November 22, 2009

Four arrests after Wrexham protest

Four people were arrested as Welsh Defence League (WDL) protestors were met with a strong police presence in Wrexham yesterday.

Around 50 members of the anti-Islam group gathered in the Wetherspoon’s pub in the town centre from 11am. The WDL said they were protesting against the proposed new mosque in Wrexham and Muslim extremists.

Regent Street was closed by police as they dealt with the protestors who left the pub. Police said the day passed without “significant incident” thanks to the large-scale force presence. Temporary Deputy Chief Constable Ian Shannon, said: “I am pleased with the success of the police operation.

Jeff Hurford, of Unite Against Fascism who held a counter protest, said: “People from Wrexham were very supportive of us and it was good that so many people turned out to show the WDL they are not welcome.”

Wales Online

11 comments:

Proper Tidy said...

The 'counter event' was organised by Wrexham Communities Against Racism, and was a communities festival which attracted several hundred people. The event was not organised by Jeff Hurford or UAF, although they did participate on the day and were appreciated. Wrexham Communities Against Racism are a grass-roots local network group, are are not affiliated to any national organisation.

The communities festival was a great success, despite the rain, with some great music courtesy of local musicians, a drumming workshop and a martial arts exhibition, a bit of dancing in the streets, and a few speeches. The festival aimed to bring together the communities of Wrexham, including those communities targeted by the far-right, and we succeeded in doing this peacefully and positively.

The EDL met at a pub a few streets away - there was around 30, most of them from Bolton. They had a good day - had a few pints, out onto the street for 20 minutes to make tits of themselves, won the locals over by unfurling an English flag and singing GSTQ, and were met by three times as many local people - not activists or antifascists, who remained at the festival - calling them scum, telling them to go back to Bolton, and laughing at them. No real trouble, bit of pushing and shoving and that was about it.

Shame that the 'local' media has not bothered actually sending reporters or focussing on the much larger communities celebration, and have instead based all their articles on Police press releases that seem more concerned with justifying the complete panic that the Police got themselves into, resulting in the Police spending the last week whipping up hysteria, telling anybody vaguely ethnic to lock the doors and hide under the bed, and then putting 650 coppers on duty to deal with two or three dozen pissed racists.

The EDL were clearly shown they are not welcome in Wrexham, and they were shown this by ordinary local people who won't stand for English hooligans descending on Wrexham to cause trouble.

Peewee said...

Wetherspoons once again.

Why am I not surprised?

LOL

Paul J said...

An early comment after the newspaper article points out that the supposed Welsh Defence League contained mostly Bolton Wanderers fans. Bolton played Blackbur today on the Sky Sports 1 game today at 1.30pm, which explains how the EDL asked them to attend cos their team didn't have a match yesterday.

The pseudo-Welshmen held aloft a Bolton Wanderers flag, which shows how thick these racist footie hooligans are.

Thick as pigshit actually, as the biggest celebrity fan is Amir Khan who was pictured being interviewed by the Sky Sports reporter on the Bolton pitch, isn't just the Wanderers biggest fan. After the London terror attacks, he devoted his upcoming fights to the victims of Islamic extremism, and yet, those brainless pissed-up pillocks of the EDL (WDL or whatever they want to call themselves) choose to lump all Muslims together as some kind of bogeyman.

To ignore the steadfast watertight patriotism of British Muslims like Amir Khan, shows how the Hitler-saluting football thugs of the EDL are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

West Midlands Unity said...

Ah yes, Wetherspoons-E.D.L H.Q

Jillll said...

I bet Bolton Wanderers FC are sick and tired of these white supremacist EDL neo-nazi scumbags supporting their proud multicultural club.

dave said...

It would be great for a Jarrow-style mass antiracist march to march all the way across Wales to Welshpool to tell the Griffo to piss off from Wales.

Workingman said...

Many employees of the dreaded pub chain call it weaselspoons . . seems even more appropriate now they are spoonfeeding strong lager to the EDL weasels.

Raymond said...

I presume all these people supposedly defending Wales can at the very least speak the indigenous language and know the national anthem.

Mista Angree said...

Think it's time for a national boycott of Wetherspoons for tolerating violent thuggish neo Nazis.

Anonymous said...

The EDL are as Welsh as Welsh rarebit!

Wrexham Unity said...

I heared that BNP clown Bill Murray was there, can anyone confirm this.His fake soldiers charity has an office in wrexham.