The Stoke demonstration had the opportunity to be riding off the back of the wave of general disgust over the proposed march through Wootton Bassett of Anjem Choudary's Islam4UK. A highly insensitive, but no doubt very calculated, publicity stunt which fuelled the latent concern within the population around Islamic Extremism ; this represents a fragile and difficult middle-ground between genuine concern over potential criminal activity and blatent racism. Undoubtedly for most right thinking people, including the Muslim community within the UK, the extremist behaviour would not be considered acceptable to the extent that it incites hatred and creates unnecessary differentation and segregation. Straying off this important path into unbridled and basic racism is the flaw in the position of the English Defence League.
There were over 700,000 people who signed up to the Facebook campaign against the Islam4UK march, which must be an unprecedented number of followers, especially gained in such a short period of time. Whilst the sentiment of this group is wholeheartedly to recognise the significance of Wootton Bassett as an icon of mournful respect for a fallen soldier, the direction of the disgust has chimes with the espoused philosophy of the EDL. I say espoused, in that the website tries to portray a legitimate angle - non-racist, against extremism and Sharia Law, full support of the army in Afghanistan - all very passable if expressed in an appropriate manner. This is where the EDL "theory" is not borne out in practice.
The demonstration in Stoke started like all the previous ones, that I have observed, in a Wetherspoons pub in the centre of town. I'm not sure of the connection between Wetherspoons and the EDL but it is a common link. By all accounts the violence and general unrest started well before the published start time. By 2pm when most of the EDL ( and the vast majority are white males anywhere between late-teens and early fifties) had had a few pints, they were spilling onto the main street and was very much good natured, and noisy. The EDL have typically been very antagonistic to photographers but early on, at least, none of this was evident.
There were a number of people there who were expressing a genuine, heart-felt view around immigration and the general deterioration of the ability of people to feel comfortable about expressing their Englishness and celebrating English culture. These were very much in the minority.
At about 2.30pm the crowd moved up from the pub to a small car park area, ostensibly for a series of speeches - this did not last very long before a big proportion of the EDL decided that they wanted to march - in the direction of the Town Hall where the UAF et al had congregated. This was the point at which the demonstration deteriorated into a conflict with the police who were trying to maintain law and order. I have read a number of posts about the antagonism of the police - this was not the case - the EDL could have conducted all of their business within the cordoned off area. The clear intention was to create trouble. In addition to the obligatory violence I witnessed on a number of occasions Asian people being verbally abused in a racist way. Again, this is not necessarily the majority but it was accepted as part of the banter of the group. One lad came up to me as I was taking photographs suggesting that I was going to portray them all as racists - I quipped that I was only going to show what I saw.
Later on as the violence escalated, people started getting hurt, bottles were hurled at the police (including the photographers) as well as coins, bricks, planks and any other loose object. It was then the turn of the police vans. The hooligan element finally began to take control and they were subsequently let loose on the rest of the city centre much to the dismay of the Saturday afternoon shoppers. At this stage, a number of them turned on some of the press - it is at this stage that the EDL become most camera shy. A sub-set of the EDL made there way through the centre into the outskirts to seek out the Asian community - without doubt, with only one thing on their mind.
Whilstever the EDL's simplistic philosophical stance is mixed up with underlying racism and supported by frustrated football hooligans, then each event will get progressively worse. Sadly there seems to be an endless supply of youths out for a fight, and an endless supply of people who naively believe that they are joining a legitimate demonstration and a worthy point of view - this is the same naivety that results in people voting for the BNP. There is a vain hope that the EDL's self-fuelled incompetence will be its own bad publicity and downfall...and hopefully well before the General Election such that the naive many do not get seduced by this thinly veiled racist politics.
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