Walthamstow: all out for anti-EDL demo this Saturday
Published on Wednesday, 24 October 2012 15:10 Written by Sonia Gable
Unite Against Fascism is continuing its national mobilisation for Walthamstow this Saturday in Walthamstow despite the police application for a ban on the English Defence League march.
If the Home Secretary agrees to the ban, it will also apply to the antifascist counter demonstration called by UAF and We Are Waltham Forest. However although marches can be banned under section 60 of the Public Order Act, the Home Secretary cannot ban static assemblies.
After previous bans the EDL has proceeded with a static demonstration. For example last year when the EDL march in Tower Hamlets was banned it was still able to hold a static protest in the adjacent borough of City of London.
For this reason UAF is continuing the national mobilisation as before, because the EDL will still be coming to Walthamstow on Saturday. Antifascists are asked to gather in Town Square in the centre of Walthamstow at 11am, but should keep visiting the UAF website for further details and any changes to the time and precise location.
The EDL’s leader Stephen Lennon will not be there as he is locked up on remand in Wandsworth prison until January 2013, and 53 EDL activists arrested last Saturday will risk immediate arrest for breaking their bail conditions if they show up. But the EDL is still promoting what it is calling “the rematch”.
Many of the EDL’s thugs will want to show that the EDL is still a force to be reckoned with. Others may be keener to make their own pitch to take over the remains of the organisation, in which the cracks are growing. Antifascists have just one goal: to send the fascists and racists packing never to return.