Although it’s nice to have a good laugh at the EDL’s expense, the real winners on the day were Leicestershire cops, who’ve had praise heaped on them by the local authorities and press for keeping the EDL safely in their boxes. However, we witnessed some disturbing policing going on at the end of the day.
A group of about 12 quite young Asian and black lads were stopped at the town end of St Margaret’s Way, separated, put up against a wall and stopped and searched very comprehensively by the police, whilst an evidence gathering team filmed them.
While this was going on, a group of about 30 EDL, including Simon Smith and some of the Leicester division, came down the road without any police supervision. Seeing the Muslim lads they changed direction to go straight at them and it was only the last minute scrambling of two police vans from a side street that stopped an ugly confrontation. Even then, the EDL group was not contained but simply stopped while the stop and searches were completed. The (white) cops engaged in friendly banter with the EDL and didn’t seem to view them as a threat, whilst the much smaller, much younger Muslim group were intimidated, humiliated and interrogated.
It sounds as though anti-fascists in town were at the receiving end of some shoddy policing as well. Check out this comprehensive report from our comrades at Leicestershire Solidarity Group for the details.
The EDL love to moan about how a “two-tier justice system” discriminates against white people but when it comes down to it, they are the ones getting preferential treatment.