman at the Hacienda, the most famous club in Europe and centre of the dance music craze until rampant drug dealing forced its closure in 1991; Derek was a partner in the Penny Black pub in Cheetham Hill, headquarters of Manchester's leading criminal gang.
Dessie himself, in the words of Manchester Evening News journalist Peter Walsh, "was a notorious enforcer who had emerged from a jail term for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by threatening to kill witnesses in a robbery trial – the witnesses were police officers."
In 1989 Dessie had joined members of the Manchester anti-fascist Squad in a brutal attack on a group of Ulster Loyalists in the Rusholme district. One of his cronies, Paddy Logan, infamously bit the earlobe off one of the Loyalists. Many years later in July 1999 Logan was shot dead by a hooded assassin at his home in the Withington area of Manchester, sparking off a bloody gangland feud. Dessie Noonan preferred life at the safer end of a gun.
At a New Year party in 1991 some of Damian Noonan's successors on the door at the Hacienda were threatened by a gun-toting 22-year-old named Tony Johnson. Known as 'White Tony' because he was the white co-leader of a predominantly black gang of drug dealers, Johnson was already in trouble with members of the Noonan family because of a dispute over the division of the spoils from a £362,000 security van robbery at Mumps Bridge, Oldham, in November 1990.
White Tony was pushing his luck. On February 22nd he was driving with a friend past Derek Noonan's Penny Black pub when his car was flagged down. Johnson was shot several times, and then finished off at point blank range while lying on the ground in the pub car park. Manchester police were instantly aware that this was one of Manchester's most important gangland murders. They arrested Dessie and Derek Noonan, together with two of their known criminal associates.
The Noonan gang were tried twice for Tony Johnson's murder. The first trial in 1992 collapsed, the second in 1993 ended in acquittals. Greater Manchester Police are not looking for any alternative suspects. In 1999 Damian Noonan was shot while on the door at the Phoenix Club in the city. He refused to cooperate with police inquiries.
It's no surprise that the authors of No Retreat are economical with the truth about their good friend Dessie, but what angers me far more are the devious attempts to advance Searchlight's disinformation agenda. Even while the authors (especially Hann) try to distance themselves from Searchlight the continuing connection is obvious. The book's first photo is of early Squad hero Graeme Atkinson – but readers are not told that Atkinson is the current European editor of Searchlight.
Someone called Mike L is given several favourable mentions. This is Mike Luft, the organiser of Searchlight's campaign against the BNP in Oldham.
Either directly or indirectly the book tries to promote Searchlight-inspired smears against several active nationalists, sometimes without giving their names but phrasing things so that any BNP or NF veteran would know who's who.
Most tiresome are the frequent exaggerations employed to make the Squad members sound more heroic and influential. A lengthy account of AFA's attack on Rochdale BNP at the Lord Nelson pub in 1992 omits to mention that the pub landlady praised the BNP on local radio that evening, saying that her premises would have been wrecked by the left-wing mob if the nationalists had not put up such able resistance! Moreover, no mention is made of the infamous Searchlight spy Tim Hepple, who provided most of the intelligence on which the later attacks chronicled in No Retreat were based.
Hann's story of AFA's attack on a BNP rally in Colne, Lancashire, in May 1993 suggests that the BNP members ran away from the fight "nearly fighting each other in their haste to get away." The truth was that (heavily outnumbered) the BNP took up position on [Page 17] a narrow bridge to even the odds, and AFA prudently decided to hold back. I know, because I was there!
The most ludicrous exaggeration involves AFA's trashing of the Hare and Hounds in Todmorden in June 1993. A photograph in the book shows BNP leader John Tyndall, regional organiser Ken Henderson and many other party activists outside the pub, with the caption "BNP supporters gather shortly before a violent visit by Anti-Fascist Action." The truth is that AFA deliberately attacked the pub before the main BNP force had arrived – only a handful of us were inside at the time to have our lunch spoiled and our beer spilled.
Hann's tale of the May 1994 local election in Rochdale is equally distorted. He brags that "the three BNP candidates and their agents had been smuggled into the town hall in the back of a police van" and that this must have been "pretty humiliating" for candidate Janet Appleyard, "who was also rumoured to be a member of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." Since I was Mrs Appleyard's agent at the count I can say that no such humiliation occurred. We entered the town hall on foot through the front door, and we left via the front door as well (dodging a hail of bricks and bottles). Some of Hann's stories of violence during the count are correct, though he fails to mention the disgraceful partiality of the police and courts, who punished nationalists severely for defending themselves against the red mob. One nationalist, Mark Priestley, was dealt with especially severely because he was already serving a bind over.
Completely absent from No Retreat's narrative are a series of attacks against prominent nationalists and other enemies of Searchlight in the mid-90s. Serious assaults took place at the homes of BNP press officer Mike Newland, West Midlands BNP organiser Keith Axon, author and researcher Alexander Baron, and Heritage and Destiny editor Mark Cotterill, as well as the terrorist bombing of the BNP bookshop in Welling, Kent, which injured shop manager Alf Waite. One can only guess the reason for omitting these significant events. Perhaps some nationalist conspiracy theorists were right at the time in guessing that some or all of these attacks were carried out by professional agents of the state rather than the usual anti-fascist rabble.
