My instinct is that the egg throwing was a set-up. During demonstrations of the Vietnam War in the US there were right-wing political operatives acting as rabble-rousers to incite violence.

A little history for some folkies here. The Left-wing movement of the US championed the
folk music collecting, archiving and the development of folklorists and folk song collectors. Pete Seeger spearheaded an approach to folk music which was ultimately the foundation for the commercial folk music revival in the US and abroad as well. Some would call that a political act. Although it involved some politics, it was more of a movement like what is being promoted here.

Actually, politics can't be separated from the arts any more than it can from any other expression or endeavor in life. Even the idea of anti-politics is a political statement.

The BNP is a dangerous right-wing organization that threatens real democracy. Like the
Operation Rescue movement in the US it could be a platform for violence. So far, it may not have crossed the line but it could easily become a so-called "terrorist" platform.

Folk Singer Against Fascism has venerable historical roots here in the US. We had People's Songs, Broadside Magazine, and People's Artists in New York. Paul Robeson was a champion of the political expression of anti-Fascism through song. Woody Guthrie was a songwriter who spent his life writing songs about anti-Fascism. Josh White, Leadbelly, Big Bill Broonzy and Richard Dyer-Benett supported left-wing causes in the early days to speak out against anti-Fascism. There is a strong connection with anti-Fascism in the roots of American folk music which was nurtured by the Left-wing in the Thirties and Forties and onward.

Like Operation Rescue, he BNP might be metaphorically in danger of "yelling fire in a crowded theater" which is an infringement of free speech.

More power to the FAF.

Frank Hamilton