Published on September 6th, 2011 |
by Mark Wright
Image ©
[caption id="attachment_3374" align="alignright" width="255" caption="An EDL member"]
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60 English Defence League (EDL) protesters were arrested after clashes with police, local residents and anti-fascist campaigners in East London last Saturday.
Police estimate 1,000 EDL supporters assembled near Aldgate tube station, while hundreds of local residents and anti-fascist campaigners converged on nearby Whitechapel Road, close to the East London Mosque, a target for members of the EDL. Scuffles broke out and missiles were thrown as more than 3,000 riot and mounted police tried to maintain control.
By early evening on Saturday 16 people had been arrested for offences including affray, drunk and disorderly and assault on a police officer. Later 44 people on a coach were arrested on suspicion of violent assault.
The fascist EDL, which opposes what they perceive as the ‘Islamisation’ of Britain, had bragged that they were coming to the heart of Tower Hamlets – ‘marching into the lion’s den’ in the multiracial, multicultural borough. In the end the march was an utter failure, a humbling defeat for the drunken rabble of the EDL. The EDL were stopped a few metres short of protesting in Tower Hamlets by the police, pub landlords decided to close rather than serve them, members of the rail workers’ union RMT prevented them from using Liverpool Street station as their arrival point, and hundreds of local residents and anti-fascist campaigners maintained a wall of opposition, the crowd chanting ‘they shall not pass’.
Unite Against Fascism claimed victory over the EDL, with the group’s national officer Martin Smith saying: ‘Today we have won … We have stopped the EDL coming into this borough … We have marched on the streets today, the EDL have gone and we have won’.
60 arrested after EDL march in East London
An EDL member
60 English Defence League (EDL) protesters were arrested after clashes with police, local residents and anti-fascist campaigners in East London last Saturday.
Police estimate 1,000 EDL supporters assembled near Aldgate tube station, while hundreds of local residents and anti-fascist campaigners converged on nearby Whitechapel Road, close to the East London Mosque, a target for members of the EDL. Scuffles broke out and missiles were thrown as more than 3,000 riot and mounted police tried to maintain control.
By early evening on Saturday 16 people had been arrested for offences including affray, drunk and disorderly and assault on a police officer. Later 44 people on a coach were arrested on suspicion of violent assault.
The fascist EDL, which opposes what they perceive as the ‘Islamisation’ of Britain, had bragged that they were coming to the heart of Tower Hamlets – ‘marching into the lion’s den’ in the multiracial, multicultural borough. In the end the march was an utter failure, a humbling defeat for the drunken rabble of the EDL. The EDL were stopped a few metres short of protesting in Tower Hamlets by the police, pub landlords decided to close rather than serve them, members of the rail workers’ union RMT prevented them from using Liverpool Street station as their arrival point, and hundreds of local residents and anti-fascist campaigners maintained a wall of opposition, the crowd chanting ‘they shall not pass’.
Unite Against Fascism claimed victory over the EDL, with the group’s national officer Martin Smith saying: ‘Today we have won … We have stopped the EDL coming into this borough … We have marched on the streets today, the EDL have gone and we have won’.
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I think the most telling aspect of their defeat is that it failed to grab a foothold on the mainstream media. It completely failed therefore, as a call to arms for other racists nationwide. Nobody paid notice to them, and if this is the best they can do, nobody ever will.