Saturday and the EDL: Whose Streets? Our Streets!

Up to 1,000 united anti-racists and anti-fascists marched through the centre of Nottingham last Saturday (5 December). The Nazi thugs of the English Defence League (300 according to the BBC) didn't - unless you count the bit were they went back to the station in the dark to get on their coaches home.

From 10am in the morning, Unite Against Fascism (UAF) supporters occupied Nottingham's Old Market Square - the historic centre of Nottingham. There were trade unionists with the Trades Council banner, regional officials and delegations from the GMB union, the PCS Civil Service union, the UCU lecturers' union and the CWU posties' union; there were school students, students from Nottingham University, and Nottingham Trent University (whose staff and student unions both backed the protest). And, despite the advice of some of their leaders, there were substantial groups of local Muslim youth. We were a cross-section of multi-cultural Nottingham, and proud of it!

The situation was complicated somewhat by the EDL choosing to stage their anti-Muslim protest on the same day that the Mercian Regiment was holding a homecoming parade (from Afghanistan) but our leaflets made it clear that our argument was with the EDL.

On the far side of the soldiers' parade, small groups of EDL supporters emerged with flags from a couple of the pubs surrounding the Market Square and, despite previous strict instructions from their organisers, did Sieg Heil salutes.

Clearly, if UAF had stayed away, and the Market Square had been left vacant, as was the advice of the police, (Labour) City Council Leader, John Collins, the Principal of one of the local colleges, and some of the local Imams, the Sieg Heil salutes would have taken over the centre of Nottingham. Some local Labour councillors understood this, and joined us.

Another group of anti-fascists, organised by Notts Stop the BNP, who had rallied separately because they were afraid of being kettled in the Market Square, joined us and the united group marched off, banners waving, chanting "Nazi Scum off our Streets", to the tourist backwater round Nottingham Castle, where the EDL were holding their rally. The Castle was closed for the day.

A feature of this EDL protest was that they were more openly fascist and thuggish than usual and almost entirely male. The instruction to close your fist when raising your hand, involved too much multi-tasking for most. One bonehead managed to get filmed by local ITV News, making a serious attempt to knock down one of the ornamental lamp posts round the Castle. The local authority had taken the precaution of enclosing the Robin Hood statue in what looked like a garden shed, which was just as well, because the EDL did fight the police.

We were stopped by an impenetrable police line round the corner from the EDL where we held a rally. A little pushing persuaded the police that we were not going to be kettled, and we marched back through the centre of Nottingham chanting Whose Streets? Our Streets! to the Market Square.

There were still isolated groups of EDL in various pubs, from which they emerged from time to time, but never for long, and the main body of EDLers was escorted back to their coaches at Nottingham station.

We didn't finally disperse until pushing 5pm, but there were skirmishes round the pubs well into the evening. The bottom line is that we marched in the centre of Nottingham, and Sieg Heiling fascist thugs who had arrived from all over the country didn't.