A triumphant victory?
Claire Fisher and Maciej Zurowski report on the English Defence League demonstration in east London and the response of anti-fascists
As readers will know, home secretary Theresa May responded to the English Defence League’s intention to hold an anti-Muslim demonstration in Tower Hamlets and the proposed counter-demonstration of the left by banning all marches in five London boroughs in the month of September, including the City of London.
As it turned out, the police were unable (or unwilling) to prevent fascists and anti-fascists alike marching. The two contingents marched for just under a mile – simultaneously, but separately; the EDL moving from Aldgate station to London Bridge, and the counter-protest marching from the eastern to the western end of Whitechapel Road, with a section converging at the lower end of Brick Lane, ‘blocking’ the EDL from entering the borough of Tower Hamlets and from harassing its Asian inhabitants.