The most suspicious cases involved transatlantic cooperation between anti-fascist and "animal rights" terrorists. This came to light in the late 1990s during Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigations into a spate of letter bombings.
Pipe bombs and letters booby-trapped with razor blades were sent in 1995 and 1996 to several prominent racial nationalists including Ernst Zundel, Don Black and Ed Fields, as well as to targets involved in medical research and the fur industry. Surveillance of the principal suspects led to the discovery of student identity cards from British universities stored in deposit boxes alongside bomb materials.
Mysteriously the Canadian authorities delayed prosecution of the terrorists involved – Darren Thurston and David Barbarash – then dropped the charges to avoid exposing their undercover operations.
While Thurston and Barbarash were engaged jointly in anti-fascist and animal rights terrorism, a British animal rights extremist group known as the Justice Department issued threats to British nationalists and carried out a letter bombing at the BNP bookshop in Welling.
Once again there were suspicions that the secret state was somehow involved – especially when it was discovered that the man who bombed the BNP had earlier escaped from police custody in Manchester. Many leftists have pointed out that Searchlight spy Tim Hepple was also involved in animal rights extremism, which is perhaps another reason why Tilzey and Hann make no mention of Hepple – the most important anti-fascist undercover operative of recent years – in their book.
(Many readers will already know that Volkert van der Graaf, who murdered the Dutch nationalist leader Pim Fortuyn in 2002, was also a veteran animal rights terrorist.)
As with their treatment of other aspects of the long war against racial nationalism, the authors of No Retreat step back from telling the whole truth. Even their own former comrades in Red Action have turned against Tilzey and Hann since publication, issuing the following statement:
Due to the controversy surrounding the launch of a book called No Retreat by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey due out on November 1, which is presented by the authors as a true and honest account of their involvement in militant anti-fascism over two decades, we are now putting out this statement.
As preview copies of the book have not been made available we cannot comment with any authority on the contents.
Of the character of the authors we can say this. As a result of serious breaches of trust, Tilzey and Hann were either expelled or forced to resign from Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) and Red Action respectively.
Following the attempted theft of extremely important AFA intelligence data, Steve Tilzey was shown the door by AFA in 1993. Sometime in 1994 Dave Hann was arrested and charged in connection with a street robbery involving a gay man. It was many months before the national leaderships of RA or AFA were made aware of the charges. An immediate investigation revealed disturbing evidence of Dave Hann's involvement in similar anti-social activity. Shortly after his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where his co-defendant pleaded guilty, Dave Hann resigned from Red Action. On being confronted with the testimony of former associates, and in the presence of two officers representing national AFA, and a leading anti-fascist resident in the city, Hann confessed his guilt and offered his immediate resignation from AFA. He also surrendered his involvement in the football fanzine Red Attitude with which AFA was publicly associated. Not long afterwards he left Manchester.
Red Action are curiously more worried by Hann's alleged violence when the victims are homosexuals rather than elderly patriots. Typically the Searchlight gang are unworried by this side of their stooge's character!
In conclusion I must echo the American writer Dorothy Parker. This is not a book to be set aside lightly; it should be hurled, with great force."
Our anti-fascist opponents have enjoyed a more benign public image. Their researches and exposés, endorsed by mainstream print and television journalists but usually originating from the magazine and intelligence network Searchlight, have been trumpeted widely by media magnates such as Robert Maxwell and Richard Desmond. Bishops, actors and pop stars have lined up for the cameras alongside Auschwitz survivors to denounce the politics of hate.
Yet there has always been another face of anti-fascism. For more than forty years Sir Oswald Mosley's political organisations faced well-financed and extremely violent efforts to drive them off the streets and wreck their meetings. The National Front, British National Party and others later became the main targets for this mostly Jewish and/or communist opposition, which was augmented from the early 1970s by new generations of anarchists and Trotskyists, and by the Irish republican movement which now saw itself as part of a worldwide anti-imperialist coalition (except when soliciting funds from Irish-Americans).
The new book No Retreat by two prominent anti-fascists from Manchester openly admits this aspect of their struggle. Steve Tilzey and Dave Hann were active in 'The Squad', a violent faction of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party which was expelled from the SWP and later became a tiny pro-IRA group called Red Action allied to other groupuscles in an umbrella alliance called Anti-Fascist Action.
The authors positively revel in their violent exploits, which mostly took place between 1977 and 1994 in South-East Lancashire and especially Manchester – then as now the capital of militant anti-fascism.
Here, for example, is Tilzey's account of an attack on NF paper sellers in Manchester city centre in 1978:
I was right at the front of our lot as we steamed in, hitting anyone who got in my way with a lead-filled chair leg. The element of surprise was on our side, and the Fronters were caught cold and flat-footed as we tore into them. Five or six of them were battered into the ground and stayed there. They were hit with all kinds of weapons, and a couple of them were begging for mercy as they attempted to shield themselves from the blows raining down on their heads. Not one of them fought back, or rather they were not given the chance to.
