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There have been a number of EDL protests around thecountry,most of which the HOPE not hate campaign has

ignored,preferring instead to concentrate on the BNPelectoral threat. We have not supported counter-protestsbut we have not opposed them either.While we found itslightly surprising that activists in key BNP threat areaswould travel to oppose the EDL in other parts of thecountry only weeks before the elections,we kept ourthoughts to ourselves.

Now, in Bradford,we are speaking out against a counter-protest on the same day.

For this we have attracted criticism.It has been argued bysome that we are allowing the EDL a free passage in thecity, that we are somehow breaking the anti-fascist

tradition of No Platform. We refute both these allegations.

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The case against a counter-demo

continued...

The English Defence League is calling its protest inBradford The Big Oneand with good reason.There are

few other places in the country where an EDL protest willbe seen as more provocative.Despite pretending to beopposed only to Islamic extremism,the EDL is going toBradford to provoke the citys large Muslim population.

Almost a third of the people of Bradford are Muslim,thesecond highest proportion anywhere in England outsideLondon. More signifi-cantly,the city experienced raceriots in 2001 for which 200 people went to prison.Thecitys reputation was destroyed,divisions betweencommunities widened and deepened and the onlybeneficiary was the BNP,which began to make significantbreakthroughs in council elections.

The scars of the 2001 riot run deep and the city cannotafford another.That is why we are doing everything nowto prevent the EDL protest from taking place.

At the end of August the English Defence League supportershope to parade their hatred through the streets of Bradfordand the HOPE not hate campaign is pulling out all the stops toprevent them. One thing we will not be doing however is tosupport a counter-demonstration. Nick Lowles explains why.

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We totally understand the desire of people to mark theiropposition to the EDL and many find a counter-demonstration appealing.Perhaps in some places theremight be a case for one but in Bradford we believe there

is not.No EDL protest has actually been stopped by a counter-demonstration so the argument about No Platform doesnot hold. In almost every instance the EDL has held itsstatic protest regardless of the actions of anti-fascists.More worryingly,some have led to disorder.

To some extent the very fact that the EDL has been able toprotest at all represents a defeat.That it has been able to doso regardless of counter-protests suggests that perhaps thetactic of counter-protests is not working.

We also question the impact counter-demonstrations

have on local people.Unfortunately much of the mediacoverage of earlier protests has presented a scene of twogroups of extremists.This has especially been the casewhen there has been disorder or large-scale arrests of anti-EDL protests.The media coverage in Birmingham,Bolton and Manchester presented the anti-EDL protestsin a negative light hardly the best way to win hearts andminds of local people.

Rather,we are putting all our efforts into stopping theEDL protest taking place at all.The Stop the March ofHate initiative, set up by the HOPE not hate campaign, iseasily the most intensive anti-EDL campaign to date.We

are literally going door-to-door asking people to sign ourpetition. Churches and mosques are distributing thepetition among worshippers and trade unions have beenmailing their members.A delegation of leading Bradfordfigures is going to see the Home Secretary and a legal caseis being drawn up to challenge the EDLs right to protest.

This,in our view, is our only option and sole focus. Ifthousands of EDL supporters manage to get into Bradfordthen we have already lost.

We believe that Bradford cannot afford further disorderand we fear that thousands of EDL protesters descendingon the city, matched by thousands coming out to oppose

them, could well provoke it.And this time the city mightnot recover.

Most progressive organisations in Bradford oppose acounter-demonstration, including local trade unions,political parties, faith groups and community groups.Lastmonth Yorkshire and Humber TUC added its oppositionto a demonstration.

And finally, let us be honest about what happened in 2001.Thousands of people came out to support an anti-fascistdemonstration in protest against a planned National Frontmarch.The NF demonstration was banned but a smallgroup came into the city and began making Nazi salutes at

the protesters.People had been standing around in hotweather for several hours with nothing to do,no direction

and little purpose.They reacted to the racists,disorderensued and two days of rioting began.Two hundredpeople,virtually all local Asians,went to prison for a totalof 604 years.

Anti-fascists have a responsibility to those attendingdemonstrations and to the communities we are supposedto protect.Another riot is the last thing the people ofBradford need and we owe it to them to do everything wecan to prevent one.And that means stopping the EDLfrom coming to Bradford in the first place.

The EDL is coming to Bradford to provoke another riot.Lets not give them one.

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What we are doingThe HOPE not hate campaign is not supporting a

counter protest in Bradford but is instead puttingall its energies into stopping the EDL march in thefirst place.

Here are just a few things we are doing:

Building a huge petition of people in Bradford whooppose the EDL march. At the moment we have 7,200names on it but our target is a minimum of 10,000. Thatwill represent 5% of the adults in Bradford, which is ahuge petition.

Trade unions have circulated the petition amongstmembers. The Church of England have distributed itamongst their churches and we're organising amobilisation of activists to collect signatures at every

mosque in Bradford. Our campaign has received the support ofcommunity groups, the local Chamber of Commerce,political parties and faith groups.

We are organising a delegation to deliver thepetition to the Home Secretary in mid-August. Thisdelegation will refelct the breadth of support we havefor our campaign.

We are working with lawyers to put together a legalcase to stop the EDL.

We have put together a detailed briefing into theEDL which will be delivered to the Home Secretary

alongside our petition outlining the political and socialcohesion case for a ban.

We are using this campaign to build deeper andlasting links between communities, relgious groupsand community organisations.

Nick LowlesSearchlight Information Services

30 July 2010nick@hopenothate.org.uk