Malign Gnomes spotted in Hyde

Whilst the EDL held their protest in Hyde yesterday, creatures resembling bad-tempered overgrown garden gnomes were spotted brandishing posters juxtaposing images of Anders Breivik and Tommy Robinson. It is possible that they had mistaken Robinson for a mass murderer from Norway because UAF told them that the two men were essentially the same and, of course, they’re both white and thus easily confused. We do all look the same you know. If it weren’t for the redbrick buildings in the photograph below, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were looking at a picture taken in Lahore, but this was not the case, despite the fact that the men depicted do believe that they live in a territorial extension of Bangladesh, or possibly Pakistan. 

A handful of UAF activists turned up yesterday to distribute misleading propaganda to Muslims in Hyde before promptly departing. Their presence after all, was not required, for it is stated that some 800 “local people” (i.e. ex-residents of the Indian subcontinent and their descendents, so perhaps “local” is not the most appropriate of terms) “turned out to protect the local mosque in Hyde”. Protect it from what? The EDL don’t target mosques and had no intention of going near it, so were not UAF activists guilty of creating an unwarranted climate of fear amongst the Muslim residents of Hyde?

Meanwhile, in London UAF held their annual conference to fulminate against the “fascists” of the EDL and BFP. It was such a dull affair that one of their delegates was moved to write:

So bored was I during some of the eight speakers who addressed us for almost two hours in the opening plenary that I counted the number of people in the hall several times. Including people outside and in the balcony it came to about 250 on a generous count, so let’s say 350 during the day – smaller than previous years and remarkably few for the conference of a campaign backed handsomely by all the major unions. (According to NUT Deputy General Secretary Kevin Courtney, the NUT alone gave UAF £55,000 this year!) Of these perhaps twenty were members of Socialist Action and a hundred members of the SWP - the two left groups which in reality dominate the leadership of the campaign.

How very revealing. For all of its funding, official backing and media opportunities, UAF even bores its own delegates and appears to be losing momentum. The above report also provides confirmation of the SWP’s hold over UAF. Perhaps someone should notify Chris Grayling?

Returning to matters of a more positive nature, take a look at the two following speeches made by EDL supporters yesterday. The first, from a local lad named Jamie, and the second from Tony Curtis (naturally, not his deceased namesake).

EDL’s Kevin Carroll: Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent

Below is a video of Kevin Carroll’s speech at yesterday’s EDL Hyde Demo. As with Tommy Robinson’s address, its content has not been reported by the media. Angry and impassioned, Carroll opens his speech by holding aloft a card displaying two pictures of Daniel Stringer-Prince: one of him before the attack, and one after: “there is, there lies, your religion of peace!”

Carroll singles out politicians and senior members of the police hierarchy as targets for his ire, accusing them of aiding the Islamification of the country. He demanded that the media start reporting Muslim “racist crimes” against white British citizens and stated that Christianity and Islam simply do not mix. Given the problems that we already have arising from having a Muslim population at only 3-4% of the total, he stated, “When we get to 10%, it’ll be too late.” Clearly, he wishes to put a break upon any further growth in the Muslim population. The first section of his speech is transcribed below, followed by a selection of quotes from later in the video.

“That was his crime, walking down a British, an English street, minding his own business to get some sweets. And that is how he ends up. Now that is outrageous. Now, if that was a Muslim 17-year-old lad, I tell you now I reckon the streets of Manchester would be burning. Right? Because there is your religion of peace. That would not be tolerated and the politicians would be queuing up, queuing up fighting each other to stand to the forefront to make press releases condemning this vile racist attack. But where are you?! Where are all the politicians?! Nowhere! Because I tell you why, if you’re the same colour as him, non-Muslim, it doesn’t matter. It does not matter! Meaning nothing because there’s no backlash from the non-Muslim community, because we are just quiet, no one complains, no one kicks off.”

“Fair play to them lads and done what they done the other day [in Rochdale] because if the politicians, if the politicians and the police hierarchy, not the boys and girls on the ground because the boys and girls on the ground do a fantastic job and we support them fully, but the police hierarchy, they’re just puppets themselves and they do Number 10’s bidding. But if they and the politicians are not going to protect our children and our women from being raped, drugged, pimped and made to look like this when they go out the house to get some sweets, then we’ll have to protect them! We will have to do it! We will have to take to the streets!” 

“So the politicians, the police hierarchy, yellow cowards all of them! Pandering to Islam, they are aiding and abetting and facilitating the Islamification of this great country.”

“If you’re not going to protect them [our women and children], then it leaves us no choice!”

“We’re not racist. We’re not violent. We’re just no longer silent.”

Video of Tommy Robinson’s Hyde Speech

In his speech at today’s EDL demo in Hyde, Stephen Lennon (Tommy Robinson) laid out his thoughts on the widespread phenomenon of Muslim paedophile gangs and how the time has come to tackle them if the authorities continue to tread carefully for fear of the race card being played. Unsurprisingly, the content of the speech has not been publicised by the mainstream press or electronic media, as has proven to be the case with respect to that of the speech made by Kevin Carroll. The following quotes provide a flavour of its tenor.

“We are entering a new era. An era of counter-jihad. That’s what’s happening.”

“What happened to this boy, and what’s happening across this country is the religious persecution of non-Muslims across.”

“The reason for the attack, the reason for all the hostility, is because they are non-Muslim. It’s not racial it’s religious.”

“If you look at what is happening in our country, especially with these Muslim paedophile gangs, it is like an invading ideology; an invading ideology that’s come to our country and started raping our women and nobody is doing nothing. That’s how it seems.”

“For thirty years there has been a conspiracy of silence from police leaders to religious leaders to facilitate the rape of our kids in every single town and city that has a Muslim community. And that’s what’s happening.”

“What happened in Rochdale is inevitable.”

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