And here is Hann's description of an attack on BNP members at the Brunswick pub in Rochdale, Lancashire, in 1992:
I was about the fifth or sixth in the pub and the scene was already one of complete carnage. Bottles, pint pots, barstools and pool balls filled the air as the whole place erupted into complete mayhem. I saw Gerry battering some bonehead over the head with a bottle as he tried to make good his escape out the back door, and everywhere you looked anti-fascists were brawling with fascists... To add to the general confusion someone threw a big glass chandelier into the bar from the room upstairs, which exploded on the floor sending shards of glass flying everywhere.
Superficially then No Retreat seems more honest about the true nature of anti-fascism than almost all previous accounts. Yet on closer examination this book is revealed as yet another self-serving concoction of lies, evasions and distortions.
One of the most infamous incidents in Steve Tilzey's career was his imprisonment for kidnapping a young skinhead. Chapter 3 of No Retreat gives a partial account of this case, omitting several key facts. Tilzey does not tell us that the main purpose of the kidnapping was to threaten his victim and discover the address of the Barker family, well known NF activists who then lived in the Lancashire town of Littleborough.
He plays down the violence involved in the case – in fact the judge passing sentence said "the weapons you took with you are quite dreadful, capable of inflicting the most serious injuries and of killing in many cases."
And he attempts to disguise the identities of his accomplices in this and other acts of violence. One of the main characters in Tilzey's early chapters is identified only as JP. This is John Penny, SWP branch organiser and founder of the Squad, then a sociology lecturer at Mid-Cheshire College of Further Education, now 51 years old and living in Scotland.
Tilzey names "the Squad armourer" as Coops – this is Stephen Cooper, then unemployed, from the Wythenshawe district of Manchester. Mick B, named in the book as "a Squad member from Day One", is actually Michael Butroyd who then lived in Stockport. Other communist thugs referred to by Tilzey but not properly identified in the book include Mark Kent, Brian Broadley, Paul Hallatt, Robert Piatt and David Smith.
The subject on which No Retreat's authors are least candid is their relationship with Searchlight. Since Tilzey was Searchlight's main northern operative for many years, they can hardly deny any knowledge of each other, but Tilzey manages only a coy reference to Searchlight "passing information on to groups and individuals best placed to use it."
The Searchlight gang's intimate connections with the Jewish establishment and with British police, security and intelligence agencies make them embarrassing allies for hardcore leftists such as Tilzey and Hann. One imagines the embarrassment is mutual, especially after several incidents in 1992 and 1993, which forced [Page 16] at least a cosmetic split between Searchlight and AFA/Red Action.
In January 1993 a package containing 1lb of Semtex plastic explosive ripped the front off the world famous Harrods store in London. Well placed video surveillance cameras helped the police track down the two IRA bombers responsible, Jan Taylor and Patrick Hayes, who received thirty year prison sentences. There were red faces on the British left when it transpired that Hayes was one of the leaders of Red Action – less than two years earlier he had liaised with police as chief steward for an AFA march through East London protesting against John Tyndall's BNP.
A few weeks after the Harrods bombing Manchester-born Red Action member Liam Heffernan was arrested while trying to steal explosives from a quarry in Somerset. Heffernan was a prominent anti-fascist, but also an active terrorist for the INLA, an ultra-militant splinter from the IRA. He was sentenced to twenty three years in prison for his INLA activities.
The list of AFA contact addresses swiftly disappeared from issues of Searchlight after the Hayes and Heffernan arrests!
Tilzey and Hann choose to ignore the republican terrorist activities of two of their colleagues, but they hint very briefly at the even more sinister criminality closer to home in Manchester.
Hann gives a partly accurate account of the collapse of South Manchester BNP in 1993 after the branch organiser was singled out for intimidation by an anti-fascist gang. One member of this gang is identified in the book only as "Dessie, an anti-fascist from the Eighties who was by now a well-known local 'face' about town." Hann gleefully tells the tale of how Dessie personally threatened the BNP organiser, ordering him to tell AFA everything he knew about the party in the region.
This gentleman's full name is Dessie Noonan, recently described by a Manchester journalist as "the underworld equivalent of Robocop." He was head doorman at the notorious Konspiracy Club in Fennel Street, Manchester, from November 1989 until police closed it in December 1990. This was the era of 'Madchester', when Salford's white gangs controlled the booming ecstasy and amphetamine trade, while the black gangs of Moss Side and Cheetham Hill dominated the heroin business.
Noonan has several brothers whose names all begin with the letter D – their father's tribute to Dublin, the city of his birth. Dominic Noonan is a convicted armed robber; Damian became head doorman at the Hacienda, the most famous club in Europe and centre of the dance music craze until rampant drug dealing forced its closure in 1991; Derek was a partner in the Penny Black pub in Cheetham Hill, headquarters of Manchester's leading criminal gang.
