Yesterday I attended the demonstration in Worcester organised by the English Defence League which was called to protest against the proposed megamosque that local Muslims want to build. This mosque, which is alleged to be costing £3m and is physically imposing, has been enthusiastically backed by a bunch of naïve Christian clerics eager to play the ‘interfaith’ card.

Now in the opinion of myself and a number of others that I spoke to and saw online and in real life, the Christian clerics who are backing this megamosque are engaging in abject Islamopandering of the worst sort. The clerics which are supporting this megamosque appear to have forgotten or ignored the fact that it is Islam itself that is the primary threat to the safety and security of Christians worldwide. Although I’m not a Christian myself, I would go so far as to say that the clerics who are backing the construction of this megamosque are behaving in a faithless manner towards their flock and I have said so in previous articles on the subject of the Worcester megamosque. It is to my mind the height of stupidity and lack of care towards their co-religionists for these Christian clerics to enthusiastically welcome another Islamic ‘hub of hate’ to their area.

The imposition of this potentially problematical mosque and the promotion of it by Christian clerics who should have known better, needed to be protested in some way. However, what happened yesterday was an illustration of how not to do it and more importantly how not to convince the ‘normies‘ of the rightness of the counter-Islam cause.

It would be the easier path for me to write a puff piece about yesterday’s demonstration. I would get more clicks, less hassle and more positive comments for doing so. I could spin the story of the protest like a top and put all the blame for any problems with it onto the police or the hundred or so aggressive Muslims and Left wingers who countered approximately 50 EDL marchers. But to do so would be wrong. It would be thoroughly dishonest and would plainly be a classic example of fake news if I chose to do so. Therefore I will give an account of the day from a personal perspective based on what I saw, heard and experienced. I have to be honest about what I saw, to do otherwise would be wrong and easily provably wrong by the Left and other enemies. I will also offer suggestions as to how to improve things in the future, either for the EDL or for others who also may wish to protest the Islam issues of Worcester.

I attended this demonstration, which for the sake of transparency I concede that I helped to publicise, because I am worried about the effect that this megamosque will have on the city of Worcester. The size and wealth of this mosque, along with its ability to produce a whipped mosque vote at election times, means that it is liable to have a lot of political influence. I also attended as I have a problem with the naïve interfaith activities towards Islam by those from both the Christian and Jewish faiths. It strikes me as completely mad for those who represent faiths that are so often the victims of Islam, to campaign for yet more Islam in their area. Interfaith, in my opinion, only works between faiths that share common moral foundations, are honest with one another and which are peaceful in general. It is this common ground, honesty and generally peaceable nature that has underpinned the success of groups like the Council of Christians and Jews for example. Because Islam is different and not in a good way, interfaith work with most Islamic organisations is both fraught with difficulty and ultimately, due to Islam’s supremacist world-view, doomed to failure.

Even prior to the demo itself, I had some misgivings about it. The organisers were difficult to contact and although I appreciate that putting any event on takes effort that can detract from public contact and publicity activities, communication regarding muster points, timing etc with potential attendees was pretty poor. I must admit that the media briefing that the organisers put out was in most parts pretty good but it was not reflected in a similar professionalism on the ground.

I arrived early at Worcester and there was a heavy police presence there, which bearing in mind the later behaviour of the Muslims and the Left was probably a good idea. I had a look round and some lunch and went off to find the muster point. What I found when I got there was a shambles. It was so much of a shambles, that I decided that I did not want to be a participant and instead decided to document the event, in the hope that other patriot groups may learn from it.

There were about fifty EDL people there, not being being put into any sort of marching order by the two stewards that I could see and alarmingly some of the protesters were a bit ‘beered up’, which is rarely a good thing on a demo. There were no half decent banners and certainly no protest ‘header’ banner at the front, something which in my view is a must, if you are to grab the attention of both the media and the public. There seemed to be no attempt by the stewards (who were not as far as I could see linked by two way radio as they should have been) to bunch people up into a cohesive group which resulted in a thin rag tag of people leaving the muster point in Angel Street in order to proceed through the pedestrian areas of Worcester. Because of the poor stewarding, the small number of demonstrators managed to get mixed up with everyday shoppers going about their business in the town. At one point it was difficult for me to discern who were the shoppers and who were the protesters? If it was difficult to me, who was following the march from the start, to tell demonstrator from shopper, how much worse would it have been for the normies whom we must convince about the danger of Islam, to do the same?

