Red, White and Blue protest pulls in 700 while Martin Reynolds begs police for help

Around seven hundred people turned up in Denby today to protest against the BNP's Red, White and Blue booze-fest. Among the organisations represented were members of various unions including NASUWT, Unite, PCS, CWU, Trade Union Friends of Searchlight and Unison, Notts Stop the BNP, Searchlight, Hope not Hate, Derby Racial Equality Council, UAF and a whole bunch of locals determined never to have the BNP anywhere near their homes and families again.

They may well have got their way. Around two hundred and fifty police officers, some in riot gear, were deployed, plus a helicopter was keeping an eye on things from above for most of the day. The cost must have been astronomical - and all to protect a load of fascists, their minders and scum like Petra Edelmannova, chair of the far-right Czech National Party, who is a guest of the BNP this weekend.

The police were pretty much everywhere - though mainly at the gathering-point, where there was a number of speakers throughout the afternoon, and at the entrance to the RWB itself - though that seemed to be well-covered by a number of thugs who looked ready to kill and eat anyone who pissed them off.

The march from the village to the site was marred by a brief fracas between anti-fascists and BNP members after the former were attacked by the latter. The groups were separated by police. On several occasions, anti-fascists tried to break through police lines to enter the RWB site itself but were beaten back by riot police and officers with dogs. Apart from these brief interludes, the event went off peacably, with the assistant chief constable of Derbyshire Police Peter Goodman stating: 'We did have an incident which took place with a small number of people, but the majority of people who have come here today behaved impeccably.'

Six arrests were made during the attempts to break through police lines (including across the fields behind the site) but a further twenty-seven occurred as the groups began to disperse and return to their homes or vehicles, when they were in many cases set upon by BNP supporters.

Some of the more interesting action took place behind the scenes and well out of the public eye. One of our supporters had a receiver that could pick up the police band and we were treated to a breathless step by step account of the chase over the fields that only ended (for us) when the noise from the police helicopter drowned out everything else.

Once back on the radio, one of our group pointed out that the police referred to us as 'reds' all the way through the day, including the anarchists - described as a 'bunch of reds' even though they were dressed all in black. Nice to know the police aren't biased in any way.

At 1214 a message was sent to BNP security stating, 'security on the front gate, be aware the reds are on their way up'. There were a number of delays which led to the BNP's Head of Security Martin Reynolds getting in a major panic and yelling for help from the police and anyone else in the vicinity, leading to the police having to tell him (at 1310) to 'breathe deep and calm down...there's too many security on the main gate and it's starting to look a bit shabby'.

Despite having eight of his official gorillas and numerous vicious-looking thugs with him on the main gate, Reynolds was still in a panic at having to face thirty peaceful anti-fascists and called for help again, only to be told by a clearly angry control 'that's enough'. Having embarrassed Reynolds into silence, the controller wearily ordered another couple of officers to head up to the main gate, just to stop his whining. Shortly after this, the police insisted that BNP security instituted a rota system rather than the current random mess where anyone who is a violent thug is automatically deemed to be a member of the security team. Clearly the current security team in the BNP is full of amateurs who simply create problems for the police.

All in all, a fantastic turnout, some excellent speakers, a good march in (mostly) nice weather and the point that the BNP is not welcome in Denby was well and truly made, despite the twat who illegally sells samurai swords, guns, knives and air rifles in his tatty shop sticking pro-BNP flags and posters up all over it. Well done to the organisers and everybody who travelled from afar and let's hope the BNP can take a hint and hold their festival on Nick Griffin's land next year. If he likes the festival so much, let him put up with the noise, the drunkeness, the dodgy toilets and the scum infesting the area around his home. The people of Denby have had enough.