Dessie himself, in the words of Manchester Evening News journalist Peter Walsh, "was a notorious enforcer who had emerged from a jail term for conspiring to pervert the course of justice by threatening to kill witnesses in a robbery trial – the witnesses were police officers."
In 1989 Dessie had joined members of the Manchester anti-fascist Squad in a brutal attack on a group of Ulster Loyalists in the Rusholme district. One of his cronies, Paddy Logan, infamously bit the earlobe off one of the Loyalists. Many years later in July 1999 Logan was shot dead by a hooded assassin at his home in the Withington area of Manchester, sparking off a bloody gangland feud. Dessie Noonan preferred life at the safer end of a gun.
At a New Year party in 1991 some of Damian Noonan's successors on the door at the Hacienda were threatened by a gun-toting 22-year-old named Tony Johnson. Known as 'White Tony' because he was the white co-leader of a predominantly black gang of drug dealers, Johnson was already in trouble with members of the Noonan family because of a dispute over the division of the spoils from a £362,000 security van robbery at Mumps Bridge, Oldham, in November 1990.
White Tony was pushing his luck. On February 22nd he was driving with a friend past Derek Noonan's Penny Black pub when his car was flagged down. Johnson was shot several times, and then finished off at point blank range while lying on the ground in the pub car park. Manchester police were instantly aware that this was one of Manchester's most important gangland murders. They arrested Dessie and Derek Noonan, together with two of their known criminal associates.
The Noonan gang were tried twice for Tony Johnson's murder. The first trial in 1992 collapsed, the second in 1993 ended in acquittals. Greater Manchester Police are not looking for any alternative suspects. In 1999 Damian Noonan was shot while on the door at the Phoenix Club in the city. He refused to cooperate with police inquiries.
It's no surprise that the authors of No Retreat are economical with the truth about their good friend Dessie, but what angers me far more are the devious attempts to advance Searchlight's disinformation agenda. Even while the authors (especially Hann) try to distance themselves from Searchlight the continuing connection is obvious. The book's first photo is of early Squad hero Graeme Atkinson – but readers are not told that Atkinson is the current European editor of Searchlight.
Someone called Mike L is given several favourable mentions. This is Mike Luft, the organiser of Searchlight's campaign against the BNP in Oldham.
Either directly or indirectly the book tries to promote Searchlight-inspired smears against several active nationalists, sometimes without giving their names but phrasing things so that any BNP or NF veteran would know who's who.
Most tiresome are the frequent exaggerations employed to make the Squad members sound more heroic and influential. A lengthy account of AFA's attack on Rochdale BNP at the Lord Nelson pub in 1992 omits to mention that the pub landlady praised the BNP on local radio that evening, saying that her premises would have been wrecked by the left-wing mob if the nationalists had not put up such able resistance! Moreover, no mention is made of the infamous Searchlight spy Tim Hepple, who provided most of the intelligence on which the later attacks chronicled in No Retreat were based.
Hann's story of AFA's attack on a BNP rally in Colne, Lancashire, in May 1993 suggests that the BNP members ran away from the fight "nearly fighting each other in their haste to get away." The truth was that (heavily outnumbered) the BNP took up position on [Page 17] a narrow bridge to even the odds, and AFA prudently decided to hold back. I know, because I was there!
The most ludicrous exaggeration involves AFA's trashing of the Hare and Hounds in Todmorden in June 1993. A photograph in the book shows BNP leader John Tyndall, regional organiser Ken Henderson and many other party activists outside the pub, with the caption "BNP supporters gather shortly before a violent visit by Anti-Fascist Action." The truth is that AFA deliberately attacked the pub before the main BNP force had arrived – only a handful of us were inside at the time to have our lunch spoiled and our beer spilled.
Hann's tale of the May 1994 local election in Rochdale is equally distorted. He brags that "the three BNP candidates and their agents had been smuggled into the town hall in the back of a police van" and that this must have been "pretty humiliating" for candidate Janet Appleyard, "who was also rumoured to be a member of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan." Since I was Mrs Appleyard's agent at the count I can say that no such humiliation occurred. We entered the town hall on foot through the front door, and we left via the front door as well (dodging a hail of bricks and bottles). Some of Hann's stories of violence during the count are correct, though he fails to mention the disgraceful partiality of the police and courts, who punished nationalists severely for defending themselves against the red mob. One nationalist, Mark Priestley, was dealt with especially severely because he was already serving a bind over.
Completely absent from No Retreat's narrative are a series of attacks against prominent nationalists and other enemies of Searchlight in the mid-90s. Serious assaults took place at the homes of BNP press officer Mike Newland, West Midlands BNP organiser Keith Axon, author and researcher Alexander Baron, and Heritage and Destiny editor Mark Cotterill, as well as the terrorist bombing of the BNP bookshop in Welling, Kent, which injured shop manager Alf Waite. One can only guess the reason for omitting these significant events. Perhaps some nationalist conspiracy theorists were right at the time in guessing that some or all of these attacks were carried out by professional agents of the state rather than the usual anti-fascist rabble.
