Fascist assault on UK union leader Steve Hedley
By
Julie Hyland
19 July 2018
The brutal assault on Steve Hedley, Assistant General Secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, by fascist thugs Saturday is an outrage.
Hedley and his partner, Bridget, were among several people ambushed by supporters of jailed far-right leader Tommy Robinson (AKA Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon) and US President Donald Trump.
The RMT leader was a key speaker at a Socialist Workers Party-led Stand Up To Racism (SUTR) event Saturday, organised as a counter-protest to a far-right demonstration by Robinson’s supporters in central London. Witnesses say Hedley and others from his union were targeted after the rally by a mob while they were drinking in the Westminster Arms pub.
Pictures and video show Hedley bleeding heavily from a bandaged head wound. His Facebook account reports that Bridget was hit with a chair by one of the assailants and had to be admitted to hospital with problems breathing. At least one other person was cut on the head by a broken bottle.
Reports are thin, but it appears their assailants have still not been apprehended. The RMT leader and his partner, however, were amongst 12 people arrested and held for several hours by police.
The right-wing mob was apparently able to vanish into thin air despite a massive police presence on the day. But it is typical of events staged by the Football Lads Alliance (FLA) or Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA), which brings together the rump of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), the English Defence League (EDL) and various neo-Nazis.
Photographs and videos show Robinson supporters lashing out at counter-protestors with wooden sticks, kicking police horses and, at one point, menacingly surrounding a bus, driven by a…