EDL/UAF MARCHES: Taunts, snarls, slogans then it's back on the bus
In October 2010 the EDL could only hold a static protest. This year it was given permission to march. Repoter Peter Warzynski witnessed the procession through Leicester
As businesses hoisted their shutters and early bird shoppers stepped off buses, Leicester seemed to be waking up as usual.
There was nothing to distinguish this from any other Saturday morning.
The only difference was the growing number of police, who were arriving on foot, in vans and on horseback.
As they reached their designated posts and their presence became ever more conspicuous the mood changed and, by 11am, a subdued buzz surrounded the Clock Tower.
Journalists, photographers and curious members of the public gathered and spoke in hushed tones about what the day would bring.
At the same time, coach-loads of English Defence League supporters began to arrive at St Margaret's Pastures, their designated meeting point.
Members from London, East Anglia, Peterborough and Leeds proudly sported their "divisions" on their sweatshirts – along with the phrase "No Surrender".
They excitedly relayed their hopes for a clash with their biggest adversaries, Unite Against Fascism (UAF), who were beginning to rally the other side of the city centre, near Welford Road.
"I'm going to kick off at the Clock Tower even if no one else does," boasted one hooded local as he drew on his cigarette.
A burger van served the masses as music boomed from giant speakers.
Every now and then a chorus of "E, E, EDL" would break out and then quickly die away.
Just after noon, the police indicated it was time to begin the march and ushered the 700-strong crowd out of the car park and on to St Margaret's Way.
The procession was flanked by scores of police, who kept the men, women and children of the EDL from splitting off from the pack.
Horses led the group from the rally point and parents slowly shepherded their children.
Youngsters delighted their mums and dads with anti-Islam chants.
Those views continued throughout their stomp around the city centre.
One boy, of primary school age, was shouting himself hoarse as his mother made anti-Islamic comments.
The floor was covered in spit and mounds of droppings from the lead horses. The masses trudged through both.
Some had bought fishing poles to hoist their flags.
The largest belonged to the smallest man on the march, who could not have stood taller than 4ft 9in.
As the mob moved past the Sky Plaza hotel, in Abbey Street, two loud booms echoed around the street.
Panic spread through the crowd, who thought they were being attacked, only to find it was one their own who had let off firecrackers in the middle of the procession.
As the horde reached the Clock Tower there was a surge forward.
But the front few EDL supporters were met with a wall of stone-faced police.
The snarling taunts and shouts of the hooded and masked men had been sparked by the appearance of the mob's greatest critics, the UAF.
The crowd was condensed into a swaying sea of bodies, all trying to get closer to the action.
But, sensing defeat, the 12 or so EDL protagonists retreated, no doubt re-thinking their actions after some well placed police baton blows.
When there was a lack of UAF, the hostility turn towards the groups of journalists and photographers who followed the parade from start to finish.
When the pack finally came full circle and returned to St Margaret's Pastures they listened to the rhetoric of EDL leader Tommy Robinson and local representatives.
The crowd – what was left of them – lapped it up.
But after a while, the snow and speeches got too much for the 700 men, women and children and they skulked back to the 13 waiting coaches.
54 Comments
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by BasilRush
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 1:09PM
“Well put the THEECGL,
Let's not waste our time on these RACIST cowards behind computer screens and get out there with our people building up the community that will stop them in their Anglophobic tracks once and for all in the near future.”
by Toddy2010
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 1:07PM
“At least this is good anecdotal (if there is such a thing) evidence that kettling seems a bad way to police protests.
Last time there was violence and arrests this time no arrests.
It wasn't like they could use the previous site given that it's being renovated for buses.”
by THEECGL
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 1:06PM
“THobbes,
Constantly swaying from the main points of this article. Would you put on trial any other identity in your insulting manner? No, you reserve this Court-Room drama style picking and prodding of an identity just for the English which marks you as an Anglophobe choosing to discriminate by choosing only the English for this foaming at the mouth attack of identity.
You do this via your minority voice of the 'Labour Mercury' a so called News paper that has its sales officially dwindling and is their any wonder whilst it allows mainly one sided bias unfair traitor comments such as yours and it's own even without showing fairness or democracy and whilst doing so it does nothing at all for community cohesion or peace.
The majority of your comments are what you would usually deem racist and of religious hatred and all because you were outnumbered by the EDL and shown your true colors of wanting confrontation at their march which has you not understanding that democracy and freedom should prevail in a so called free country, but of course you want no platform and no voice of opposition, which is pure totalitarian and you have now become the dictators.
I will eave you to practice more of your Anglophobia on here for all of the public to see whilst we go out and regain the confidence of the majority of the English community enabling them to tackle such Anglophobic discrimination as yours lawfully because it is now time to draw a legal line in the sand and stamp out Anglophobia.”
by redcat
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 12:32PM
“700 sounds like a lot of people but when you actually see it on the first photo above you realise it really is a reassuringly small group. -Compare it to the crowd you see at a fireworks display, for instance, and you realise that 700 thankfully really is just a few people. Just a shame that policing 900 people (the estimated 700 EDL and 200 UAF in the counter protest) has cost the police £800,000...”
by GazzyGee
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 11:22AM
“I think equating anti racists with racists as two sides of the same coin in very disrespectful to those who stood up against the EDL. Last year Love music hate racism had a very succesful music event in Leicester city centre which cost the taxpayer nothing to police. The EDL come to Leicester with their shameful brand of racism and the police bill reaches a million pounds. All this democratic rights stuff is a red herring.... rights are earned and last time the EDL came to Leicester they attacked businesses, people and the police, in a democratic society there is no place for that. The EDL membership are misfits on the fringe of society who look at everyone else as the reason that there life isn't what they think it should be. Today they see the muslim community as its enemy but later it will be Eastern Europeans, Africans or even the Irish as the barrier to English people achieving. Those who stood up against the EDL as a Leicester person born and bred I am proud of you.”
by THobbes
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 10:08AM
“So to summarise: your religion consists of intolerable cruelty, ruthlessly burning down towns and cities, and a disdain for people who turn their back on Christianity (or so says Bede - about the only postive statement about Penda's beliefs). With a good dollop of Scandinavian neo-paganism of the "blood and soil" type. Not a very attractive faith, is it? Certainly not a very English one.”
by article61
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 9:23AM
“My beliefs are my own and not that of any group.
I do not have to explain anything to you,who are you to judge anothers beliefs.
I would say Pendas treatment of Oswald gives an indication to his heathen beliefs.”
by THobbes
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 8:51AM
“It isn't an English brand of modern mumbo-jumbo you follow, then - it is Scandinavian/American Asatru. I thought you lot were hot for Æthelflæd?
I'm very familiar with Bede, but he's hardly a reliable source for the nitty-gritty of Anglo-Saxon pagan belief, is he? Certainly nothing there that would allow you to reconstruct Penda's religion. I notice you've also dodged the question about how your contemporary beliefs relate to 7th-century Mercia (probably because they don't, in any way, outside your fantasies).”
by article61
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 7:53AM
“Bede wrote of Penda,look it up its fascinating.
My belief is of Oðin, Tiw and Thor. Of the nine values and the positive race that forged England.
Penda was a king (Cynning) of England,not ALL England.”
by article61
Tuesday, February 07 2012, 7:31AM
“It takes a warped mind to excuse perceived hate crime by denying a belief exists.
Any other religion/belief/identity you wish to put on trial? Or is it just the English you feel free to insult?”