In the morning, “UAF protestors attempted to occupy the entire protest area in the morning, in a bid to deny the EDL the ability to protest at all” … a “greater number of arrests on the UAF side due to the morning attempt at taking over the entire protest area”… “The EDL is now being portrayed as … that causing the least trouble.”

Quelle surprise.

‘Given the now clear bias of the police against the UAF’ – err…how did you get to that? They did their job – you admitted it yourself. I suspect their ‘bias’ would be for you all to STFU and do something useful with your weekends.

Mainstream media bends the truth, you do exactly the same but in the other way. So the point your making is that the media must never take things out of context when its a group of people you agree with?

Hello trolls!

Now kindly take your St George’s Cross flags and fuck off.

“Mainstream media bends the truth, you do exactly the same but in the other way. So the point your making is that the media must never take things out of context when its a group of people you agree with?”

I’d give it up if I were you Dave, if you want to read the “true” details of Saturday’s event go to the EDL/BNP sites and see how they tell it. If you can be bothered to wade through the hyperbole about “taking back our country” and “defending our streets against the fascist/commie muslim hordes” that is.

Here we go on this thread too. BNPers troll in and any disussion ends. Its just crap.

Surely the point of all this is that two organisations were allowed to conduct demonstrations at the same time by the police, who to stop potential conflict ensured that one set of demonstrators were not occupying the space designated for the other set. It then appears that there was some throwing of missiles (demonstrators can’t generally say who threw first – because they will only see incoming) which the police eventually had to act against (they are strangely unwilling to use force on crowds you know – something to do with the danger of causing panic, crushes etc). All of this is clearly interpretation (and having seen UAF in action, I can’t say I’d be surprised if some of their militant wing hadn’t thrown the first bottle – you do not have to be in EDL to be a thug).

So the major factual bone of contention is numbers attending. But there seems no reason for the police to deliberately misrepresent numbers here, unless they are trying to bolster the image of the EDL (because 2 000 is such a huge number…). Overall, I am not convinced by any of this; it is eye-witness testimony, but so is the police account, and I suspect an EDL eye-witness (I presume some of them can communicate) would present a third and different version again.

And as for the media, why is EDL and UAF screaming and throwing things at each other ‘news’ – it is exactly what is expected. So the media will probably send their resources elsewhere to something the majority of their readers are interested in (sorry, that’s probably Jordan…).

@Yurrzem! – I’m in no way a BNP troll – in fact, I think the EDL & the UAF are virtually the same organization; complete wankers the lot of them. How can it be responsible for the UAF to try and prevent a legal demonstration and for the EDL to start lobbing bottles. They’re just a bunch of minority, sectional tossers who should grow up.

Both the EDL and UAF have a legal right to protest.

The latter has no right to prevent the former from doing so.

They are also, as it happens, an equally scummy organisation.

“Unfortunately, its leadership is in the possession of two of the most obnoxious political parties in Britain: the Socialist Workers Party and Socialist Action. The Socialist Workers’ Party’s commitment to anti-fascism can be judged by its touring around of the ‘ex-Jew’, Gilad Atzmon: a man who claims that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion accurately portray the reality of what he terms, elsewhere, “Jewish Power”. Socialist Action are a function of Ken Livingstone, and have enthusiastically pursued a policy of allying with groups that are aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-e-Islami. These two parties run Unite Against Fascism as their personal possession, and for the purposes of recruiting cadres and providing a level of public exposure to their leading figures.”

http://hurryupharry.org/2010/03/21/weyman-bennett-charged-with-conspiracy-to-commit-violent-disorder/

@4, 7

Im not a member of the BNP, and I dont think pointing out the author of this post is being a hypocrite automatically entitles me to membership.

Your views seem to make you prime candidates, as you seem to believe in the right to free speech as long as its something you agree with.

Why dont you go on the Rosie and Jim forum and you can call people naughty words there with the other kids.

@9 cjcj

I’ve met BNPers and SWPers. I’ve generally found the SWPers to be much nicer.

