I always think it’s fucking hilarious when I go to one of these ‘protect are removedry’ protests and it’s the same bullshit. Leeds was no different on Saturday, 3 January, with a group of about sixty knuckle draggers waving their shit Temu flags outside the town hall.
Whilst hundreds of anti-racists gathered in the city to support the hunger strikers and oppose the ‘Yorkshire Patriots,’ the cops seemed way more interested in befriending far-right ‘auditors’. This state-sanctioned protection of agitators was so fucking evident, and it’s creating a dangerous permission for harassment.
‘Citizen journalists’ my arse – and Leeds was no different
Let me explain what an ‘auditor’ is in this context.
They’re usually a bunch of bald or balding white men, armed with an iPhone, who film in public spaces under the guise of being a ‘citizen journalist.’
They claim to ‘audit’ the state, testing legal rights at demos, but they’re nothing more than agitators who use their cameras to provoke, harass, and dox those with different political views. By pretending to be neutral observers, they gain access to police lines and avoid any accountability that applies to genuine members of the press.
And for some reason, we now have masses of these ‘citizen journalists’ cropping up all over protests, with this particular one in Leeds having around a dozen of them. Usually, they claim to be unbiased and politically open, but shock horror, they’re fucking not, and it was beyond evident on Saturday. One shitty YouTuber in attendance calls his channel Stop The Boats Media, and he claims on his bio:
Freelance journalist that isn’t afraid to break the narrative. Naturally right wing press but will give a balanced account from all sides of the political spectrum.
While police shouted at anti-racists for stepping onto the pavement, these far-right wankers crossed freely to surround us. Freely and openly intimidating activists, the police did literally fuck all but scoff as they watched and did nothing:
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Young Bob’s being groomed
One such ‘auditor’ who crops up constantly is Young Bob, AKA Thomas Moffit:
Police know this pushy kid who literally cannot even grow chin hair. He is known to be anything but impartial and he attended on Saturday, something which shocked me as they must have surgically detached him from UKIP leader Nick Tenconi, to get him there.
Young Bob is a staunch supporter of Tenconi, the little bald loser who loves to throw up the odd Nazi salute at rallies. Tenconi has spent the last year trying to morph UKIP into the political wing of the street-level far right movement.
And here we see a massive issue. You see, Moffit is only 17 years old, literally a child. He already has a history of disrupting antifascist meetings, and police kettled him for violence at a UKIP rally in Sheffield.
The far right effectively groomed this 17-year-old to carry out this disgusting and quite dangerous work. They are actively grooming kids towards violence and hatred.
Police effectively gave Moffit a ‘license to harass’ on Saturday. The kid spent the early afternoon crossing police lines to repeatedly shove his phone into the faces of counter-protesters. We watched the kid following members of the public through the streets long after the initial demo ended… and despite this weird, aggressive behaviour, West Yorkshire police did fuck all to stop him.
Someone, probably little Moffit, is going to get hurt at some point, and the far right and the police don’t give a shit:
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The danger of digital stalking
This isn’t journalism. This is a coordinated doxxing operation. Doxxing is the practice of pushing private information to invite harassment and it’s a primary tool for these ‘influencers.’
I don’t know if you remember the infamous website ‘RedWatch’ from years ago? I do, and it was wild. Basically, the far right would post antifascists’ details to the website, names, faces, familial ties, workplaces etc, using them to try to intimidate activists.
Not going to lie, we used to turn it into a game back in the day. We used to see who could compete for the top spot in the North East on their watchlists. It ruined lives, got people sacked, and broke up relationships and all the while dozens of bald men tried to intimidate me at the bar I worked in.
Luckily, RedWatch is long gone, but we’re seeing the revival of these tactics once more with these ‘auditors’. By filming the faces of activists people like Moffit and Andy Public UK create ‘target lists’ for their online followers. This creates a dangerous precedent where lifelong digital stalking greets the right to protest.
These ‘auditors’ do not just film the rally; they focus on intimidating and suppressing people.
Criminals can’t be fucking auditors
This label provides a shield for known criminals, as Saturday in Leeds once again proved.
There was a single arrest and it was of Ryan Ferguson, a well known football hooligan from Liverpool. In February 2024, a judge jailed Ferguson for nine months for racially abusing a Forest Green Rovers player. And back then it was his eighth breach of a football banning order.
In Leeds he was arrested again, but only after being permitted by West Yorkshire police to harass people. They fucking knew who he was, yet they stood there and did fuck all. They left activists to protect themselves. The police know who he is, and yet they stood there and laughed with a convicted racist. That shows a terrifying and deep institutional bias.
During the Palestine march on Saturday this was made even more apparent. The cops just let aggressive and antagonistic right wingers stalk and harass protesters the entire way.
Right at the end of the route, in Merrion Street Gardens, one of these wankers actually laid hands on a woman in a clear act of assault. And yet the police did fuck all, leaving activists to protect themselves once more. Even more worryingly, the police only guarded one entrance out of the four to the park, allowing so many fash to slip through before they could be arsed doing their job.
A betrayal of the community in Leeds and beyond
Despite seeing police openly laughing with the fash, the courage of the community shone through. Leeds had a clear message on Saturday:
We stand for Palestine, with the hunger strikers and we will not let fascism lie unopposed in Leeds, even when the police will.
The events of Saturday will not be forgotten. There must be a full investigation into the conduct of officers who prioritised laughing with known criminals, to protecting the public. So, we must push West Yorkshire police to provide answers to why they allow violent agitators to intimidate on will.
The ‘unbiased’ myth of the auditor is dead and buried.
However, the community will continue to stand together and we will do so in the face of both fascism and institutional complicity.
Leeds will not be intimidated.
Featured image and additional images via the Canary
By Antifabot
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