Rather than write up my NEC report today (or have a rest) I had to spend the middle of the day opposing the so-called "March for England" (http://stopmfe.wordpress.com/).
An unappealing gaggle of approximately 100 right wing extremists were led around the streets of Brighton, outnumbered ten to one by local people objecting to their hate-filled presence, and escorted by hundreds of police from across Southern England.
From what I could see of the participants in a supposedly "family" event, the overwhelmingly male and exclusively white Islamophobes and bigots looked like they could use the exercise which they got by walking very slowly around a greatly attenuated route before being surrounded by far greater numbers of police and counter-demonstrators while failing to hold a rally.
Whilst news reports focus inevitably on the childish violence of a handful of hotheads who confuse radical politics with shouting obscenities at police officers and throwing bottles (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-17786261), what was most striking about the day was the overwhelming hostility to the marchers, angry yet peaceful, from the great majority of local people.
We're right to be angry when the contemporary equivalent of an eighteenth century "Church and King" mob try to appropriate the name of the country we all have to share for the politics of hate - and rather than appeal to the state to ban demonstrations, it has to be better to mobilise far greater numbers in opposition to the far right.
Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange
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