I doubt that police are biased against UAF in general as against EDL; police bias is very easy to determine – they’re in favour of people who do what the police tell them to do and against people who don’t.

On this occasion, UAF tried to go into the EDL area, ie against police orders, and so the police decided that UAF were the bad guys. That’s just the way the police operate; if you want to get positive coverage from the police, then do what you’re told.

“I’ve met BNPers and SWPers. I’ve generally found the SWPers to be much nicer.”

As a measure of both types, none of those I’ve met (and they’re both thin on the ground round here) realise I’m making fun of their positions. They are all so ernest and agressively certain of themselves.

That said, I think the SWP’s members come across better, but that might simply be the benefits of the middle-class upbringing and the University education (for those I’ve met I hasten to add) against the BNP’s normal background. Class politics in action if you like…

“I’ve met BNPers and SWPers. I’ve generally found the SWPers to be much nicer.”

Not a difficult bar to jump!

Excellent. Perhaps the true bully boys in all of this were the Rozzers and they definately have an agenda to try to agitate these groups (granted, in this case not even slightly difficult) in that they get overtime. That Plane Stupid demo down Heathrow last summer, their warnings that we face a summer of unrest last year, their over-reaction to everything that could be considered as vaguely relating to democratic demonstrations is pathetic. The fact that the Tomlinson lad got killed for absolutely sweet FA. Well, frankly, they all bloody deserve each other but only one group gets paid really quite handsomely for being authoritarian thugs.

@ 12

The unprovoked attacks I have seen at demos gives the lie to your opinion. There is an element amongst the police that view the job of policing demos as an opportunity for a rumble.

Unlike the 80s they now have decent protective gear. If I wore the same to a demo I would be arrested.

The EDL have a LGBT wing it would appear – at least here’s their facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=app_2373072738&ref=mf&gid=352745454775

Radio 5 thirty-minute report: BBC reporter saying UAF clashes with the police BEFORE the EDL even arrived:

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/activism_non_profit/watch/v19938293rd3GXmHf

Apparently the EDL were waving all sorts of flags including Israeli… which I guess wouldn’t happen at a BNP rally?

Great piece, but it is easy to underestimate EDL numbers at these events. Lots of them dont bother going to the “main bit” but lurk around town being generally menacing pricks, whereas the antis are more likely to stick together.

How does one ‘Smash the EDL/BNP’ if not through violence?

I find the term “mainstream media”, an Americanism, to not be very useful in framing this debate.

If you define the shit media, i.e. TV, newspapers and radio (as well as the online presences of TV/newspaper companies), as “mainstream”, it immediately makes people consider any media outside of this to be “fringe”, i.e. not mainstream.

I’m not sure what the alternative shorthand for the shit media could be. But we need to make good media the mainstream.

I find the entire idea of UAF organising protests against EDL protests to be rather surreal. The EDL may stand for some ugly views (though it is incorrect to simply call them racist – I had the misfortune of being stuck on a train with a few dozen of them a while back, and there were several black/mixed race members in matching black hoodies) but why not let them protest? Surely the trouble only occurs when two rival groups protest, with the police in the middle.

To me the main issue is that people should be allowed to protest no matter how ugly their views are as long as what they are doing is not illegal.

And people shouldn’t try to stop a protest in the way that the UAF did.

If that makes me a facist then thats alright, because a facist today is someone who disagrees with someone else, which by defintion is everyone.

I was there for a short time (long enough) and agree with most of Paul’s analysis, though UAF had publicised the demo for 11am, and other leaflets for activists asked them to be in the square at 9am, a full 4 hours before EDL were due to arrive

as at Swansea, the intention was for UAF to have such overwhelming numerical supremacy that the police would have to let them take over the whole square, and have the town hall steps as a platform (hence no stage brought)

as for numbers, if you look at the film clips on the Bolton News website you can see that these fluctuated during the day, with UAF not surprisingly starting to tail off early afternoon whilst EDL were still continuing to arrive, and at the peak time there do seem to be more on EDL side