EDL Hyde Demo Coverage

News, including videos (at the end of the article), of today’s EDL demo in Hyde will be posted as it becomes available, so check for updates throughout the day.

The police have promised a "robust" approach following unrest in Rochdale earlier this week, so hopefully all will pass off peacefully. The number of police officers involved is said to be in the hundreds, but precise numbers will not be made public until the operation is over. Although the demo is being organised by the EDL (for background to its origins please click here), a number of other similar groups are intending to send contingents to participate, thus Roxanne of Casuals United writes:

Today sees [the] EDL and various other patriotic groups travelling from all areas of the country to demonstrate in Hyde.  Today’s demo is aimed at highlighting various incidents in the last few weeks across the North West, where a spate of White British people have been injured in racially provoked attacks.  We want the CPS and the police to sit up and recognise these crimes as Racially motivated and deal with them accordingly.  Don’t call them “hate” crimes, if it where the other way around, they would be called “RACIAL”.

According to comments posted on the Stockport County Supporters Messageboard, a number of local businesses had boarded up their windows and doors in anticipation of trouble. Although the police had assured market traders that the EDL march would not be going anywhere near their part of the town centre, the latter fear that trade will be badly hit today.

Many EDL supporters are using Hyde Central Station as a muster point between 12.00 and 12.45pm, and will depart from there at 1.00pm for the demo site on Clarendon Street. Another report posted on Facebook at about 11:45am stated that the EDL had been informed that rather than being permitted to march through Hyde, they would instead be "kettled" in a car park. Verification of this has yet to be forthcoming from other sources.

The Hope Not Hate blog notes that Nick Griffin's attempt to tag onto the EDL demo does not appear to have been very successful, drawing in their estimate only some 50 BNP supporters. As of 12:50, Nick Griffin was reported as speaking outside of the Town Hall. Given that he has in the past made the EDL a proscribed organisation for BNP members, this is an act of blatant and very cynical opportunism. Just how many if any self-styled 'antifascists' will be present to counterprotest today is not clear, but many UAF activists will be attending their annual conference in London, where they are concentrating on planning how to portray the EDL and the British Freedom Party as the new "fascist threat" in the year ahead, now not the rump BNP has been reduced to near irrelevance. They do, after all, need some pretext to justify their continued existence.

EDL in Hyde (picture by Kim of the Hydonian blog)

  

BNP attempting to capitalise upon EDL Protest

According to Roxanne of Casuals United, about 400 protestors are expected today, and reports had been received that police had demanded that "all EDL and patriotic flags on trains be removed." Whether or not this means that such flags were confiscated, is unclear. The Hydonian blog claimed that as of 12:25pm "Asians" were also gathering, as well as EDL and BNP. At 1.30pm the police began to escort EDL demonstrators from their assembly area to the demonstration site. If true, the following report from the Casuals United blog posted at 1.21pm is alarming:

News has just come in that there are app 3000 members of the Muslim community congregating outside the local mosque in Hyde and approximately 200 of these people have tried to brake through police lines to charge the BNP demo.  The BNP site suggests that police have instructed them to move and take down British flags which are enraging the Muslim community, but they have refused to do so and will not be moved despite police threatening physical interjection.

Elsewhere, reports that British White citizens are lining the streets of Hyde to celebrate and cheer the arrival of the EDL.  Unconfirmed reports suggest that police are turning away some EDL coaches, and the North East coaches (4 of) are currently delayed and will be arriving late.

Police and EDL stewards are currently in-situ anticipating the arrival of demonstrators.

Corroboration of the above has not been forthcoming from other sources, but a tweet from the Greater Manchester Police made it clear that Hyde Mosque was surrounded by police vans, only a few hundred metres from the EDL demonstration. According to the Hydonian blog, there were reports of "fighting" at 1.35pm, but who was fighting whom was not specified.

A post on the EDL forum stated that by 1.55pm "up to 2,000 EDL" had arrived "with lots more incoming. Locals are cheering and applauding the EDL march." The question of estimating numbers is always a tricky business, but this figure is way in excess of that anticipated by Casuals United. A BBC news report issued at 2.28pm claimed that the EDL demonstration had drawn approximately 600 supporters, with the police stating that all had been peaceful so far, with no arrests being made. An independent source who participated in the demo estimates the figure as having been well in excess of a thousand, and confirms that reports of a supportive reception from amongst locals are true (thanks to Cygnus for relaying this information).

A little after 2.30pm the Greater Manchester Police reported that the demonstration was drawing to a close and that EDL supporters were being escorted back to their coaches. By 3.30pm, almost all had left. This therefore proved to be a very short protest, but speeches were made by Stephen Lennon (Tommy Robinson) and Kevin Carroll. The EDL stewards are to be congratulated for ensuring that the demonstration passed off in a peaceful manner as confirmed by the Greater Manchester Police in the following statement:

There was only minimal trouble at any point during the day and for most of Hyde, it was just a case of business as usual. And although 11 protestors from the EDL group were arrested for minor public order offences or being drunk and disorderly, the vast majority were well-behaved and compliant with police.

The first of the videos below gives a clear impression as to the size of the protest in Hyde today, which looks reasonably healthy compared to some other recent EDL protests. Video number two is of a Granada News report, which notes that there were 11 arrests this afternoon for minor offences. A video of Tommy Robinson's speech can be accessed by clicking here, and of Kevin Carroll's here.






 

Newcastle EDL bound for Hyde