The most suspicious cases involved transatlantic cooperation between anti-fascist and "animal rights" terrorists. This came to light in the late 1990s during Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigations into a spate of letter bombings.
Pipe bombs and letters booby-trapped with razor blades were sent in 1995 and 1996 to several prominent racial nationalists including Ernst Zundel, Don Black and Ed Fields, as well as to targets involved in medical research and the fur industry. Surveillance of the principal suspects led to the discovery of student identity cards from British universities stored in deposit boxes alongside bomb materials.
Mysteriously the Canadian authorities delayed prosecution of the terrorists involved – Darren Thurston and David Barbarash – then dropped the charges to avoid exposing their undercover operations.
While Thurston and Barbarash were engaged jointly in anti-fascist and animal rights terrorism, a British animal rights extremist group known as the Justice Department issued threats to British nationalists and carried out a letter bombing at the BNP bookshop in Welling.
Once again there were suspicions that the secret state was somehow involved – especially when it was discovered that the man who bombed the BNP had earlier escaped from police custody in Manchester. Many leftists have pointed out that Searchlight spy Tim Hepple was also involved in animal rights extremism, which is perhaps another reason why Tilzey and Hann make no mention of Hepple – the most important anti-fascist undercover operative of recent years – in their book.
(Many readers will already know that Volkert van der Graaf, who murdered the Dutch nationalist leader Pim Fortuyn in 2002, was also a veteran animal rights terrorist.)
As with their treatment of other aspects of the long war against racial nationalism, the authors of No Retreat step back from telling the whole truth. Even their own former comrades in Red Action have turned against Tilzey and Hann since publication, issuing the following statement:
Due to the controversy surrounding the launch of a book called No Retreat by Dave Hann and Steve Tilzey due out on November 1, which is presented by the authors as a true and honest account of their involvement in militant anti-fascism over two decades, we are now putting out this statement.
As preview copies of the book have not been made available we cannot comment with any authority on the contents.
Of the character of the authors we can say this. As a result of serious breaches of trust, Tilzey and Hann were either expelled or forced to resign from Anti-Fascist Action (AFA) and Red Action respectively.
Following the attempted theft of extremely important AFA intelligence data, Steve Tilzey was shown the door by AFA in 1993. Sometime in 1994 Dave Hann was arrested and charged in connection with a street robbery involving a gay man. It was many months before the national leaderships of RA or AFA were made aware of the charges. An immediate investigation revealed disturbing evidence of Dave Hann's involvement in similar anti-social activity. Shortly after his trial at Liverpool Crown Court, where his co-defendant pleaded guilty, Dave Hann resigned from Red Action. On being confronted with the testimony of former associates, and in the presence of two officers representing national AFA, and a leading anti-fascist resident in the city, Hann confessed his guilt and offered his immediate resignation from AFA. He also surrendered his involvement in the football fanzine Red Attitude with which AFA was publicly associated. Not long afterwards he left Manchester.
Red Action are curiously more worried by Hann's alleged violence when the victims are homosexuals rather than elderly patriots. Typically the Searchlight gang are unworried by this side of their stooge's character!
In conclusion I must echo the American writer Dorothy Parker. This is not a book to be set aside lightly; it should be hurled, with great force."
August 13, 2025
I'd wanted to find and read this boon for ages. It was incredibly expensive on amazon, and now seems, unfortunately, to be out of print. Luckily I happened upon it at a related meeting at a library at an anarchist social centre. No Retreat details the “secret street war” between fascists and anti-fascists on Britain’s streets in the late 70s to the late 90s. It's mainly focused around Manchester and its satellite towns, with accounts of events in other northern towns and cities e.g. Leeds, some in the midlands, and the south (mainly London). It follows 2 organisations mainly and the period before their formation(s), Red Action, and a coalition it helped form, Anti Fascist Action.
Its authors Steve Tilzey and Dave Hann were active in overlapping but slightly different times. Their accounts of street violence against the National Front and then the British National Party are extremely readable and interesting. Tilzey was mainly active against the Front - indeed, he became active in anti-fascism at the Battle of Lewisham in 1977. He got on the NF coach, hoping for a lift down to London to watch Manchester United at Wembley for the FA Cup final. However, after leaving the coach to get some food, it was attacked by militant antifascists (precursors to the “squads” formed by the Socialist workers party (SWP) to protect against fascist attacks). After a conversation with the antifascists, he went to London with them and took part in the rout of the Front at Lewisham. Tilzey was part of the formation of the squads, and remained with them after their expulsion, for “squadism”, from the SWP, and was a member of Red Action, formed in 1982, which became an extremely influential, if not the preeminent, faction within Anti Fascist Action (AFA). Steve recounts various fights with the Front, mainly in and around Manchester. This includes the NF retreating from Manchester proper and attempting to organise in the satellite towns of Greater Manchester. Tilzey then began to work for searchlight, an antifascist research group very active in the 80s and 90s. Searchlight provided intelligence to AFA, but their willingness to work with the state and other issues eventually led to extreme friction between them and AFA.* Informal ties between Hann and Tilzey remained productive for the antifascist cause, however.
