Just seen over at Old Holborn go read what he’s said and it’s worth following the few links in the article as well it won’t take long. But the gist taken from EDL Media is that:
On Saturday 20th February 2010 Members of the leadership team of the English Defence League were arrested as they traveled to Scotland to support the Scottish Defence League demonstration.
While in custody the team members homes and families homes were raided by police armed with automatic machine guns which terrified the leaderships family which included small children and other older family members. Computer equipment was seized during the 3 hour raid.
It doesn’t say on what grounds they’ve been arrested and will be charged so it’s possible they’ve been up to something they shouldn’t and arresting them en-route to a demo like that was just a convenient coincidence. But on the other hand it does look a tad troublesome from the point of view of awkward demonstrators of all sorts. The various comments and sound bites in the articles linked to by OH also don’t paint a very reassuring picture with the police seeming to co-operate with counter protesters to prevent the EDL from exercising their legal right to make a static protest. This comment in particular doesn’t suggest that the anti-EDL protesters the police were helping had entirely peaceful intentions in mind:
Student protester James Nesbitt, 23, from Glasgow, said: “We had spotters out across the city looking for fascists in pubs. We got here quickly but the police are doing everything they can to keep us away from them.
Certainly a situation to watch to see how things develop.
