The EDL had no fun in Leicester. Stepping out of their coaches, punters were greeted by a fuzzy sound system blaring miserable tunes to a small clump of die-hard xenophobes clustered in a car park in an industrial estate near a frozen river. Even at this early hour, many were pissed: one attendee had to chug his bottle of Lambrini before being allowed off the coach by the police, in case he bottled his compatriots in the boredom sure to follow. The mood of the car park, dampened by a mixture of the freezing cold and the grimly terrible nationalist music, reached its high point in the queue for the port-a-potties, which enjoyed some mild brawling.

EDL Berks

The EDL’s status as a peaceful human rights organisation was thrown further into question after some booted boneheads ground an Argentinian flag in horse shit before attempting to burn it. Others from the Hull division brandished an enormous home-made England flag with the words ‘Muzzie Scum’ daubed on it. The unwieldy banner had its own run-in with some horse shit, before being confiscated by the police. The theoretical underpinnings of the day were summed up by one supporter: “I wouldn’t mind if they were coming here to work but they’re not, they’re just taking our jobs”.

As they trundled off, the huddle of 300 bigots was surrounded and videoed by a thick line of yellow-jacketed cops, with a few mounted on incontinent horses. The EDL were mostly too dispirited to live up to their reputation for boozy disorder: even the traditional scuffling between stewards and punters was half-hearted.

A few EDL supporters had stayed outside the police cordon, including a corpulent supremacist who attempted to racially abuse a local. “There aint no black in the Union Jack” he stammered at the man, who laughed in his face.

Other than a handful of locals who had turned out to shake their heads at the sorry spectacle, the rows of cops were pretty much the only witnesses to the sad event. Shoppers stayed away; the streets were empty as the EDL approached the clocktower. Even the anti-racist protesters waiting for them there were spared a glimpse of the sorry march, as police vans blocked the two crowds’ views of each other. The cops marched the EDL back out of the city centre at high speed.

Before the sad day, Leicester Casuals United had bragged that, unlike their usual marches, they wouldn’t let themselves be “herded like cattle”. But the shuffling clump of bigots remained both docile and bovine.

When they had returned to their freezing car park, EDL headman Kev Carroll mumbled into the microphone that the 20-minute stroll had been one of their longest marches ever, a pitiable admission. He excused the dismal turnout with reference to how it was 5 weeks since Christmas. Yaxley-Lennon, lay low for the duration of the march, perhaps scared of being spotted by one of the many malcontents within the ranks.

As the rally faltered to a close, the EDL packed up early. Scrambling back onto their coaches, one remarked “we can’t organise shit any more”.