The march had not travelled more than a couple of hundred yards into the pedestrianised areas of Worcester before it encountered trouble. A large group of Muslims and Left wingers, probably about a hundred or so, ended up facing the EDL protesters. These Muslims were particularly aggressive and were being cheered on by far Leftists mixed in among them. Shouts of ‘Allah hu Akbar’ resounded off of the walls of the shopping precinct, which at least had the effect of showing to the general public the violent attitude of the Muslims who turned up, which is a ‘win’ although a pretty tiny one. The presence of these aggressive Muslims and their left wing enablers should have been predicted by police intelligence and policed accordingly, but they were not and this is where I need to aim criticism at the police as well as the organisers. This lot should have been headed off a lot earlier.

The two groups were separated by police lines at which point things turned into a bit of a bunfight. The two demonstrations faced each other off aggressively and members of the EDL contingent seemed to fall into the trap of giving the Muslims and lefties as good as they got, including from what I could see, trying to breach the police line to go for the opposition. Remember all this was happening in a pedestrianised shopping area with hundreds of normal people, the people that get all their news from left leaning outlets such as the BBC etc, were milling around and trying to get on with their day, only to be inconvenienced greatly.

There seemed to be little effort made by stewards to impose any discipline on the EDL protesters or liaise with the police effectively or to calm down the more ‘in your face’ members of the protest. These actions would have made for a much more calm and maybe more effective protest.

Although I take on board the claim by the organisers that the police messed them about prior to the demonstration and fully accept that policing shenanigans may have gone on in the run up to the event, I do feel that there are lot of lessons to be learned from this debacle of a protest. I’m pissed off that the organisers basically blew a chance to build a campaign against this megamosque

by the nature and conduct of this demonstration. It would have been better in my view to take peaceful protests direct to the Islam-appeasing clerics and maybe even argue the facts about Islamic history with them than have this sort of street protest.

After being held in the precinct facing the Muslims and Lefties for about twenty minutes or so, the police pushed the EDL demonstrators back to a quieter part of the pedestrianised area. Shortly after this, a medium sized group of aggressive Muslims, probably about thirty of them, appeared behind the EDL demonstrators. The police hastily put a cordon round these Muslims and to their credit protected the rear of the EDL demonstrators.

At approximately two pm, a senior police officer invoked the Public Order Act and put a time limit on the EDL demonstrators, after which they had to disperse or face arrest. Although I have criticisms as to how this demonstration was organised, I do have to agree with the organisers that the police went in harder with regards to restrictions on the EDL demonstrators. This may have been as they say, that the police knew that this group would obey police instructions to disperse whereas the Muslims may have been more resistant to doing so. In situations like these the police will take the path of least resistance and in this case that path was isolating the EDL demonstrators and dispersing them. There was a small amount of aggro at the final dispersal point when a large group of Muslims and Lefties, about 50 or so, gathered on the corner of The Foregate, The Cross and Angel Street and had to be held back by a line of police. I saw a couple of EDL’ers being bundled into a police van at the end and it was at this point that I left the scene, feeling a considerable sense of sadness at what this demonstration could have been and disgust at how it turned out.

This could have been an intelligent and effective protest against Christian clerical collusion with Islam and this was my primary motivation for attending, as the naïve interfaith crowd is a particular interest of mine. It could also have been a dignified and informative demonstration about the growing and worsening problems of Islamic Rape Gangs. But, it was neither of these. This demonstration was in my view not just ineffective but somewhat counterproductive. It was nothing like the shows of working class political strength that we’ve seen coalescing around the Free Tommy and Free Speech movements or the campaigns for Brexit and for nationalism. This event sadly reminded me of the antics of the anarchist ‘Brew Crew’ who used to turn up at Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament demonstrations in the 1980’s, sit on top of the fountains in London’s Trafalgar Square and shout out ‘Bombs not jobs’. Invariably the press picked up on the photogenic actions of the Brew Crew and it was images of them that made the front page, not the message of the demonstration. As it was then, so it has been today, with the mainstream media revelling in the violence engaged in by some people on both sides.

This was an utter disaster of a protest, but it would be unfair to say that without offering up some suggestions as to how the issue of the megamosque, the naïve attitude of certain Christian clerics and Islam related problems could have been protested better. I think both the naïve Christians and the planned megamosque need to be protested but yesterday showed how not to do it.

Here’s my initial suggestions for a better result in future, not just at this location and for this particular reason, but in general. Here also are some things that maybe those organising protests should take on board.

