I attended a meeting last night regarding the upcoming demonstration by EDL in St Georges Square, Luton. The meeting took place in Bury Park Community Centre with Cllr. Hazel Simmons from Luton Borough Council and Chief Superintendent Mike Colbourne from Bedfordshire police.
I've never actually been in the Bury Park community centre so I found it rather awkward going through a narrow corridor, into another narrow corridor and then finally finding myself in big open hall. I looked at the guests and the speakers and was surprised to see, that actually, not as many people had turned up as I had imagined. From an outsiders point of view this could very well show a lack of concern from the Bury Park community. I scanned the sitting area to see if any seats were available and quickly found a seat and sat down.
Colbourne started off the meeting, explaining how much police presence will be at the protest and reassuring everyone in the meeting that they're will be enough police presence to take care of the event. When a local resident raised the issue again of police numbers, Colbourne stressed: “We've got contingencies and contingencies and contingencies. We’ve got more police officers than ever before to deal with the contingencies we have. This will be the biggest single operation we will ever run. It will probably be the biggest policing operation run in the United Kingdom with regards to the EDL. We take it incredibly seriously.”
When asked about exact police numbers Colbourne wouldn’t give exact numbers. Instead he said: "Huge numbers of police and few in our back pocket. And that’s probably as far I want to go at the moment. I don’t think it would be wise for me say ‘that’s how it’s going to work’. In the interest of safety we’ve got to be able to have some degree of manoeuvre." To say there’s a 'few in your back pocket’ isn't really reassuring. I can see some of the guests, majority of them leaders of unions, communities and local residents, are more concerned about the actual number of people who are turning up on the day for the EDL protest.
One resident in the meeting raised his concerns regarding this and how it will add fuel to the negative publicity Luton will receive: “To have that amount of people to come into Luton, that’s why the media is here. They’re only here because it’s Luton. The paper will be full tomorrow with all the news about Luton. Nothing about your policing, but about Luton and that’s what troubles me.”
Simmons seemed to have been stressing the fact that, The Mall and Galaxy will remain open and people should go if they want to: “The Mall and the Galaxy will both be open. The entrances will be policed and they will be stewarded by stewards from The Mall." She added: “It’s probably a town that Luton residents will not recognise. There will be a lot of police. The atmosphere will not be wonderful. If people want to go shopping I don’t want anybody to feel they can’t go in their own town centre. It’s your town centre. If you want to go shopping, please do go. They’ll be a lot of police there to help you and support you, so if you want to go shopping please don’t be put off in any way.” It seems strange that any 'sensible' person would want to go shopping that day, except if they thought the EDL demo was a different day.
The EDL are clearly marching in St Georges Square as a symbolic mark to provoke tension. Quite a few questions posed by the guests were why the police couldn’t ban a march a like this which is clearly going to put people off coming to the town centre and just going about their business. Cobourne answered this questions quite a few times and said on one occasion: "We’ve got an absolute responsibility to protect protesting groups. Protesting in a way that is peaceful and a way that is lawful, that is a job that the police has got to take and it’s actually enshrined in law that’s something we have to follow through."
"We can police it in a very swift and in the best policing style we’ve got, which is firm when necessary. It will be the biggest thing that we’ve seen in our police numbers. This is a national event. A national issue that’s being played out in Luton. At the moment it’s Luton that has to deal with the issue."
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