Hann's account is overlapping with Tilzey’s, but mostly occurs later - in that, Hann becoming a militant anti-fascism I.e. throwing bricks at and fist fighting fascists was during a later period. His period of the story outlines the opposition to the BNP mainly, although groups like Combat 18 make an appearance, as doss Blood and Honour. It even includes a bizarre street battle between the “suicide squad”, the Burnley football hooligan firm, and AFA. Luckily, the suicide squad seemed to hate the BNP just as much as the antifacists and beat the fash up**.
The Battle of Waterloo section is particularly good and entertaining, and some of the stories about the ambushes and humiliations of the BNP and NF are extremely entertaining to read. I think they also hold lessons for today's militant antifascists - the incentive and dedicated activity of AFA caused the fascist street presence to falter and them totally fail, causing them, unfortunately successfully, to focus on elections instead. This book is a must read for those concerned with antifascism in the UK.
Now, a word on the politics:
Red Action was formed after the expulsion of the “squads” from the SWP for…”squadism”.
The SWP, and the left more broadly, came under siege from the Front and its allies, like the British Movement in the mid to late 70s. The squads were formed of more blue collar workers who'd been attracted to the SWP through its campaigning in factories.
Once the Front had been seen off on the streets after its disastrous performance in the 1979 election (due to Thatcher's lurch to the right on immigration but also due to the street level campaigning by the squads themselves, the ANL more widely, rock against racism and communities of colour in targeted areas e.g. Lewisham) the squads were seen as superfluous and unnecessary. The SWP's focus was now on the Tories and the squads were seen as an embarrassment. Tilzey, imprisoned at the time, and others who went on to form Red Action argue it was their working class background that was part of their being removed, this may be true, and for sure the SWP treated the squads appallingly, neglecting those who had been imprisoned for antifascist activity, and decrying the actions that had deterred the Front from “taking liberties” against the left, the SWP being a favourite target.
Red Action's politics at first were, as the authors indicate, not different from the SWP’s. The only difference seems to have been the focus on direct, physical confrontation with fascists. Now, to mention, I think we can take a lot from Red Action and AFA. The problem I have with them is their reactionary positions on some things.
Firstly, Red Action went on and on about the “white working class”. Predictably, this led at some points to talking about migration, with Hann talking negatively about the impact immigration can have on “white working class estates”. This is somewhat confusing, as after the split from the SWP, other Red Action associated texts, like Beating the Fascists, defended their continued focus on fighting fascism in the streets because immigrants would be targeted by the Front or BM. More confusing is that one of their cultural projects, a well timed intervention into 90s dance culture, was called Freedom of Movement.
I suppose it is possible to be abhorred by racist violence on people already here and want to limit immigration, and perhaps the name Freedom of Movement was started by elements in AFA in Manchester more amenable to immigration. I'm not sure - however, there is more.
Hann talks about how his opinions on Irish Republicanism changed after being part of Red Action. Although he does not say much more. Red Action had a difficult relationship with the “troops out Movement” a group that campaigned for British troops to withdraw from Northern Ireland. This disagreement seems to have originated in London but also seems not to have been based on differences in political outlook, rather a difference in how seriously each party took the fascist threat (troops out suffering on one occasion for not taking it seriously enough).
Why I mention this, if you'll bear with my digressions, is the Warrington bombing of 1993.
Red Action seem to have been a bit too fond of the Provisional IRA for my tastes, shall we say. The Provos to me, were a reactionary Catholic group that disappeared people for unfair reasons, and refused to tell their families.
It's very, very strange to me the way Red Action was so taken with them, but more on that elsewhere perhaps.
This links to the Independent Working Class Association’s (IWCA) anti drug dealing actions in estates like Blackbird Leys in Oxford. The IWCA was set up by mainly southern based members of Red Action after the BNP’s electoral turn in the 90s (“no more marches, meetings, punch ups” as the BNP themselves put it). This strategy was set out in the document, published by AFA, “filling the vacuum” in 1995. These are (not so eerily) similar to groups like Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD), although the IWCA didn't kneecap any heroin dealers as far as I'm aware.
They did seem to take pointers and influence from their Republican friends in this, however.
Another thing that is worth mentioning is the degeneration of relations between the “northern network” (what Hann and Tizley were part of in Manchester) and London Red Action/AFA. This got nasty, and though it stemmed from perennial problems in antifascism to some extent, e.g. resentments at Manchester traveling down to London more than was reciprocated, it grew beyond this.
Hann eventually gave up the ghost and moved away from militant antifascism, taking no part in the IWCA. He went on to write this book, and Physical Resistance, a book that is easier to source than No Retreat by a serious margin. It is also totally necessary reading for all antifascists.
