Luton locked down for demonstrations
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This Saturday 2,000 members of the English Defence League marched through the town of . At the same time around 1,000 members of the Unite Against Fascists group staged a counter demonstration.
Thankfully, it all passed off peacefully due to the 1,800 police officers dragooned from 28 forces around the country, at a cost of £800,000, who marked the demonstrators almost man for man.
Hazel Simmons, the embattled , told me: "It's the result of three months work in the town. It's been extremely difficult here, with the prospect of this march hanging over us.
"We have put a great deal of time and effort into getting groups across Luton to look the other way while this went off. We have been working hard to make sure this passed off peacefully," she says.
And a message from David Cameron wouldn't have gone amiss either.
The Luton demonstration effectively closed the town centre.
On Saturday the Prime Minister criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first and the causes of terrorism.
In , he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism and he signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.
The timing, as the English Defence League, marched through Luton's streets, wasn't appreciated by many in the town.
"A message of support for us here would have been nice," says Hazel Simmons.
"I realise the timing probably couldn't have been helped but it would have been good to have had his good wishes that he hoped it would all go well."
, Conservative MP for North East Bedfordshire and Foreign Office Minister spoke to Downing Street: "They did know about the march and were aware of it but the timing of the speech was arranged a long time before and it simply couldn't be helped."
On the day though, the EDL capitalised on the speech. Its leader, Stephen Lennon, (also known as Tommy Robinson) buoyed up by the prime minister's words: "David Cameron is coming out and saying what we are saying."
Although it did pass off peacefully, the town came to a standstill.
Businesses lost hundreds of thousands of pounds as pubs, restaurants and shops closed.The shopping centre was reduced to a ghost town on what should have been a bustling Saturday, while the taxpayers of Bedfordshire will foot the bill for the police operation.
The real cost, though, may be the damage to Luton's reputation and the social fabric of its diverse community. In a town where 14% of its population are Muslim, EDL banners proclaiming "Islam is evil" and marchers chanting inflammatory slogans as they did this weekend, do nothing for community relations, which are generally regarded as good.
The EDL now says it wants to do it all again in July. So the people of Luton face the prospect of this disruption being repeated in just a few months time.
Freedom of speech is sacrosanct in this country. There is little appetite for curtailing it and the police cannot ban "peaceful protest".
But the Labour MP for Luton South, , does not believe that Luton should have more disruption visited upon it: "The real issue is that Luton's residents are paying an extremely high price for freedom of speech."
Welcome to the political blog for the East. I'm Deborah McGurran, the ´óÏó´«Ã½'s Political Editor for the region. From Lowestoft to Luton, this is the place for politics with an eastern twist.
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