Movement ...but the campaign continues

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Friday, 4 September 2009, 11:55

It’s been a busy 48 hours, largely trying to get Birmingham City Council and West Midlands Police to take the intended EDL march seriously.

Over 2,500 people have written to Birmingham City Council urging them to ban the march, which is incredible given that we only sent out 5,000 emails. Others have now joined the call to stop the Islamophobic demonstration. Birmingham Labour Party were supposed to be adding their voice to the campaign last night and I’ve just received the text of a letter sent to the Home Secretary by the Methodist church in the city.

Yesterday afternoon I wrote to all 120 city councillors. I got several really positive replies, which was really heartening, but one Tory councillor was less than polite but I’ll come back to him in due course.

Our office phones has been red hot with calls being made and received. There have been discussions with Home Office ministers, journalists and local politicians. We have even had a couple of abusive calls from the English Defence League themselves, who appear not best pleased that we have started to expose them.

As things stand the hooligan event is going ahead, however, last night the pressure appears to be having an impact because the police have introduced new restrictions on what the EDL will be able to do in the city centre. With hooligans from across the country preparing to descend on the city the police action is still not enough. We will continue to campaign for a ban on the protest until the last possible moment.