Its authors Steve Tilzey and Dave Hann were active in overlapping but slightly different times. Their accounts of street violence against the National Front and then the British National Party are extremely readable and interesting. Tilzey was mainly active against the Front - indeed, he became active in anti-fascism at the Battle of Lewisham in 1977. He got on the NF coach, hoping for a lift down to London to watch Manchester United at Wembley for the FA Cup final. However, after leaving the coach to get some food, it was attacked by militant antifascists (precursors to the “squads” formed by the Socialist workers party (SWP) to protect against fascist attacks). After a conversation with the antifascists, he went to London with them and took part in the rout of the Front at Lewisham. Tilzey was part of the formation of the squads, and remained with them after their expulsion, for “squadism”, from the SWP, and was a member of Red Action, formed in 1982, which became an extremely influential, if not the preeminent, faction within Anti Fascist Action (AFA). Steve recounts various fights with the Front, mainly in and around Manchester. This includes the NF retreating from Manchester proper and attempting to organise in the satellite towns of Greater Manchester. Tilzey then began to work for searchlight, an antifascist research group very active in the 80s and 90s. Searchlight provided intelligence to AFA, but their willingness to work with the state and other issues eventually led to extreme friction between them and AFA.* Informal ties between Hann and Tilzey remained productive for the antifascist cause, however.
Hann's account is overlapping with Tilzey’s, but mostly occurs later - in that, Hann becoming a militant anti-fascism I.e. throwing bricks at and fist fighting fascists was during a later period. His period of the story outlines the opposition to the BNP mainly, although groups like Combat 18 make an appearance, as doss Blood and Honour. It even includes a bizarre street battle between the “suicide squad”, the Burnley football hooligan firm, and AFA. Luckily, the suicide squad seemed to hate the BNP just as much as the antifacists and beat the fash up**.
The Battle of Waterloo section is particularly good and entertaining, and some of the stories about the ambushes and humiliations of the BNP and NF are extremely entertaining to read. I think they also hold lessons for today's militant antifascists - the incentive and dedicated activity of AFA caused the fascist street presence to falter and them totally fail, causing them, unfortunately successfully, to focus on elections instead. This book is a must read for those concerned with antifascism in the UK.
Now, a word on the politics:
Red Action was formed after the expulsion of the “squads” from the SWP for…”squadism”.
The SWP, and the left more broadly, came under siege from the Front and its allies, like the British Movement in the mid to late 70s. The squads were formed of more blue collar workers who'd been attracted to the SWP through its campaigning in factories.
Once the Front had been seen off on the streets after its disastrous performance in the 1979 election (due to Thatcher's lurch to the right on immigration but also due to the street level campaigning by the squads themselves, the ANL more widely, rock against racism and communities of colour in targeted areas e.g. Lewisham) the squads were seen as superfluous and unnecessary. The SWP's focus was now on the Tories and the squads were seen as an embarrassment. Tilzey, imprisoned at the time, and others who went on to form Red Action argue it was their working class background that was part of their being removed, this may be true, and for sure the SWP treated the squads appallingly, neglecting those who had been imprisoned for antifascist activity, and decrying the actions that had deterred the Front from “taking liberties” against the left, the SWP being a favourite target.
Red Action's politics at first were, as the authors indicate, not different from the SWP’s. The only difference seems to have been the focus on direct, physical confrontation with fascists. Now, to mention, I think we can take a lot from Red Action and AFA. The problem I have with them is their reactionary positions on some things.
Firstly, Red Action went on and on about the “white working class”. Predictably, this led at some points to talking about migration, with Hann talking negatively about the impact immigration can have on “white working class estates”. This is somewhat confusing, as after the split from the SWP, other Red Action associated texts, like Beating the Fascists, defended their continued focus on fighting fascism in the streets because immigrants would be targeted by the Front or BM. More confusing is that one of their cultural projects, a well timed intervention into 90s dance culture, was called Freedom of Movement.
I suppose it is possible to be abhorred by racist violence on people already here and want to limit immigration, and perhaps the name Freedom of Movement was started by elements in AFA in Manchester more amenable to immigration. I'm not sure - however, there is more.
Hann talks about how his opinions on Irish Republicanism changed after being part of Red Action. Although he does not say much more. Red Action had a difficult relationship with the “troops out Movement” a group that campaigned for British troops to withdraw from Northern Ireland. This disagreement seems to have originated in London but also seems not to have been based on differences in political outlook, rather a difference in how seriously each party took the fascist threat (troops out suffering on one occasion for not taking it seriously enough).
Why I mention this, if you'll bear with my digressions, is the Warrington bombing of 1993.
Red Action seem to have been a bit too fond of the Provisional IRA for my tastes, shall we say. The Provos to me, were a reactionary Catholic group that disappeared people for unfair reasons, and refused to tell their families.
It's very, very strange to me the way Red Action was so taken with them, but more on that elsewhere perhaps.
This links to the Independent Working Class Association’s (IWCA) anti drug dealing actions in estates like Blackbird Leys in Oxford. The IWCA was set up by mainly southern based members of Red Action after the BNP’s electoral turn in the 90s (“no more marches, meetings, punch ups” as the BNP themselves put it). This strategy was set out in the document, published by AFA, “filling the vacuum” in 1995. These are (not so eerily) similar to groups like Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD), although the IWCA didn't kneecap any heroin dealers as far as I'm aware.
