On an unseasonably warm autumnal afternoon, FAF and other antifascist groups held back the Democratic Football Lads Alliance (DFLA) as they attempted to march through the streets of central London. The DFLA are a splinter group from the Football Lads Alliance , a British street movement of soccer fans.

When a British far-right group announced its plans to march in London on Saturday, women on the left knew they had to push back. Enter: Feminist Anti-Fascism Assembly (FAF), a new feminist antifascist bloc made up of a coalition of feminist organizations, trade unions, migrant rights groups, and anti-racist organizers.

Both groups claim to be against extremism in all forms, but have been associated with far-right ideology and activism of extremist groups like the English Defence League. On the Facebook page for Saturday’s march, DFLA organizers said they were protesting “returning jihadists,” “thousands of AWOL migrants,” and “rape gangs and groomers.”

“Sexism is at the heart of fascism,” said an FAF flyer distributed by organizers on the day. “The far-right say they want to stop sexual violence by closing national borders, attacking minorities and returning to ‘traditional’ gender roles. But the reality is that 80-90 percent of child sex offenders are white men and 87 percent of sexual violence is committed by someone known to the victim. Sexual abuse happens in every culture, country and community—and our own homes. The far-right don’t have the answers.”

FAF organizer Alice Caradonna told Broadly on the day: “We organized today to stand to the far right’s appropriation of our experiences of sexual violence. Our experiences of sexual violence cannot be used to propagate their racist crap. We’re here to say that we’re against rape and that we’re against racism.”

The DFLA march descended into violence early on, with dozens of DFLA supporters reportedly fighting cops and one threatening an officer and screaming “I’m going to kill you.” In a slow and tense build-up, the feminist antifascist bloc edged its way along the city’s streets from Portland Place to Oxford Circus. It finally faced up to the DFLA at Trafalgar Square, separated only by ten meters and scores of riot vans and overwhelmed police.

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Antifascist organizers kept up a relentless chant of “no pasaran” (“they shall not pass” in Spanish), their ranks powerfully headed up by an assembly of women and nonbinary supporters. The DFLA hurled racist slurs, beer cans, and chants of “God Save the Queen” and “Rule Britannia” in response.