Ask yourself is a street protest going to be effective or would you be better off taking a peaceful static protest directly to the target? For example would not it be more effective to have a picket with informative leaflets for the general public, which took place outside the offices of those who are engaging in Islamopandering, if that is what the protest is about? Would, in the Worcester case, getting the support of Islam critical theologians or those able to argue their way through the interfaith Kumbaya bullshit directly with those who are promoting it, have done more good?

If you are going to have a protest, whether a moving street protest or a static protest, ask what resources are there in the protest area that you could call on? Do you have a body of support there that can be leveraged? Are there, for example, people who are pissed off with the sort of parking problems that accompany mosques or are more awake about the danger of Islam, who are available to do pre-demonstration publicity or otherwise build support? A large body of outsider demonstrators coming into any area is going to get people’s backs up even before the demonstration starts, as people will ask ‘why are they here?’, ‘where have they come from?’ and most importantly ‘they are not local’. This is especially important when you have towns or cities that have a lot of brainwashed lefties at local universities for the opposition to call on.

If you are having a moving street protest or a static protest, consider getting some leaflets printed explaining to people why you are there. One of the things I picked up upon yesterday was the fact that hardly any of the general public I spoke to or overheard seemed to know why the EDL were there. Leafleting may have gone a long way to explain the purpose of the protest to the public at large. As it was all the casual observer saw yesterday was two groups, one mostly Asian and one mostly white, screaming at each other. There are many different audiences and targets for protests, the state, particular businesses etc, not just those who are attending and if you are demonstrating to make a particular point, then it helps to explain to people via leaflets etc why you are protesting.

Stewarding must be visible, responsible and sufficient. I didn’t think the stewarding was any of these things yesterday. It was chaotic with no means of communication between the steward at the front and the one at the back. If you are stewarding a demo, you have to step back a little and be somewhat detached, as you are supposed to be doing a job and not take a full part in the demo. The stewards yesterday seemed to be playing a full part in the demo and not marshalling or managing people properly. Stewards are also a method of explaining to the public why you are protesting. The ordinary bod on the street is more likely to approach a yellow jacketed steward to ask about the protest rather than approach one of the protesters themselves. Good stewarding and by extension better behaviour may have gained allies rather than pissing off ordinary shoppers.

Now I like a beer as much as the next man, but carrying round cans of beer on a demo is a really bad look to portray. It helps to give the impression to the public that the protesters are not serious about their cause and are just after a boozy and lairy day out. I don’t think that this was in the minds of the EDL demonstrators yesterday but the booze carriers may have given that impression to the general public. We should behave as we wish to be portrayed, as any fault or perceived fault will be amplified by the ‘lugenpress’ or lying press of the mainstream media. On the subject of giving a good impression to those we need to convince, the ordinary man on the Clapham Omnibus, there really needs to be more discipline on matters of behaviour, conduct, positioning of protesters and even dress in order to do that.

A lot went wrong yesterday, some of it the fault of the police, some of it the fault of the counter-protestors and some of it the fault of those who organised and attended this demo. The EDL has a great history of getting the normally apolitical English working classes out onto the streets, in order to protest some of the depredations that we suffer from under Islam. Yesterday’s demo, however, was a sad stain on that history.

It didn’t reach the normally apolitical and get them to attend, it didn’t engage the public who were observing, it engaged in unnecessary conflict with the opposition, which pissed off the normies and was poorly publicised, stewarded and attended. It was also probably the wrong style of protest in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I know this article will offend and upset some people out there but I feel I have the duty to be as honest as possible about what I saw and the impression that it gave me and the ordinary people around me. Protests or acts of non-violent civil disobedience are in large part vehicles to spread a message and I feel that the message about the clerical quislings of Worcester and the danger of the megamosque was lost yesterday, drowned in a morass of poor planning. I desperately wanted to be able to take part in a protest that would highlight the utter stupidity of Worcester’s Anglican clerics in backing a megamosque but what I saw was a million miles away from what it could have been.

I still believe that this mosque-strosity needs to be protested and that the stupidity of the Christian clerics needs to be highlighted and challenged. Therefore I am more than willing to attend or help out with a protest or series of protests over these issues, but these protests must be more effective and put the taxpayer and the general public to much less inconvenience than yesterday’s demonstration did. It might have been a good day out for those who attended, but it’s plain to see that it has failed in its objectives of drawing attention to the problems with both the megamosque plans and the quisling clerics who welcome this plan.

I’d like to conclude this piece, a piece that I really did not want to have to write, by saying that we have to fight that which threatens us but we need to fight effectively and not hand our enemies a victory on a silver platter.

Link

Press Release from the EDL regarding yesterday’s demo

Worcester-demo-21Jul2018