They did seem to take pointers and influence from their Republican friends in this, however.
Another thing that is worth mentioning is the degeneration of relations between the “northern network” (what Hann and Tizley were part of in Manchester) and London Red Action/AFA. This got nasty, and though it stemmed from perennial problems in antifascism to some extent, e.g. resentments at Manchester traveling down to London more than was reciprocated, it grew beyond this.
Hann eventually gave up the ghost and moved away from militant antifascism, taking no part in the IWCA. He went on to write this book, and Physical Resistance, a book that is easier to source than No Retreat by a serious margin. It is also totally necessary reading for all antifascists.
October 25, 2017
'No Retreat' is a riveting account of Hann and Tilzey's militant antifascist activity from the 1970s to 1990s. Tilzey joined what became known as 'the Squad' and Hann joins 'Stewards' group', respectfully. The introduction sets forth the framework to understand the necessity for militant, that is, street level confrontation:
"We believed that fascism is an ideology that thrives on inspiring fear in its opponents...If you inflict a humiliating defeat on a fascist organization in front of people they regard as their natural constituency then it not only demoralizes them, and cuts the ground from under their feet, but also offers encouragement to any potential opposition."(X)
Tilzey's incredible story begins with him trying to catch a cheap ride to a soccer match that leads to a chance encounter with the National Front and almost a beating at the hands of antifascists. Tilzey, a working class kid, is politicized by this event that sets him on a path to resisting fascist organizations in all sorts of ways including pretending to be a journalist that leads him into the devils den.
Hann tells several stories about utterly smashing the attempt by fascist bands to hold large music shows. Antifascist resistance was so strong that fascist bands couldn't even put on shows without utmost secrecy; antifascists would find out the location to get the venue to cancel and in the case of back up venues antifascists would be waiting for fash to show up.
Although these are personal accounts largely focusing on specific stories and campaigns, each person offers critical reflections on their own activities and some of the larger questions. On salient point in particular is that antifascist street confrontation is absolutely necessary ("If I die on a nazi street there'll be ten dead nazis at my feet"), but it is not enough-a positive vision must also be put forth and struggled forth.
"We believed that fascism is an ideology that thrives on inspiring fear in its opponents...If you inflict a humiliating defeat on a fascist organization in front of people they regard as their natural constituency then it not only demoralizes them, and cuts the ground from under their feet, but also offers encouragement to any potential opposition."(X)
Tilzey's incredible story begins with him trying to catch a cheap ride to a soccer match that leads to a chance encounter with the National Front and almost a beating at the hands of antifascists. Tilzey, a working class kid, is politicized by this event that sets him on a path to resisting fascist organizations in all sorts of ways including pretending to be a journalist that leads him into the devils den.
Hann tells several stories about utterly smashing the attempt by fascist bands to hold large music shows. Antifascist resistance was so strong that fascist bands couldn't even put on shows without utmost secrecy; antifascists would find out the location to get the venue to cancel and in the case of back up venues antifascists would be waiting for fash to show up.
Although these are personal accounts largely focusing on specific stories and campaigns, each person offers critical reflections on their own activities and some of the larger questions. On salient point in particular is that antifascist street confrontation is absolutely necessary ("If I die on a nazi street there'll be ten dead nazis at my feet"), but it is not enough-a positive vision must also be put forth and struggled forth.
December 4, 2024
A vivid history of actual antifascism, the sort that took on neo nazi skinheads and the organised extreme right of the 70s, 80s and 90s physically and won. Not the joke that has become of so called antifascism today - who instead of attacking nazi boneheads attack women and girls, defends pedophiles and reeks of antisemitism. Today's antifa should hang their heads in shame and read this book instead of taking children to drag shows and punching middle aged women.
August 28, 2020
Don't waste your time reading all the book
Boring one sided egotistical drivel it's pretty much same thing from start to finish don't pay to much for it
Boring one sided egotistical drivel it's pretty much same thing from start to finish don't pay to much for it
November 20, 2013
Interesting book about this particular period in England, although the fight reports became a bit samey after a while. Was a bit one sided. Don't like the far-right [or the far left for that matter], but know that they were more dangerous than what the authors of this book make out. Interesting read though.
October 9, 2015
An interesting enough read, but the authors consistently failed to give any political context. 'The left' seems to consist only of the SWP mothership that these militant anti-fascists split from. No mention of the, often effective, strategies often used by socialists in the UK state or the effective mass involvement of working class communities in the anti-poll tax struggle.
November 5, 2013
Well written book that didn't glamorise the violence they were involved in. Written with the understanding that your average punter doesn't understand the many far left groups that generally comprise the anti fascist organisations.
August 6, 2015
Emotionally raw tale of left-wing thuggery versus right-wing thuggery. There are strong counter-narratives out there from some of the participants mentioned in this book, but on its own this book has a strong sense of righteousness, humour and humanity.
November 10, 2009
Lots of cartoon anti-fascist violence.
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