Held up by the Queen

posted by: Nick Lowles | on: Monday, 14 September 2009, 07:58

My last few days have been taken up with the issue of the English Defence League. Towards the end of last week I worked with the Guardian on their excellent report on the group, its politics and the people behind it – which was published in Saturday’s edition. On Thursday I recorded an interview with the BBC and then on Saturday I was live on Sky TV.

The Sky interview was amusing. I was supposed to be on at 12.30pm sharp but I was delayed because the Queen was arriving somewhere to hand out medals to the families of six servicemen who had died in Afghanistan. Through my earpiece someone in the studio said: ‘Sorry for the delay, at least you can say that you were held up by the Queen.’

Obviously it was a relief that yesterday passed off peacefully in Central London. A few dozen EDL supporters had turned out to protest at a pro-Palestinian rally. The fools of the EDL had been touting this event as a pro-Hezbollah march but of course it was nothing of the sort.

Last Friday we launched a campaign in Yorkshire to get a proposed EDL protest in Leeds city centre banned. We sent out 9,980 emails to our supporters and already over 3,550 emails have gone in to the authorities calling on them to ban the racist march. Later this week we will be making representation to the council and West Yorkshire police.