So you have this group of blokes. And they want to meet up on a Saturday, in a pub. And then they want to go for a little walk in town to a place where they can stand around together and pull up a few cobble stones and smash up the odd bus stand and fast food van and then assault a few people. And the police… hang on, what do the police do?
Well, if the blokes in question are doing this on their way to see a football match, the police will probably arrest them and they’ll be banged up for a good while and the Daily Mail’s coverage of the event will suggest these thugs threaten the very fabric of our society.
On the other hand, if the men who do this call themselves the “English Defence League” (EDL), taxpayers will fund 1,000 police to make sure the men can gather as they wish, while Council Tax payers will then fund a clean up squad to sort the area out once the man have managed to get themselves home.
For this is what happened in Birmingham this weekend. And while it’s worth spending a great deal of state resources on defending free speech, is it really worth this amount of spending to allow some thugs to have a drink-fuelled Saturday ruck?
Many reports of the demonstration in the national press say that police tactics were to keep the EDL in Centenary Square in Birmingham, while counter-demonstrators were contained in Chamberlain Square – and conclude that the police did a good job keeping the two sides apart. However, local reports give more worrying detail about how the EDL members were treated.
For a start, the police allowed EDL members to meet during the morning at Bar Risa in Birmingham’s Broad Street. What did the police think EDL members would be doing in “Bar Risa”: knocking back the mineral water, just to keep cool? If there was, however, any doubt, this should have been dispelled by the chanting that broke out among the lads waving their English flags in and around the bar: pro-EDL slogans such as “There’s only one Nick Griffin” and “England till I die” alternated with anti-Muslim slogans attacking Islam and Allah (pbuh). Demonstrators became increasingly jolly. A couple of dozen of them scrambled up onto a van, risking injury to themselves and damage to the vehicle, but still the police did not intervene. Perhaps the police would say that by allowing the EDL to have an open meeting place, rather than letting small groups of EDL members roam Birmingham, it was easier to keep control. It also allowed the EDL over two hours to get tanked up and ready for the rally.
As the numbers of demonstrators increased, the police response was to form a barricade with their riot vans to segregate the EDL members from protestors and then to escort the EDLers down the street towards their allotted square.
If these tactics were really intended to avoid disorder, the police were soon disappointed as cheerful EDL members started attacking street furniture around the square – and then began throwing missiles at the police and even scuffling with each other. It was only when EDL members looked like they might be trying to leave the square that police in riot gear and police dogs were brought out to keep them contained.
The police made sure that Tommy Robinson got safely onto the stage so the speeches could start: again, anti-Muslim sentiments were expressed.
Politicians seemed generally just to be relieved that matters hadn’t been worse. Councillor Waseem Zaffar, Birmingham’s Chair of Social Cohesion and Community Safety, said: “We are obviously disappointed that the EDL chose Birmingham to host this demonstration. Birmingham doesn’t really need this sort of attention but the police have executed a great plan to keep both groups apart.”
The police may well have kept the two groups apart, Cllr Zaffar: but they have also ensured that when a load of English Nationalist thugs woke up sober on Sunday morning, they remembered that they had been allowed to run riot on Saturday afternoon: what’s to stop them wanting to do this all over again?
Some EDL members, speaking to the press, emphasised that they had a right to be out on the streets and criticised the police for interfering and for injuring EDL demonstrators when they got out of hand. This is one of the ways in which the EDL builds up its members’ sense of identity with the organisation: bravado (appearing unstoppable, right and attractively powerful) coupled with defensively playing the victim (no one understands us, everyone’s attacking us, so we need to stick together).
The Home Secretary has the power, in certain circumstances, to ban a demonstration he or she thinks may lead to public disorder. Local politicians have often called for EDL demos to be banned, but the EDL has easily got round this by holding rallies (static events) rather than demonstrations.
So we are left with how the police behave on the day of the static demo as the next focus for our attention, rather than on the Home Secretary banning the event – and this is where the questions start. Why did the police let the EDL chant racist and anti-Muslim abuse? Why did they let the drunken thugs progress unhindered from the pub to the square? Why did they allow violence to take place in the square?
Within the last two years the police have “kettled” student protestors to shut down large demonstrations and deter participants from coming out on the streets again: why did the EDL get such a free run? There were some 20 arrests for public order offences: but there were some 2,000 EDL members at their rally and there must have been more than 20 people involved in verbal or physical violence.
So how do we stop the EDL? Rely on calling on the Home Secretary to ban events? Rely on the police? Rely on counterdemonstrators?
The question is very live in Tower Hamlets. When the EDL marched in the borough two years ago, the Labour Party spent its time in the run up to the demo collecting signatures on a petition calling for the Home Secretary to ban the event. The Party also issued advice to its members and supporters to stay indoors on the day and not come out and get involved. In contrast, Mayor Lutfur Rahman wrote to the Home Secretary asking for the demo to be banned but then came out on the day and led anti-EDL protestors round key areas in the borough making the anti-EDL message loud and very visible. Labour and Rahman will be going head to head in the mayoral elections next May and residents need to know what kind of message the victor will lead us with: stay at home, or make protest visible.
As for how best to vanquish the EDL… what do you think?